Running a business means dealing with risk and uncertainty, the constant companions of directors.
Uncertainty ebbs and flows, as do risks and their mitigation.
#RECMembers #recruiters especially those in temporary recruitment are experiencing significant increases in uncertainty and risk. We all know why and I’m not going to speak the current risk name – it seems to have been discussed elsewhere, just a bit.
#updatedge attended the #REC #Education sector supply teacher meeting as a trusted REC Business Partner recently and will be attending further REC sector meetings in the future.
Supply Teacher Recruitment Agencies
Supply teacher agencies at the education meeting wanted to know what is going on in the market, their legal obligations on the latest government changes, to identify future risks and to understand what needs to be done to remain compliant and competitive.
One of the risks, remaining competitive, includes being “faster, better and stronger” a phrase used by James Osborne Chairman of #TheRecruitmentNetwork. The phrase resonated with me as this is what technology is brilliant at and which updatedge delivers for temporary recruiters from day one.
There is already massive technology change in the recruitment industry with mundane repetitive tasks being automated, AI systems identifying candidates, augmenting recruiter’s candidate portals, online video interviews and loads of further innovative digital solutions from countless providers.
Many recruitment agency owners of supply teacher agencies are overwhelmed by so many technology offerings but know they need to regularly refresh their core technologies to remain competitive and mitigate the risk of standing still.
Leading supply teacher agencies are always looking to adopt the most beneficial, best value technology solutions to complement their existing solutions. Those that aren’t are going backwards as others in the recruitment industry move on.
It’s often the case that the cost and risks associated with full scale replacement of existing home grown or “off-the-shelf” packaged solutions with newer off-the-shelf end-to-end solutions presents too much risk and cost for most supply teacher and temp agencies to gamble with.
All the normal reassurances and case studies from end-to-end providers are great, but, empty reassurances can’t remedy the business impact of inevitable delay major projects often incur. Add this major risk to all the external risks leads to the least difficult short-term option, that is do nothing!
But even doing nothing adds up to falling behind the competitive curve, as those with vision and confidence push forward knowing certain risks often subside to irrelevance. So, what to do? A difficult conundrum for any director.
Agencies with vision are always scanning the horizon for easy to implement high value, low risk technology solutions that can be easily plugged in to any existing CRM solutions such as those from Bullhorn or Access without significant disruption or cost.
These low risk solutions are typically cloud based services that don’t need software to be implemented and can be tested and sometimes adopted as a solution with zero integration and zero financial commitment.
The key to low risk solutions is the good old Open API (Application Program Interface) which any cloud based SaaS (Software as a Service) solution has, and by default are: easy to use, low cost and when they pass the agencies “value” test, easy to implement with minimal disruption to core processes and systems.
SaaS solutions that can be used with zero integration or can be plugged into core CRM solutions such as updatedge give recruitment agencies instant value with very low risk.
By definition, if the new digital service is adding positive incremental value to the business, the organisation advances with the use of that digital technology.
Keeping agency recruitment consultants at the forefront with the tools needed to improve productivity by removing mundane repetitive tasks, such as searching for and recording supply teachers changing availability is what updatedge does.
Removal of that thankless task saves each recruitment consultant a day a week which can be used for higher value activities. Time to talk with clients and candidates, sell more workers, increase utilisation of available workers, increase daily assignments and improve relationships with those clients and candidates too.
Challenges for any business change, however, there is always a degree of risk. By focusing on those that can be addressed, such as improving organisational efficiencies through high value low cost digital solutions removes the risk of standing still as competitors move forward.
Directors confidently focusing on mitigating risks within their zone of influence to remain competitive is progress even when it appears external risks might be going off the chart.