Bristow Holland Joins The Association Of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo)

Providing the best possible advice and guidance to our clients is a key part of our work, and the recent changes to the way IR35 is applied is a perfect example of circumstances where following poor or (plainly) wrong advice can open up significant and long-reaching risk of liabilities for hirers.  

As recruitment partners, we need to be informed on these developments and our clients need to trust that when we speak, we do so from a position of authority and that our words carry weight. This is even more important for smaller specialist agencies like Bristow Holland who don’t have in-house lawyers scrutinising employment legislation.

Recruitment is a loosely regulated sector, despite contributing over £7.1 billion to the economy annually, anyone can ‘set up shop’ as a recruiter and start dishing out advice; and with relatively low barriers to entry, it’s a highly competitive market.

This isn’t an issue in itself; it keeps the market sharp and competitive. However, there’s rarely a day goes by without a recruitment bashing post on LinkedIn, often from recruiters themselves, calling out the ‘cowboys’ whilst professing their own virtue.  It’s an easy comment and reaction generator win for the poster, yet both things can’t be true at the same time – there simply can’t be as many bad agencies out there as some would have you believe.

There are however ways an agency can set itself apart from the crowd, which is why Bristow Holland has joined APSCo https://www.apsco.org/. By becoming an accredited member of the leading ‘white collar’ recruitment trade body we have joined forces with similarly minded professional recruiters across the country who strive for the highest standards of service, standards and governance, whilst pooling resources to benefit from up to the minute legal advice and guidance that would otherwise be beyond the means of smaller businesses. 

This, along with the strict standards for entry and an independent complaints handling mechanism means that our clients have the reassurance that the advice they receive is of the highest quality.   Together we collaborate and share ideas on all the major issues facing the recruitment industry, lobbying parliament for change where needed and making the commitment to improving the perception of the industry by acting as ambassadors for our trade. In addition to this, we have made a commitment to do all that we can to improve the prospects of minority groups within our sector.

We don’t have to be part of a trade body to offer good counselling but is the advice we are offering now better than before we joined? The answer is yes, without a doubt.  The same applies to our internal standards and processes as a direct result of some of the guidance we have received. 

I would strongly urge other recruiters to join APSCo; improved standards and professionalism may not generate as much traction as clickbait LinkedIn posts but ultimately the ones that matter, present and future candidates and clients will feel the benefit of.