Highly recommended! Josh and Sarah have been fantastic at Astute. They've found and placed me in 2 jobs now between them, both really responsive and excellent at keeping you up to speed with things. Very knowledgable about the roles and happy to talk to companies with any queries you have.
Great agency one of the best ones I've worked with! Liz has been a great help and support in helping me towards a new direction in my career life. She is very attentive and keeps me in the loop at all times! She makes the extra effort to work with my preferred requirements for work and even if it isn't completely attainable she meets me in the middle and does as much as she can to help! Also Liz is very funny might I add 😂 and I'm happy that I can now put a face to the name after all these years! Thank you again Liz for all your help and support! 😊
Josh and the Astute team was very swift to help me to find roles that matched my profile. They are really reliable and will help through every step of the recruitment process going out of their way to assist and follow up when needed. Could not find a better recruitment agency!
Fantastic recruitment agency.. Josh was extremely enthusiastic, encouraging and clearly knowledgeable about what was needed from both the employee and the employers point of view. Extremely supportive especially in regards to interview preparation and endeavoured to procure feedback promptly. Wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Astute in the future to both candidates and recruiting businesses particularly for the right fit for the role!!!
I have worked as a candidate for Astute and they have been excellent. Super friendly service and professional agents keen to fit the right person to the right job. It has been a pleasure dealing with them and I would happily work for them again in the future. Highly recommend this agency.
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Furlough. With over 8 million workers furloughed, we wanted to ask employers, “Do your furloughed staff know you still care about them?”
When did you last talk openly with your furloughed employees?
Just a week ago was a Bank Holiday. The next one isn’t until the end of August. Between now and then, millions of workers will have been on furlough for approaching 5 months.
While employers and those still employed face ever-increasing workloads covering their businesses, how are the furloughed feeling?
Mental health week ended just a few weeks ago, but already the news is full of new, pressing economic shocks and doom.
Now, imagine you are a single parent, a breadwinner in your home? A recent graduate. A new homeowner with mortgage bills at the end of every month.
Imagine how they might be feeling on furlough.
Whilst furloughed, staff in the UK cannot contribute to their company’s business financial success, there is nothing to say employers have to neglect these armies of suspended talent whose passion and commitment to start working for your company again remains undimmed.
So, stay connected. Take the time to speak to your furloughed team regularly. Reassure them, be present and mindful of questions they may have. Be personal. Be open to any insecurities they may have. Encourage them to refresh their skills through online courses. Above all, be honest.
The businesses that survive the current situation will be the ones who can trade out of the furlough. With most of their staff refocussed, positive, upskilled, and confident in the knowledge their employer, boss and company are, and have been, 100% behind them.
Those companies will have the essential ingredients for business success in a turbulent economy. Loyalty. Passion, drive, and commitment. Happy, engaged workers are far more productive than staff who feel isolated, forgotten, or neglected.
If you can get that collective belief in your team, they will genuinely want to help the company and help you, return to profit. A motivated team is a successful team!
So, show your furloughed workers you really care about them. They will be worth their weight in gold when the market picks up and you need to retain your trained, talented people.
If you are a furloughed employee who is feeling neglected and insecure, please contact our team at Astute Recruitment Ltd who will be delighted to talk through your concerns and help you.
Our MD – Mary Maguire, is happy to take CVs and distribute them to our team. Simply email your CV with a mobile number and any message to [email protected] and she will be glad to help, advise, and support your career queries.
Remote Working. Why your team can thrive and how you can make this happen.
In the current crisis, discover how remote workers can add value in your business & how to make this happen
Change is different, but together we can adapt to new ways of working
In the current crisis, businesses across the land are struggling to keep apace with developments. Here at Astute Recruitment Ltd, we have been working on scenarios to help both clients and candidates at this unique time.
Remote working is a working style that allows professionals to work outside of a traditional office environment. It is based on the concept that work does not need to be done in a specific place to be executed successfully.
