McDonald’s David Fairhurst appointed to the UK Commission for Employment and Skills

The Chief People Officer of McDonald’s Europe, David Fairhurst has been appointed to act as a Commissioner for the UK Commission for Employment and Skills by Business Secretary Vince Cable. He is already visiting Professor at Manchester Metropolitan University Business School and a Teaching Fellow at Lancaster University alongside his 'McJob' and his appointment is […]

Call centre jobs league: Burnley 1: Bombay 0

A telecoms company has transferred its call centre operations from Bombay to Burnley because costs are now at “absolute parity”, but it considers UK employees to be more loyal and efficient.  New Call Telecom, which provides home telephone services, broadband and low-cost international calls, is opening the contact centre in Lancashire after being attracted by […]

Recruitment to go

Everything today points to the mobile channel playing a leading role in recruitment. The technology, phones and uncompromising demands of Generation Y have aligned to create the ideal conditions. All that’s needed now is for the recruitment industry to broaden its vision of what’s possible, says Helen Griffiths, Business Development Manager, Oxygen8 Communications. For all […]

BeKnown – Facebook just got a Monster recruiting face

BeKnown and beware. Monster has built a platform on Facebook bringing social recruiting to the masses. It might just change the face of Facebook. When we think about social media, we tend to consider Facebook for family and social groups. LinkedIn is the career site – jobs, resumes and professional connections, and Twitter is a […]

Head of HR in NHS to be replaced by interim

The head of HR for the NHS and Social Care is leaving the post at a time of unprecedented change and uncertainty for both sectors to take up a senior role at BT.  Clare Chapman, director general of workforce for the NHS and Social Care – the country’s biggest HR job – will leave the […]

Social media in recruitment: so what?

Every time I hear about a company which has used social media for recruiting, I think: ‘So what?’ Often the companies are so well known that they could have put a message in a bottle and recruited someone. On a recent trip to Hawaii I did exactly that, casting the bottle out to sea with […]

Surprise drop in movement in the City

Uncertainty over the pace of economic recovery led to a 19% drop in new vacancies in the City last month compared with April, a move deemed to be unusual at this time of year.  The figures produced by Square Mile recruiter Morgan McKinley are significant given that financial services was the first sector to go […]

Internal, informal hires left with no training or support

Despite the benefits that coaching can bring, all too many organisations select internal candidates on an informal basis and then fail to provide them with adequate training or support, a study has revealed.  According to a survey among learning and development managers at 250 large companies undertaken by QA Research on behalf of the Institute […]

Banker bonus tax to battle ‘Britain’s lost talent’

The Shadow Chancellor plans to table a motion to levy a new £2 billion tax on bankers’ bonuses in order to fund back-to-work schemes for young people and those living in unemployment black spots.  Labour’s Ed Balls is currently try to secure the backing of Liberal Democrat and Tory backbenchers to support an amendment to […]

Institute of Recruiters launched

The recruitment industry has set up its own Institute in a bid to boost standards of professionalism in the sector and offer members a range of personal development options.  The Manchester-based Institute of Recruiters, which was launched yesterday, joins an increasingly crowded marketplace of organisations providing interested parties with education and training possibilities.  The Recruitment […]

Immigration loophole exposed by MPs

Employers could face a crackdown on bringing foreign workers to the UK using intra-company transfer visas, after MPs criticised the UK Border Agency for its current “lack of control” over the system.  The Commons Public Accounts Committee said that checks to the scheme were “much more limited” than in other parts of the immigration system, […]

‘You’re hired!’ – what Lord Sugar can teach us about recruitment

Spring – a time of new beginnings – blossom, elections and the start of Series 7 of The Apprentice. However, unlike the democratic process to select political representatives, according to the BBC, Lord Sugar is sole decision maker when it comes to boardroom decisions in The Apprentice. Looking back at six series of the show, […]

Engineering and science skills priced at a premium

A huge 43% of employers are now finding it difficult to recruit workers with science, technology, engineering and maths skills and so are increasingly paying premium rates for such expertise, according to the CBI.  But the employer lobby group’s ‘Education and Skills’ survey of 566 organisations undertaken with the national UK qualifications awarding body EDI […]

Best practice: Transforming the recruitment breakdown in the AA

Lorraine Lopez, HR resourcing manager, explains how the Automobile Association has changed its recruitment processes and what difference this has made to the organisation. The businessThe Automobile Association (the AA) was founded in 1905 and now has around 8,000 employees across the UK, including 3,000 patrols. Every year it attends around 3.5 million breakdowns and […]

Recruitment ROI in the ‘new normal’

When I talk to HR leaders across the private and public sectors, and even in the not for profit space, it’s quite clear that attitudes towards recruitment have changed significantly in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. In my opinion, the change is entirely positive for the recruitment industry, which has been greedy and […]

Top tips: how to get involved with the Work Programme

Anton Roe, Operations Director of Alderwood Education gives his top tips for getting involved in the Work Programme. As you will probably know, The Work Programme is aimed at supporting the most vulnerable people and helping them break the cycle of benefit dependency. It represents a big change for Welfare to Work in this country […]

Recruitment procurement framework for local authorities sees 11 companies triumph

Eleven recruitment agencies have been appointed to supply temps to local authorities under a newly-let Managed Services for Temporary Agency Resources procurement framework in a bid to cut costs and reduce the time spent on tendering.  The national framework agreement is operational now, but the first wave of early adopters is not expected to go […]

‘Private cloud’ provides best of both worlds for recruitment firm

Putting sensitive data ‘into the cloud’ is a step too far for many organisations. However a ‘private cloud’ can provide a solution which fits, like this example. A Scottish recruitment consultancy chose to migrate its IT infrastructure to a private rather than public cloud environment because the level of control and accessibility that the model […]

IT workers preferring contracts over permanent roles

Employers are facing increasingly stiff competition in hiring IT professionals over the year ahead as many are opting to leave permanent employment and move to better paid contracting roles.   According to a survey undertaken by recruitment consultancy Hays IT, skills shortages will be particularly marked in areas such as information security, business intelligence and […]

Budget ‘must tackle unemployment’

Employer bodies have called on the coalition government to focus on delivering a “meaningful Budget for jobs” next week in order to tackle steadily rising unemployment, which is now at a 17 year high.  UK unemployment increased by 27,000 in the three months to the end of January, hitting 2.53 million or 8%, the highest […]