Recruitment Drive Predicted for Small Businesses

The results of a recent survey, aimed at SME employers by employment specialist The HR Dept Swindon, shows that 48% of Swindon’s small businesses are looking to take on more staff in the next 6 months.

These posotive survey results are a prime example of further confidence that economic growth is being maintained. The nationwide survey, of over 1500 businesses showed that almost 56.7% of the respondents expected to recruit and grow their teams in the next 6months – this is a rise from 48.87% in 2013.

Promisingly, national demand for HR expertise and support in recruitment is also on the increase, with use of The HR Dept's recruitment services up 15.9 per cent this year, signalling that employers are becoming more anxious to ensure that appointments are successful.

As well as growing in direct response to the positive direction of the UK's economic fortunes, The HR Dept is also benefitting from increasingly happy clients and winning business on high recommendation. 

The HR Dept Swindon scored 9.22 out of 10 for overall satisfaction among survey respondents with just under half the respondents scoring 10 out of 10. Likelihood to recommend The HR Dept was 9.3 out of 10.

Peter Jones Owner of The HR Dept Swindon said: ‘We are delighted with the results from the client survey and will continue to work closely with our clients to improve satisfaction further over the coming year”.

Lynn Atwell from Atwell Martin Estate Agents who completed the survey said “The HR Dept has given me an excellent service and it’s good to have their knowledge to hand as employment law is a minefield. I can’t think of anything they could be better on”.

Commenting further on the wider survey findings, Peter Jones, Owner of The HR Dept Swindon says: "Our survey clearly shows rising confidence in the economy among small employers who are intent on growing their businesses.  It is good to see that those businesses are also investing in the advice and support to help them make the right people choices: certainly there is more caution about ensuring the recruitment strategy is right and investing in appointments wisely.

Interestingly, the survey also highlighted that only a very small percentage of businesses 4.3% anticipate making cuts to their workforce.

One issue that came to the fore in this year's survey was flexible working, available to all employees to request from 30 June 2014, in line with the Government being keen to remove the assumption that flexible working only applies to mothers or carers and make workplaces "fit for the 21st century".

"We found that 43.5% per cent of employers who have staff on flexible working arrangements were concerned about extending the option to more workers," says Peter Jones Owner of The HR Dept Swindon.  "Only 8.7% per cent of those with no staff on flexible working were concerned by the changes in the law.  More positively, 17.4% per cent of employers felt it was fairer if all staff could apply for flexible working. 

"It is inevitable that these changes - which aren't binding on employers to provide flexible working as long as there is a sound reason- will cause concern, but we are working hard with the companies that we advise to show how the changes can actually be beneficial if handled correctly. They allow companies to retain skilled, experienced staff who may simply want a change in their working hours- and with skills the main concern of all employers at the moment, this has to be a beneficial shift in emphasis.

"With our creative advice and support, we can help employers gain the best of both worlds - motivated staff working to hours that can actually benefit them as much as the employee."

The local survey of 23 businesses formed part of a national online survey of 1523 businesses carried out by The HR Dept, the UK's largest outsourced HR Company with 57 offices across the UK and Ireland covering 63 territories and supporting thousands of smaller employer clients, as part of its annual customer satisfaction work.

"In Swindon we have seen the profile of the work we are doing with clients change, doing much more recruitment and training in place of redundancies and restructures” says Peter Jones, “And we have certainly grown in direct response to the upturn in the UK's economic fortunes," he added, “The HR Dept Swindon has seen a real "like for like" growth in numbers of new clients showing that more and more SMEs are pleased to have an outsourced specialist on hand to take on the burden of HR - allowing them to get on with running their businesses"