JGP News

Leonard Cheshire Disability today (16 February) launches a new online resource to make it easier for employers to find disabled jobseekers with the skills they need.

Suitability, a partnership between Leonard Cheshire Disability, the Employer’s Forum on Disability and Jobsgopublic, is an online job brokerage initiative for registered jobseekers, employers and mentors.

www.lcdisability.org/suitability is backed by a team of advisers who identify the skills, talent and experience of disabled jobseekers and match them with employers.

Disabled jobseekers can contact personal advisors, connect with people with similar needs and goals, receive job alerts by SMS and access the Suitability CV Builder.

Employers can post vacancies online for free, recruit and hire staff, reach other companies through the Suitability Forum and sign up to virtual careers fairs.

Suitability builds on the success of Leonard Cheshire Disability’s Workability initiative, that supports 8,000 disabled people to (brief description of what workability does).

Jane Fletcher, Leonard Cheshire Disability’s Innovations Director, said: “Disabled people are already far less likely to be in work than non disabled people. With the job market in free fall, they will face even more barriers to finding work.

“Many disabled people do want to find a job, but often face the serious challenge of changing people’s perceptions of who they are and what they can do.

“Suitability aims to make it less exceptional to have a colleague who is disabled.”

Richard Tyrie, Jobsgopublic co-founder, said: “Jobsgopublic have worked closely with hundreds of public and not for profit sector employers to identify, attract and recruit a diverse talent pool for over 10 years. Our partnership with Leonard Cheshire Disability will ensure that the public sector extends their reach even further by having access to their client groups. We are confident this will have a significant impact on employers’ outcomes.”

On the 22 October talent management provider JGP were pleased to welcome Adrian Slater as Director of Talent.

“We are thrilled to welcome Adrian to JGP, his knowledge and experience of the public sector is in our opinion un-rivalled and a welcome addition to our team. His focus will be on pulling together various strands of sales activity within the business, allowing us to achieve our ambitions for growth.” Richard Tyrie, co-founder JGP.

Adrian Slater

Since founding the Public Services Division within Hays Specialist Recruitment in 1990 Adrian has become increasingly involved with organisations requiring innovative, best practise resourcing solutions that are appropriate for all locations and disciplines.

During his time at Hays, Adrian played a major part in designing managed service solutions and recruitment process outsourcing contracts. These led to substantial improvements in time to hire, diversity and quality of choice – solutions that saved the public purse millions of pounds in the wake of the Gershon’s government led directives.

Adrian has managed a nationwide team of more than 500 discipline specific consultants across the UK in the public and not for profit sectors and has been instrumental in providing a ‘one stop, best in class’ solutions.

As MD and founder of Hays Executive Search and Selection Adrian has put diversity at the top of the agenda and has led bid teams that have been awarded recruitment management contracts with seven local authorities as well as for the DWP and Audit Commission.

Adrian also has extensive experience across the private sector and has gained valuable insight into the resourcing, cultural and broader HR issues for major companies in Eastern & Western Europe prior to opening specialist recruitment operations in the Czech Republic, Germany and the Netherlands.

“I am really looking forward to understanding the challenges clients face in attracting and retaining talent. I am so exciited to have joined the JGP team – for me probably the most innovative, exciting and enthusiastic organisation in the talent market place today.” Adrian Slater

“Adrian’s ability to identify market opportunities and enhance operational efficiencies will allow JGP to build our customer-focused strategies.” Richard Tyrie, co-founder JGP.

Like all local authorities, North Somerset Council has faced increasing pressures to modernise its recruitment methods while keeping costs down in the downturn. The council has maintained a flexible approach, successfully generating a growing majority of job places solely using online recruitment tools. This strategy is backed by electronic consultancy advice from web-based talent management and HR services provider, JGP.

Operating under a tight spending regime and with new Treasury spending targets in place, online recruitment has proved its worth more effectively than ever to the South West authority.

First phase E-recruitment

North Somerset is used to harnessing the Internet for recruitment, having taken up JGP’s e-recruitment platform four years ago. Seeing this medium’s potential, the council hosted the platform to advertise available jobs, delivered on an annual fee basis with JGP.

