Case studies

Past the eleven year service mark

Thank you, Congratulations, Well done and every other accolade that there is to Wendy Evemy and Lee Geldart. Both Senior Recruitment Consultants here at SER Limited have past the eleven-year serviced mark. It’s a rarity in the recruitment sector to see such loyalty and it is really apricated.

Both lead the way in their specialist fields of Building Services and Machine Tool Engineering, working closely with many of the industry leading names. Their approach has helped SER Limited grow from the old days of a hand full of recruitment consultants to where we are today.

SER Limited as a business and a company has changed so much since their first weeks some eleven years ago, numerous office moves, re-structures and of course the attending of lots of splendid team building events.

From the bottom of our hearts SER thanks you for all your efforts over the past ELEVEN years.

Case Study for Watertrain Ltd
The water industry is rapidly growing and as such good people with the right experience are in high demand.

CASE STUDY

RECRUITMENT SERVICES TO THE WATER SECTOR

BACKGROUND

Watertrain is the predominant provider of high quality technical training and qualification programmes to the water sector. The water specific knowledge and competency qualifications delivered by Watertrain are accredited by CABWI, a nationally recognised awarding body. Watertrain sees its role as helping employers find effective solutions to immediate training needs and longer term staff development.

SER LTD OPERATING SECTORS

Asbestos Building Controls
Building Services Electronics
Environmental Fire & Security
Hydraulics Lighting
Audio Visual Manufacturing
Measurement Telecoms
Refrigeration Renewables
Waste Management Utilities

CHALLENGES

Watertrain was in need of a additional Tutors/Assessors to provide syllabuses on Water Treatment, Wastewater Treatment and Network Distribution. Due to the working environmental of this industry we found finding applicants with the ability and willingness to carry out this role very difficult to find until we approached Becky Goodwin from SER Limited.

THE KEY POINTS

Tutors/Assessor were required
Water/Wastewater, Network Distribution background
The ability to deliver industry recognised qualifications

CURRENT SITUATION

Watertrain Ltd found that they were dealing with numerous recruitment agencies from across the UK and further supported this via local press advertisements and the occasional job board.
This approach was proving to be:
Time consuming
Expensive
Difficult to control
Producing numerous duplicate applications and fee claims
Ineffective in sourcing high quality Tutors/Assessors

ACTIONS

SER Ltd was known to Watertrain Ltd and it was decided to appoint SER Ltd as the preferred recruitment consultancy to Watertrain Ltd with the view of addressing the above issues.

ACTIONS/SOLUTIONS

SER Ltd appointed an Account Manager to Watertrain Ltd and then arranged a further site visit to understand the company's operations, approach and culture. It was important that SER understood what skills the Tutors/Assessors would require and what they would be required to do on a day to day, week to week basis. SER planned to focus on staff retention ensuring that a strong candidate fit was achieved and therefore removing the continual "urgent" need to recruit and replacing it with a more selective approach which would mean a further increase in the skills level.

REASONING

The thought process behind this was based on the following factors:
SER Ltd being specialist recruiters to the engineering market
Level of knowledge and understanding of the Water sector in the UK
In-house candidate database
Recruitment vetting process
Trust and open approach

RESULTS

Hazel Sarath – Quality Assurance Manager
Watertrain have found SER very professional in approach with a high standard of customer service, which is consistent in approach. This is excelled by a front facing approach- where sales executives undertake an initial recruitment needs analyses prior to recruitment taking place. We found this valuable as a 'get to know you' tool, which has led to the most suitable candidates being forwarded. We have successfully secured 3 full-time permanent employee- who not only have the right technical experience, but the right personalities to fit into a small team. I have found working with SER seamless and like the positive energy that they generate over the phone and during face- face meetings.

Watertrain has no hesitations in recommending SER as a recruitment agency and will continue to use them as the preferred choice of recruiters in the future.

Welcome

SER Ltd would like to welcome four new recruiters to the team.

Roger Taj
Kym Barton
Sarah Bailey & Lauren Colman

Roger comes with a wealth of business management experience and will be responsible for the continuing recruitment that we provide within the HVAC Sales sector. Replacing Chris Ragnal who has decided to join one of our Clients JCI as part of their continuing focus on in-house recruitment. Roger will be tasked with continuing to build long term business relationships with our every growing Client base within the HVAC sector while bringing a proactive active to sourcing outstanding talent within the sales environment.

Kym joins us as a junior recruiter and will be focused on the Asbestos sector. Mainly responsible for sourcing Asbestos Surveyors, Analysts and Lab Techs.

Sarah Bailey joins SER Ltd from previous roles within Business Development and is tasked with driving forward our recruitment services within the telecommunications market. Mainly focusing on Sales and Tech roles throughout the UK.

Lauren is our newest member to join the team. Joining as a junior recruiter, she will be working along side Dan Walton in the FMCG Machinery.

