A standing testament to perseverance

In a volatile economic environment, businesses need to do more than just sell their services and products to differentiate themselves from the competition.

For some, authentic business relationships built purely on trust is the force that’s still holding them strong despite the turbulent economic climate.

Establishing and maintaining a well-founded relationship with each client is the key to Signature Recruitment’s continued success. Founded by Evelin Zauchner and Sharon Alred at the culmination of the Great Recession, today Signature is a 25 people strong recruitment consultancy with two offices, London and Bristol. It’s a testament to their perseverance and a great example for emerging entrepreneurs looking to establish their own recruitment business in difficult times. 

REC’s legal support ‘invaluable’ to position Signature as experts in the field

Founded in 2010, Signature became an REC Corporate member straight away, and started using the core benefits as they found them to be essential tools for a new recruitment business.

Legislation is a key concern for any new business, regardless of any prior experience in recruitment. The legislative landscape is constantly shifting, and to have a trustworthy source of information, advice and resources is invaluable to new business owners.

One instance where Signature approached the REC was soon after their debut in the industry, when Agency Worker Regulations (AWR) became legislation. With no comprehensive knowledge of the new legislation, Signature needed to ensure they were fully equipped to educate their clients. At that time, the REC had published a range of factsheets, practical guides, checklists and were running a nationwide roadshow to provide face to face legal updates to help businesses navigate through the changes. Signature leveraged these resources to position themselves as experts in the field.

“The REC was quite invaluable …we extracted most value of the AWR information because we actually did a presentation to clients on AWR and we positioned ourselves as experts in that field when it first came up.”

For several legislative changes that followed, including GDPR, IR35 and the recent Good Work Plan, the REC continues to support members with a comprehensive and practical suite of workshops, seminars, training and informative guides to educate internal teams as well as your clients.  

Signature found REC’s IR35 guide indispensable when performing due diligence checks on their umbrella company.

“The REC’s guide on how to vet your umbrella company in order to ensure is compliant with the Criminal Finance Act is great. We’ve just completed that, vetted our umbrella company and that was literally a huge piece of work. I feel I can sleep at night in peace knowing that we have undertaken our due diligence on the umbrella company.”

REC research

A sound understanding of the industry is crucial to advise clients on current labour market trends, future projections by locality, the immediate impact of political changes and to mitigate against any potential risks.

REC research offers up-to-date and reliable insights on job placements, vacancies, employer hiring intentions, earnings, regional markets and year-on-year shifts in the market.

Signature publishes a monthly newsletter for their clients and candidates, and the information about the recruitment and employment market is sourced from the REC.

“The updates that we receive from the REC on a monthly basis, such as Jobs Outlook and ONS data, provides us with a succinct summary of the market and we are then able to communicate this to our clients and candidates via newsletters and social media.”

Using Good Recruitment principles to help others

The REC’s Good Recruitment Charter for clients is made up of nine principles – one of which is ‘to regularly review our recruitment procedures with feedback from candidates (those appointed and not appointed) and keep up-to-date with new recruitment/resourcing approaches’.

Signature, through the Magic Breakfast initiative, is trying to instill the Charter throughout its supply chain. With this in mind, they introduced the Signature feedback programme in 2016 where they seek feedback at various stages of the recruitment process from clients and candidates. All the comments are collated and passed on to the right party to facilitate a 360-degree feedback programme.

What makes this a prime example of Corporate Social Responsibility is Signature’s initiative to donate a breakfast for every piece of feedback they receive via the Magic Breakfast programme.  A charity whose work ensures that children who are at risk of hunger in the UK have access to a free nutritious meal at the start of the day. Since 2016, Signature has donated around 5,000 breakfasts – which makes sure no child is too hungry to learn.

All content accurate as of November 2019. Find out more about Signature Recruitment at www.signaturerecruitment.co.uk/