We can provide candidates for temporary and permanent work who can work remotely from home. Using Microsoft Teams, Skype and other platforms, our interim candidates can attend virtual meetings and online training sessions to enable them to pick up quickly what needs to be done.
Currently, we are working with several clients to overcome the social distancing guidelines and still enable a business to carry on.
Contact our Interim Specialists Sarah-Louise Wykes & Richard Bowe to learn more about how we can help you find smarter ways to find the staff to work remotely in interim assignments.
Why remote workers add value to your business and how to make this happen!
Remote working doesn’t lend itself to every role and business, but a lot of companies and employers are acknowledging that there are clear opportunities for working remotely to improve their flexibility and enable their staff to enjoy greater working autonomy. Less experienced, more junior employees, will benefit from more traditional hands-on supervision, training, and support. Similarly, employees whose work is highly sensitive and confidential should perhaps be required to keep their work in the office. However having partnered with several local Derby and Derbyshire businesses on key talent acquisition projects, we are delighted that large and small firms have embraced ‘on-demand, online training’. These empower their employees to access the training and development they need when they need it.
Remote working is conducive to business efficiencies and there can be significant benefits in offering employees the opportunity to find their ‘second desk’, wherever that might be!
Staff morale
No commute! Cutting out the commute can offer a huge boost to employee productivity. Without office distractions or extended coffee-break chats, staff can become a lot more efficient. It can also provide them with a greater sense of autonomy if they feel less monitored at work, which encourages job satisfaction and loyalty.
Instead of monitoring time spent at work, consider changing to alternative models where your employees’ output can be measured instead. Providing the work is being done, and their deadlines are met, should it really matter where the work is carried out, or what time of day or night it gets done?
Increased talent pool
Remote working completely transforms your talent pool when your people no longer need to live within commuting distance to the office, and can even live on the other side of the world. Recruitment suddenly just got a lot more interesting. The flip side of this benefit, of course, is being mindful of local employment laws, payroll and taxes for the country in which your new employee is based.
Bigger cost savings
Depending on how easily your business lends itself to a remote working model, you could be looking at potentially huge cost savings. If more and more of your desks are empty on a regular basis, you should consider moving to a smaller office space, or even doing away with it altogether.
Beware the loneliness trap!
A common frustration employees tend to experience with remote working is a feeling of isolation, loneliness or lack of team camaraderie. Employers would be well-served to be mindful of this, encouraging team get-togethers and frequent interaction, either in person or via face-to-face technology. Microsoft Office Teams is an excellent way of teams getting together online to share better work practices and engage socially and enjoy some team ‘banter’.
Accept there will be teething problems
As with the introduction of any new policy or business model, you should expect some teething problems. However, once things settle down and your team becomes more familiar with virtual meetings than physical ones, your business, and your staff can start to enjoy the numerous benefits remote working has to offer.
Dos and don’ts
Companies and businesses thinking of implementing remote working should:
Ensure the appropriate technological tools are in place. This includes rigid data security measures and confidentiality procedures;
Update employment contracts if needed and create a new remote working policy to help set boundaries, manage employee expectations and support all-important team culture;
Risk Management: Think about whether remote workers will need to complete short health and safety assessments for their chosen work location. Always remember that employers will continue to have some responsibility for employees’ work environments, even outside the office;
Insurances: Ensure an Employer’s Liability insurance policy is updated to cover remote working.
The ‘don’ts’:
Don’t forget to check national & international employment laws and payroll laws as relevant. (Full compliance with the employment laws in the remote worker’s location is essential);
Don’t expose the company to data breaches. Remote workers should be educated about inadvertent disclosure when working in public spaces, and the implications of taking work abroad and unintentionally transferring confidential data across borders;
Don’t treat remote workers and onsite workers differently. All staff, whether office-based or remotely working must be treated equally otherwise this could put the company in breach of discrimination laws and leave remote workers feeling isolated;
AND FINALLY, Don’t expect remote workers to be constantly logged in. Remote working culture risks blurring the line between work life and home life and could breach employees’ rights under working time laws.
