Employment agencies. How do they work?

swingaloo

Do employment agencies get paid some kind of incentive for having people on thier books even if they dont find them work?

Reason I ask, I have been employed by an agency for a couple of years now. I have been trying to find other employment but in this area its very hard. Im employed by the agency to work for one particular company. Its been a bad year with lay off days at about 50% of the time.

The thing is that bthe agency told us that we would be in full time from October onwards as it was 'peak season' for the company. They took on lots more staff at the rate of about 6 or 7 a week. (Most of these are eastern europeans) They bring them in for about a weeks training and then you dont see many of them ever again.

Even this week, 4 of us who are long term employees (who have trained on every department and have good attendance/time keeping records) have only had one days work up to now. On the day we were in we saw 9 new agency recruits being shown round.

We did ask the question a few weeks ago as to why they carry on recruiting when there is clearly not enough work for the ones already there. We were told they were preparing for 'peak' which supposidly started 4 weeks ago. At the time they told us this it was accepted but as we are now in 'peak' and about 15 of us are getting an average of 2 days one week and 3 days the next they clearly have too many people already and yet are still bringing them in in droves.

Anyone have any inside knowledge of how agencys work please.
Thank you

Premier_2

The more people they have on their books, the more likely (statistically) they will have someone that suits their client's expectations when an open position comes in.

swingaloo

Than you for the reply. Whilst I understand what you say completly it dosnt have any relevance to the situation at our company.

The agency take on staff just for this particular location. Whilst they have offices and do employ staff for other companies, in this case the agency have thier own recruiters which are permanently on site. Any 'new starters' they recruit are just for our warehouse. Its not a job you need any kind of qualification for and about a third of the recruits can only just manage to say hello in english.

Thats why we cant understand the numbers they take on. The warhouse probably use about 60 agency workers every day. Thats the part we dont understand, whilst the company use about 60 agency workers a day there must be 3 times that number on the books at the warehouse. Consequently this results in most people getting 2/3 days a week. They tell you when you start that its will pay to train on each department so that you have a better chance of being called in. In reality thats not the case because the numbers they ask for on each department are half taken up with new starters being trained. Half the people they train never come back as they get fed up of getting so little work.

liney

The company (or agency in this case) avoid paying out as much in employers NI if multiple people work less hours each, because they stay below the monetary weekly threshold.

I doubt the agency is just bringing in extra people to suit themselves. The client would have to be requesting them, or agreeing to the agency doing this, probably on the basis they can increase your hours whn it suits the business need. Ultimately if the company wanted you 4 long term temps 5 days per week they would tell the agency to send you 5 days per week.

swingaloo

Thank you Liney. Thats a good point about the N.I. contributions, I hadnt thought about that.

As far as the company wanting the agency to bring in all these people, I have to disagree.

I used to work for another company for quite a long time and we used agency people in the office. We had a say in who came back and who didnt and could request certain workers who we thought were good.
At this place it is totally different. I have been there a couple of years and a friend is a permanent member of staff who has been there eight years. He says it has been the same for the last 3 years since this particular agency got the contract.
The permanent workers dont like the turnover as they train someone up so they can be left only to find they leave after a few weeks because the hours are not enough.

One of the lads on agency is the nephew of one of the mangers. He is a good worker and his uncle has personally told a group of us that as a manager he would like a say in who he has on his shift and that he is fed up of what he calls 'being saddled with bloody no hopers' while the good people sit at home.
There are a limited number of people that can work on each department on each shift however busy it gets. There are more than enough staff to cover the busy periods and yet they still bring more and more through the door. As I said they have them in on training for a couple of weeks then they seem to dissapear because they are not called back for any work afterwards. However while they are training the new ones the core agency staff who have been there a year or two are getting minimal hours.

[Deleted User]

I used to work in recruitment. It does sound odd! Maybe the Employer NI thing / Holiday pay makes sence, obviously not a great agency to work for with that kind of greed, maximising profit out of the premium charged on your hourly rate supposedly to cover on costs?? There are other reasons to keep recruiting despite having people on the books, namely unreliable or not great workers, but if you have been there many Years with good attendence then I doubt this is the case. Are there any other agencies in the Warehouse you could sign up with?? Out of interest I'd love it if you could PM me the name of the particular Agency??

scooby088

If i were you i'd ask the company not the agency what the chances are of taking you on a permanent contract, they know your work and know you are reliable, surely they could reward you with taking you off the agency books. Thus avoiding the complication of just working a few days per week.

liney

swingaloo wrote: »

Thank you Liney. Thats a good point about the N.I. contributions, I hadnt thought about that.

As far as the company wanting the agency to bring in all these people, I have to disagree.

The Client pay the bill. If the client didn't want this to be happening, they would change the agency they use or tell the agency to stop.

The most likely explaination is that the Client is getting a kick back on the bill when workers are not subject to NI, therefore meaning they swap continuity for cheaper labour.

swingaloo

Thanks again for the replies.
Joanne, I will pm you the name of the agency.

Scooby, The chance of getting a permanent position only happens once in a while. When it does you can apply as I have done 4 times. Its always the same though, so many people apply and there is always someone that has been there longer than you. Ive had 4 lots of feedback saying attendance/timekeeping and work rate all good but 'we have to be fair and so and so has been here longer than you'.