Even if you are experiencing poor service from your current recruitment agency which is impacting on efficiencies and productivity, the potential consequences of changing your supplier can be daunting. You may be concerned about your current agency summarily removing its workforce, or perhaps you are contracted to a long period of extended hire which may make the transition to a new agency a lengthy process during which production will be impacted.

Here at CSP our management team is vastly experienced in transition. Practically all of our major clients needed to be transitioned from incumbent suppliers and they will all tell you they have been very impressed with our programme – and of course we will provide you with unchaperoned access to them to check for yourself! We implement comprehensive planning, allocate sufficient resources and engage with the outgoing agency (in reality most agencies conduct themselves professionally in these circumstances) where possible to make the transition seamless – whilst providing you with the comfort of comprehensive contingency should things not go quite to plan.

Whilst we cannot go into too much detail here, the main principles of our transition process are set out below. Each stage of the process, including contingency planning, is laid out in a Gantt plan and agreed with you beforehand, so that you can enjoy the enhanced cost productivity and management benefits of our service without the pain you may associate with achieving them.

Main principles of the CSP Transition Plan (not exhaustive):

• Needs analysis – conducted with your management team at the outset
• Demographic analysis – we will show you how and where we will recruit sufficient staffing levels in a timely fashion by analysing the local worker pool
• Outgoing contract analysis – what your contractual restrictions might be on a seamless transition from an Agency perspective, i.e. TTP or Periods of Extended Hire. We will guide you through this, agree a phased transition involving natural wastage if necessary and liaise with the outgoing agency if appropriate. We are often able to come to an arrangement with them involving compensatory co-operation elsewhere
• Agree deliverables – including contractual terms, compliance, forecasting and ordering processes, induction formats, benchmark current staff for skill levels, SLA, KPI measurements and timescales
• Allocate our implementation team and agree contact points and communication lines between our organisations
• Contingency – how and what we will deliver at very short notice should the transition not go entirely to plan – updated at every step and supported by our existing network
• Identify Health & Safety risks
• Establish on-site presence, agree SOPs, assignment guides, etc.
• AWR compliance – establish comparators
• TUPE transfer research – avoiding liabilities if elements of the workforce are to be transferred
• Implement plan & Gantt – milestones & timescales
• Biometric preparation for incoming or transferred workers
• PPE arrangements