Originally published on LinkedIn, March 17th, 2020 by Mary Maguire
The inspiration for this piece came from Sarah-Louise Wykes, so huge thanks to you and your husband!
In the current crisis, how to utilise remote working in your business? One of my team – Sarah-Louise discussed this idea with me and this article was born.
At Astute we constantly seek to educate and highlight the very latest recruitment trends and issues for our clients and candidates.
In the current climate – tips on how to set-up and keep an engaged workforce working remotely will be high in the minds of employers everywhere seeking to ensure their teams can and are working. I hope this article is useful and provides some inspiration to teams, employers and businesses in what are clearly difficult and unprecedented circumstances.
To survive and thrive, we need to make sure that businesses keep doing business and staff can do their jobs.
At Astute, our teams are fully briefed with candidates able to jump in and help support your team.
The latest Employment Trends for Accountants
As recently published by the REC, some interesting information emerged about the current job market and in particular for the Accountancy sector, candidates looking for their next job and for employers looking to recruit.
The key takeaways were: –
Permanent placements rise at weakest pace for five months…
Growth in temporary billings levelled off slightly
Lack of qualified Candidates fuels wage rises
Summary:
The recently publishesd IHS Markit/REC Report on Jobs, provides the most exhaustive snapshot of the UK’s labour market, using real data from Recruitment businesses nationally. Snippets from the report follow below: –
“Permanent placements growth weakens to five-month low…
Permanent staff placements rose at the softest pace since April at the end of the third quarter. That said, the rate of growth remained marked overall. Temp billings meanwhile rose sharply, despite also seeing pace of expansion moderate from the previous month.
…as availability of candidates continues to fall sharply
A key factor weighing on growth in staff appointments was a further steep decline in candidate availability. For permanent candidates, the latest fall was the sharpest for four months, while the availability of temporary workers also fell at a historically marked pace.
Further steep increase in demand for staff.
The number of job vacancies across the UK continued to rise sharply during September, with growth of staff demand edging down only slightly from August’s recent peak.
Pay pressures remain sharp.
Strong demand for staff and a further drop in candidate availability placed further upward pressure on pay during September. Permanent starting salaries rose at the second-steepest rate in 22 months (after August), while temp pay growth softened only slightly from August’s 16-month record.
Regional variation
On a regional basis, growth of permanent placements was the most marked in the Midlands and the South of England. London meanwhile signalled a renewed drop in permanent placements (albeit marginal).
The quickest rate of temp billings growth was seen in Scotland, closely followed by the North of England. The weakest upturn was registered in London.
Sector variation
Latest data signalled that demand growth remained considerably stronger in the private sector than the public sector.
The sharpest overall increase in demand for staff was recorded for permanent workers in the private sector, while the weakest rise in staff vacancies was seen for permanent public sector workers.
Accounting/Financial was the most sought-after category for permanent staff in September, followed by IT & Computing. The slowest (albeit still marked) increase in vacancies was reported for Construction.
Blue Collar achieved first place in the rankings for temporary/contract staff demand during September, while Nursing/Medical/Care scored second place. All remaining categories also saw steep increases in demand.
Kevin Green, REC Chief Executive, says: “Recruiters are finding it even harder to find people to fill vacancies. Candidate availability has been falling for the past four years and the record high UK employment rate plus a slowdown in the number of EU nationals coming to work here is exacerbating the situation, potentially leaving roles unfilled. “Across the UK permanent placements are slowing, but London is faring worse with placements declining for the first time in eleven months and the financial sector in particular struggling to recruit for roles such as audit, payroll and risk. “Low-skill roles are also hard to fill in areas like food processing, warehouses and catering – sectors that employ a higher proportion of people from the EU than others across the economy. We urge the government to ensure any new immigration system includes provisions for low-skilled and temporary workers so that warehouses, supermarkets and restaurants can access the people they desperately need.”
