To wonder when and why agencies started up - why don't places just employ people themselves?

[Notacs]

Very genuinely wondering, in my case supply teaching. All the agency seem to do is make annoying noises and bray with laughter at nothing.

When did this become the way to employ short term staff!?

well do you think a school could employ someone at 1hrs notice?

I work freelance in a different field but a lot of my work is done through agencies.

In my profession, booking through an agency can mean a number of things. The agency usually:

• has access to a number of personnel all over the country
• may be able to provide cover easily and at short notice
• may provide Professional indemnity insurance for its sub contractors
• may enter into cogs saving service level agreements
• will check qualifications/experiences/references before taking someone oh their books

I'm sure there are other benefits but ease of booking and cost savings seem the most obvious attraction in my field.

Why seems to have been covered. When goes back at least to the vry early 19th century - there's mention of governess agencies in Austen.

Agencies started in order to meet a need. I used to run a care agency. It's seen as an easy way for someone to have the cover that they need in an emergency without any of the normal employer obligations or having a huge bank staff.

You simply phone up and you say I need someone today to fill in.

That's it. You don't have to bother about sick pay, annual leave, employers obligations, dismissal procedures if something goes wrong, training, etc etc.

Which is ideal if all you need is someone for a week because a member of staff has the flu and nobody else can cover.

I can understand why agencies are used for eg supply teaching where someone might be needed at very short notice, but for minimum wage jobs I just don't get it. My dp works in a warehouse earning minimum wage, he's employed by the agency. The warehouse company pay £17.90 an hour to the agency for every hour he works.
Staff turnover amongst the agency workers is sky high because they are treated like crap, they basically have no rights if they complain they're out. Surely it would be cheaper and better for the warehouse to employ them properly, pay them fairly and then probably have a happier, more secure and motivated workforce.

Yes, I am thinking very much of that sort of thing definite.

With supply teachers, didn't there used to be an lea pool? Obviously with one hour notice that is one thing but increasingly long term positions seem to be agency based too, I don't get it!

Many companies do recruit and select employees themselves, especially with online technology available.

It saves a fortune but wouldn't be helpful at an hour's notice.

A lot of companies don't want the commitment of taking on staff themselves. They'd either have to offer them a permanent role, or a fixed term contract. They'd lose the flexibility to just say 'no thank you' at the end of the week if there wasn't enough work to do for any reason.

I know an agency that is almost Dickensian, they offer min wage hard labour style work on a daily basis with a cash payout at the end of the day, so the able bodied but destitute can get paid for their labour. Their USP to the companies they supply is that they can get staff at very notice, pretty much immediately, I bet their hourly charge is at least triple if not quadruple what the agency worker gets.

I miss the old supply lists. I used to get calls from the local council office at 8am and punted to whichever nursery needed me. I thought it worked quite well as they started to request certain people.

My father set up his own agency back in the 60s as he was fed up of being asked on a weekly basis by his employer to find more staff from his friends/ex-colleagues. He knew who was looking for work in this particular industry, & who was good & who wasn't, the employers didn't have that knowledge.

Maggiethemagpie has it spot on with her first paragraph btw. We also seem to be used as a solution to cashflow problems with certain companies at the moment...

Supply and demand. Companies don't want to be saddled with the responsibility of permanent workers. Agencies see a nice way to make loads of cash as middlemen. Two groups who don't give a fuck = cha-ching.

Oh god my rant about agencies has suddenly run out of steam. I may have had some Pinot. They aren't all bad (I'm sure).

But they really don't care. Well, they will pretend to as long as you're raking it in for them. But they don't.

Though to be fair, why would they? They aren't a charity. They're sales.

I guess it just seems (I could be wrong of course!) that over the last two decades just about everything has become agency based!

It's very strange as in teaching, the people running the agency aren't teachers and don't work in schools.

It's okay, it suits me for now. But it is odd.

By the way, what's this umbrella company thing, they keep ringing me!

I've worked on agency for most of my HGV driving career. Variety, slightly higher wages and flexibility for me, not having a permanent PITA for the customer. My current customer is running 50+ agency drivers per day, up from 20 3 months ago. It'll drop to under a dozen after Christmas.

The umbrella company is frankly a con. You form a limited company, have your invoicing, tax and NI handled by spivs,; and get an extra pound an hour for giving up holidays, SSP and state second pension. My agency hates this so much that they brought us into full PAYE contracts to keep the decent staff.

Omg - do I have to sign up to them?

We use agency staff and fixed term contracts for busy periods. If there are quieter times the full time staff just runs as normal then if things get busy we he tangency staff in to take up the slack. It works for us as we have peaks and troughs and they are easier to get in the door (not as much authority needed), then when there is less work we let them go without redundancies.

If you have a unionised workforce with great T&C (DB pension, long holidays etc) then agency staff can be cheaper in the long-term.

Notacs: tell them to do one. My firm took us in the opposite direction: full "contract of service", tax chargebacks on mileage and subsistence and the compulsory basic pension. If I was a proper liimited company I could charge WAY over umbrella rates and still undercut them, but this way they find me work, do all the normal employer stuff and fend off the twats.

I work through an agency so I get paid weekly - the agency might be on 90 days payment terms with the company I'm doing work for. They take a cut for having the cash flow problems. Works for me.

Because we live in an exploitative country, that makes all the right noises and has every I dotted and T crossed and uses it's workforce as slaves. Simples.
Hire and fire, a huge burden to our economy.
For anyone living in their Ivory Towers, spend a day in my shoes.

Of course without agency workers, unemployment would be much higher

Or rather unemployment figures would be higher.
There is a place for agencies but we live in a hire and fire economy.
Wages have been driven down as agencies take a hefty chunk.

It also means big companies can hive off what used to be called 'personnel' to the agencies. So they don't need to employ people to do payroll, recruitment, reference checks, etc.

If they employ people to do that it's a fixed cost on their books. If they use an agency, it's not seen as a cost in the same way - even though it clearly is a cost in the same way.

Very few, if any, big companies rely heavily on agency workers (unless unionised). Being able to fire people easily increases employment and would reduce the use of agencies, providing better conditions for those workers.