Temporary Scientific Recruitment Services

What does a great temporary recruitment service look like? A while back I sat down to redesign LiCa Scientifics temporary services with this question on my mind.

Our systems were never ‘bad’ in fact if anything people were quite happy with them. However I had a view that temporary recruitment was a bit stuck in its ways. 

Fundamentally I put myself in the position of the client and built a picture of one in my mind.

For my temporary clients I felt for a while like I’d exclusively been working with one group. Busy successful people. They all looked and sounded like this:

A typical day would be their phone and email had been buzzing all day with projects and clients seeking updates. While successful also feel ‘maxed out’.

The main issue would be frustration about a lack of personnel available to do it. They would have a job tomorrow for someone, if that person were made available.

Also the other hold-back was that project work being done may not be ‘forever’ so the prospect of creating a team and then doing layoffs isn’t appealing. Far better to be upfront and commit to a 6 month term of employment. But again this comes with it’s own administration.  

A further issue is they are always time poor, and their work is very high value. I found I’d usually get one or two line emails off my clients because they are too busy for more. Any hours evidently go heavily towards delivering a valuable business proposition.

These are people who value speed but want the reassurance of traceability, they are simply put too busy for ‘extra admin’ but are happy to look at key reports and yes/no them. Anything beyond that and a supplier is becoming a burden but if they have one they can trust that doesn’t need too much input, and thrives on neglect almost (!) great things can follow!   

Does this sound familiar?

The systems I put in place were designed to fit brilliantly with this group and then achieve two things.

• 1) Rapidly supply key skills my clients needed, keep them growing and achieving their goals
• 2) One (1) achieved… get the out of the way and let the work happen.

Now, running a temporary agency is a serious business. We have to do certain activities which are:

• Pay staff for their hours worked
• Administer timesheets
• Administer holidays or other absence
• Pay various taxes to HMRC
• Issue payslips, various taxation related forms P32, P45, P60 etc
• Manage expenses claims
• Carry out Agency Worker Regulation reviews
• Set up pensions
• Other administration such as onboarding checks, referencing, the list goes on

The takeaway probably is, it’s a lot of admin and forms to fill in. It’s a serious job and one I’ve done for 20 years. This can be why temporary agencies are sometimes a bit omnipresent but they don’t need to be. 

Naturally we need to have interaction with clients to do some of these.

So, how do we do this without passing administration onto our clients?

Well, we used to frankly, but with it being 2024 there is a lot of technology now that one can use and most of the above just needs data and we can take care of the rest. This led to my main solution which was an app.

What does this deliver?

• Geolocation, your phone or smartwatch knows where you are 24/7 and can do your timesheet for you in the background. We have a geofence around all of our clients meaning as you approach the location the phone will remind you to log in, and do the opposite on exit. You don’t need to enter numbers or ‘fill in’ a timesheet, the iPhone/Android will sit do it. Our app does this for thousands of scientists’ hours every month saving time and energy. For COMAH/ Nuclear sites where no phones may go, we offer a QR code based clock in and out.
• App based administration all stakeholders have various levels of access to from User to Administrator. Our App breaks activities down to ‘one click’ alerting all stakeholders to an absence, shift adjustment or requesting planned holiday. It is instantly searchable, and will do useful ‘PA’ things like alert to two people booking holiday at the same time in the same team as well.
• Instant data access. There is no good reason in 2024 to have any delay in requesting and receiving all data on a temporary worker. Our systems act as a data silo and deliver this meaning you know at the push of a button any numbers you need.
• Availability, by working in the same ‘group’ of people all the time (scientists seeking roles in 5 main areas) we have the deepest network that you could ever need. It’s not failed us in LiCa Scientifics’ 8 years and it gets bigger/better every week! We can work on the basis of hours not days when it comes to candidate availability.
• Using our own experts. Our knowledge is good but it has limits and sometimes you need an expert. We have a preferred supplier list of experts in key fields from chartered accountants to employment law specialists.

In summary, we changed systems to improve them and chose our partners carefully  from the worlds most trusted and best known brands. This means we have been able to scale significantly in our temporary staff offering while at the same time, improving quality of experience for all parties.  

The outcome is we rapidly supply the scientific skills needed and then we get out of the way, with full visibility, in depth analysis or administrative audit a mere click or call away.

Do contact us to discuss your next temporary requirement!

LiCa Scientific Ltd

www.licasci.com

admin@licasci.com

+44 161 443 4173