Precision Blog - Recruitment and Employment News

Precision Recruitment held their Star Awards last night, at the Christmas Company, Stoughton, Leicester.
Precision held their Star Awards ceremony last night at the Christmas Company, Stoughton.
The winners were as follows:-

Best Newcomer for 2008 – Trisha Pegg
Biggest Team Motivator for 2008 – Scott Lydon
Most Successful Start Up Desk in 2008 – Will Glendon-Doyle
Best Candidate Service – Natalie Chapman
Most Profitable in 2008 – Scott Lydon
Biggest Team Player in 2008 – Trisha Pegg
Biggest Potential for 2009 – Trisha Pegg

Consultant Scott Lydon wins ‘biggest team motivator’ and ‘most profitable’ pictured with Director Phil Walker.

Business secretary Peter Mandelson has announced a new £30m fund to invest in small and medium-sized technology enterprises looking to expand their business.
Business secretary Peter Mandelson has announced a new £30m fund to invest in small and medium-sized technology enterprises looking to expand their business.
The fund, part of the Enterprise Capital Funds (ECF) programme, will be managed by TTP ventures, part of the Herfordshire based TTP Group, and will look to invest development capital in information technology, electronics and instrumentation companies.
Mandelson said: ECFs provide an important source of capital for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) looking for equity investment, and ths latest fund further demonstrates the government’s commitment to support business through these difficult economic condtions.’
According to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), ECFs help SMEs with high growth potential raise equity finance of up to £2m.
The fund was awarded to TTP Ventures by Capital for Enterprise Limited (CfEL), the independent company that manages the Department for Business’s SME investment programmes.
CfELhas established more than 22 funds in the last six years.
These funds have delivered approximately £600m of equity finance to SMEs in the UK, 12 per cent of the £5bn total to the sector since 1996.
source: The Engineer Online

Nottinghamshire receives civil enginering jobs boost.
Nottinghamshire is set for a civil engineering jobs boost after it emrged that the A46 dual carriageway project would benefit from government funding outlined in the chancellor’s pre-Budget report.
Alistair Darling has pledged £174 million of funding to the scheme, with the East Midlands Regional Assembly earlier admitting that it could not afford to pay the £365 million improvement works.
Speaking to the Nottingham Evening Post, coroner Dr Nigel Chapman described the A46 in its current form as the “worst road’ in Nottinghamshire.
‘I think it’s excellent news and it will save lives and we know that we know that the A46 has caused so many deaths with being such a busy dangerous stretch of road.” he said.
The commencement of the projects is being outlined for summer next year, with planners hoping the dual carriageway will be ready for use by 2011.
Transport secretary Geoff Hoon confirmed on Tuesday (November 25th) that an extra £1 billion would be invested into major transport projects next year – a move that could signal the creation of further construction and civil engineer jobs.
Source: The Career Engineer

In the current economic climate holding on to the best people can be a key factor in how well a business peforms, particularly after an economic upswing.
These days, many employees and prospective candidates are looking for a certain amount of choice in the ways in which they are rewarded. This means that salary is only one of the considerations for a prospective employee, and it is often the full employee package which is considered. At the same time, the economy brings strong possibility of restricted cash flow and smaller profit margins, meaning some employers choose to cut back on benefits rather than expenses.
This leaves employers with a tricky situation – they need a good benefits package to retain and moralise their staff during the downturn, but traditional packages with all the trimmings may not be financially viable.
Intelligent Approach
And so companies need to look intelligently at their benefits. One option, which can have significant effects, is that of salary sacrifice where an employee will halt their contributions into a group pension scheme and sacrifice the equivalent amount of money from their salary. Employers can take the money saved in salaries and pay it into the pension. The addtional benefit here is the employees can make PAYE and NI savings while the employer saves 12.8 per cent in Employer’s National Insurance contributions on the sacrificed amount. The employer can use the savings to invest in addtional benefits thus passing them back to the employee, without any addtional spend.
If employees are willing to reduce their salary by a small amount, but receive benefits that reduce their cost of living by more than the sacrifice, this opens up the possibility of going down this route.
Flexible benefits need not always mean addtional financial outlay. Work-life balance is an increasingly important issue and many companies realise that employing staff who work flexi-time or use other flexible working patterns can have significant benefts and provide great incentives. If it’s appropriate, companies can even consider employing staff who work from and in this way can increase their talent pool without increasing cost, sometimes even reducing overheads.
Consulting Staff
It is often the case that businesses spend a great deal of time and money on employee benefits packages, but never actually ask their staff if a particular benefit is appreciated. If people don’t want, or don’t understand their benefits package, then this can simply be a waste of money that doesn’t benefit employee engagement, retention or recruitment. Of course, it would be impractical to simpy ask employees “What do you want?” as the list would be far too varied to be practically implemented, but there are always ways to consult on what benefits are valued. For example, you could list the benefits they already have and find out, first of all, if people understand how to get the most out of them, and secondly if they value them compared to other alternative options the company could afford to replace them with.
Working intelligently and engaging employees means that you can increase benefits without overspending, while being confident that you understand which type of benefits are most likely to be valued by employees and prospective employees. What this means that even when budgets are tight, you can develop a bespoke benefits solution that will result in minium cost with maximum impact.
Chris Metz is Head of employee benefits at Oval Ltd
Source: The Recruitment Consultant Magazine