There were immediate benefits with this approach, according to Recruitment Officer, Clare Atyeo: “Online job advertisements were cheaper than newspaper-based space. They were also easier to monitor expenditure, track responses and evaluate cost per appointment made by the council over the financial year.”

Even before the new cost constraints, North Somerset’s different departments were accustomed to making optimum use of limited resources from the central government. A unitary authority with a higher than average proportion of third age residents and school age children requiring benefits, the council receives an average of £210 per capita funding from Whitehall, putting it in the bottom quartile of UK authorities (the highest authority settlements reach £600 per head).

The council has traditionally maintained a hard-headed approach to benefits expenditure too: the element allocated to benefits remains one of the lowest proportions of overall council tax in any authority. North Somerset is committed to keep funding within inflation rate increases in the future.

New processes

The JGP e-recruitment channel was generating 46% of job applications by 2006 and the online strategy received added emphasis when the council’s Executive changed political allegiance in the May 2007 local council elections. As part of a general review of operations, headcount, and spending, the new Conservative Executive encouraged a greater focus on targeted e-recruitment and when required, carefully targeted signposted advertising, such as banner advertisements directing online users to North Somerset’s website.

The operational side of the council’s new policy also changed. Stringent and more centralised senior management approval systems for recruitment needs were introduced. When a council directorate needed new staff, separate director, HR department and senior management team sign offs were required before the vacancy could be advertised. All job posts of over six months’ duration were then advertised internally and externally – so transparency was maintained.

Dan Taylor-Edwards of JGP explained: “North Somerset is typical in having a difficult balance to strike, since they are looking for modernised recruitment processes, the practicality of advertisements in one place that also ties in with their internal resourcing and spending controls and delivers cost savings in line with the Government’s targets. They are making good progress in all areas and will be developing more sophisticated approaches in the future.”

Results

The renewed focus on e-recruitment channels has helped to deliver benefits in terms of cost savings; the growing proportion of new posts filled through online route; and changing internal perceptions of e-recruitment’s capabilities.

Cost savings were the most dramatic immediate result. North Somerset saved £100,000 over the previous recruitment advertising budget in the first year of the new approach agreed in 2007.
The second major outcome is the growing dominance of Internet-based recruitment in supplying candidates and also filling job positions at North Somerset. Council metrics show that the JGP-backed e-recruitment channel filled nearly half of all advertised vacancies in the first year (2005/6) but this has steadily increased to 60% in the latest 2007/8 financial year (see table below).

The third and potentially most far-reaching development is internal awareness of recruitment. As Clare Atyeo, commented: “Several years ago, senior management saw online recruitment as an experiment. Now we’re finding that senior managers are increasingly asking about talent pools and microsites for their departments – that’s a real change in mindset that will drive new strategies and promote wider cost savings across recruitment processes.”

North Somerset’s Executive member for Finance, Property and Human Resources Tony Lake said: “E-recruitment has been a key factor in keeping recruitment costs down while maintaining a high quality of staff recruitment.”

Table: Online/offline recruitment statistics 2005/6 to 2007/8

Councils are increasingly turning to technology in areas such as social care to recruit scarce professional resource.

With the current pressures of baby boomers nearing retirement, the pool of social care talent is become ever smaller.

The pressure, meanwhile, to transform services and deliver Gershon efficiencies is unabated and local authority adult social care and children’s services must use every tool at their disposal to reduce unnecessary costs, recruit and nurture skilled staff and free up precious time for doing what really matters: delivering services to the people in their care.

Technology is a tool, one that helps people to look after other people – to do their job, to deliver and manage services, and find the right people to look after those in their care.
(more…)

Portal and talent pool cited in spending watchdog’s study into local government’s recruitment strategies.

London, 8 July 2008 – Independent government spending watchdog the Audit Commission’s Tomorrow’s People report has named successful projects by web-based HR and talent management provider JGP as prime examples of how councils can build strategic recruitment strategies and save costs in the future. (more…)