Over the past few months, we’ve met and spoken with a range of public sector organisations regarding their workforce challenges. With staffing being a key topic at the moment we wanted to share our findings.

With the world of work getting back to normal, we wanted to see what the demand for temporary workers is and where they fit. After speaking to a range of organisations it’s apparent that temporary workers still play a huge part in the public sector. With 69% of people we spoke to still engaging with temporary workers, it’s evident that their skills are still required and they are needed for a number of roles, and this only looks to be increasing.

Due to a high number of organisations still requiring temporary workers we wanted to learn what frameworks were used to manage and maintain their workforce, it was shocking to learn that 40% weren’t aware of the framework that their organisations used or had none in place. This is concerning as it’s highly likely that there will be no visibility of the agency resources across the organisation, meaning there is no centralised place to manage all agency workers and ensure the right processes and contracts have been put in place. This can cause an unknown compliance risk for the business which HMRC could uncover if investigated.

Organisations aren’t always aware of the compliance issues that can occur, so don’t often think of them as a challenge. When speaking to them, we wanted to learn more about the challenges they are aware of and currently facing at this moment in time. It was interesting to find out that 13% stated that technology is a challenge for their business, one person detailed that their main issue is with allocating and confirming shifts for workers. Technology plays a big part in all businesses and will affect retention in the long run, if people aren’t being paid correctly, they are unlikely to want to stay. It could also affect budgets as if the organisation is unaware that they have contractors working for them they may have insufficient funds.

50% of people stated that staff resource is a current challenge for their organisation, this ranged from being unable to find staff, the process taking too long when recruiting and the ability to be able to find the staff with the skills required. It was also interesting to learn that 23% of organisations have been affected by financial cuts, these issues mainly occurred for people who worked for local authorities, resulting in them being unable to get the staff needed for the higher qualified roles.

With the majority of organisations having issues along the same lines, we wanted to find out what their ideal solution would be to help with their current challenges. 22% of people said better systems that can handle their day-to-day processes, a couple of people specified one system that can do it all. 39% of people explained that more resources would have a huge impact on their organisation, this included taking on bank or temporary staff to fill the current gap.

How can +us help?
Plus Us Workforce Services is here to support your supply chain from start to finish!

We are here to help public sector organisations with agency engagement and the management of a temporary workforce. We offer a “procure to pay” service which focuses on your flexible resourcing needs.

Our service delivery is a blend of both technology and service, which has been designed to create savings and drive operational efficiencies, whilst improving the overall experience for you, your agency suppliers, and the workers you engage with.

We make sure you have full visibility of the process from start to finish. From sharing the latest vacancies with the recruitment agencies, you work with, to placing temporary workers, obtaining their details and ensuring they pay the correct tax, we are there to make sure you are compliant.

What differentiates the +Us service from our competitors is that we become an extension to your existing internal-based resourcing or HR Teams.

If you would like to talk about our solution or get advice from the team, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.