Should you wish to contact any of our three new recruits feel free to call SER Ltd on 01254 781 300

Specialists within Engineering Recruitment

It is illegal to employ someone that does not have the right to work in the th UK, under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. New sanctions have been introduced with the Immigration Act 2016. If an employer employs someone they know or have reasonable cause to believe is working illegally, the employer can face a custodial sentence of up to 5 years or an unlimited fine..
Do not rely on race, ethnicity, accent or appearance to determine whether you should complete checks. To avoid breaching the Equality Act 2010, there must be a consistent approach across the board.

In the United Kingdom all employers are required by law to check their employees have the right to work in the UK. The British government website states that "You must check that a job applicant is allowed to work for you in the UK before you employ them."

A complete guide to the combination of documents accepted as right-to-work documents and how to check them can be found on the .gov website. The correct document combinations depend on the potential employee themselves, but include these documents:
• Passport
• Biometric Residence Permit
• National Identity Card
• Full Birth Certificate
• Certificate of Naturalisation
• Passport with valid Visa inside

'As the Acceptable right to work documents document states it is the employer's responsibility to check the validity of the documents presented and "you must be in the physical possession of the original document or documents"

Find out if a potential employee has the right to work in the UK and what documents employers should check.
https://www.gov.uk/legal-right-work-uk
There will be no change to the rights and status of EU nationals living in the UK, nor UK nationals living in the EU, while the UK remains in the EU.
Gov.uk has plenty of information, links and a checklist that explains the types of documents that are acceptable for checking an employee's right to work and how long the check is valid for.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/right-to-work-checklist

You may need to ask the Home Office to check an employee's or potential employee's immigration status if:
• they can't show you their documents, eg they have an outstanding appeal or application with the Home Office
• they have an Application Registration Card
• they have a Certificate of Application
You should see if they can work legally in the UK before asking for a check.

At SER we are preparing for the upcoming changes which are due to happen when GDPR is introduced, 25th May 2018.
EU Parliament & Council approved the GDPR on the 14th April 2016 and will be enforced 25th May 2018. Non-compliant companies will be subject to heavy fines of either 4% global annual turnover or twenty million euros

It has been introduced to give everybody more control over how their personal information is processed. We now have to have permission to use personal information and this can be removed at any time by a candidate request.

 Consent will be one of the lawful grounds for data processing.
A GDPR-compliant data sharing agreement will be used when sharing information with a third party such as umbrella companies.
It will affect EU based candidates, companies collecting data from EU candidates, organisations collecting or processing personal data of EU candidates. This includes our own staff, candidates for both temp & perm positions, clients and even potential clients.

'Personal data is any information (hard copies and soft copies) relating to an individual, whether it relates to his or her private, public or professional life. It can be anything from a name, address, medical information, phone number, posts on social media'. Personal data that is hidden via pseudonymisation may also be included, depending on whether it can be identified to a candidate. Pseudonymization is a procedure by which the most identifying fields within a data record are replaced by one or more artificial identifiers, or pseudonyms.

Personal data also includes all data that can be related to an individual, who can be identified by the information – either directly or in-directly.
It could also include piles of loose paper hanging around the office, which holds information that can be easily accessed.

BREXIT WILL NOT AFFECT ITS INTRODUCTION INTO THE UK
In preparation for the change we will be attending workshops and running in house training for all employees, to ensure that we are all ready for these changes.

Here at SER we value our staff and their ongoing development. We believe this sets us apart from other recruitment companies

As well as running regular in house training programs, to keep our recruiters up to speed with what our clients and candidates want and expect from us. We also promote and fund out of office education, training and personal development

John-Paul, Office Manager at SER, has recently completed ILM Level 3 certificate in Leadership & Management, which involves several modules including "innovation & change in an organisation" and "how to lead effective meetings"

Leah from our accounts department has also recently completed Foundation Certificate in Accounting with Distinction and is now moving forward, onto Advanced Diploma in Accounting at Blackburn University. This will give her a greater understanding of her role within SER and enable her to be able to deal with client and candidate enquiries, in an efficient and competent way

 These and future courses help our staff to continue their on going personal development and promotes confidence and knowledge within their sectors

SER Ltd are pleased to announce the welcome return of Ric Belsten. After a brief spell away from recruitment Ric h has returned to SER Ltd to join our growing team of specialist recruiters working within the Fire and Security sector.

Ric originally joined us back in 2015 and was given the job of recruitment consultant to the lighting and lighting controls sector, however with the huge demand for personnel within the Fire & Security sectors on his return he will be recruiting for many of the leading manufacturers and contractors within the Fire sector.

Focused predominantly on the South East of England Ric will be looking to place Service Engineers, Commissioning Engineers, Sales Professionals and associated operational staff within the Fire and Security sector.