In April 2007, Taskmaster emerged from a host of recruitment businesses to be awarded a sole supply agreement to supply the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust with temporary staff for non-clinical staff. Subsequent to this, Taskmaster has been awarded further contract renewals to present. They have consistently delivered in terms of professionalism and reliability in the course of our ever changing landscape of temporary staffing requirements, which has often extended to over 500 per day.

The Taskmaster team has developed a sound understanding of our business and mode of operation and in doing so has satisfied the needs of our large trust. Because of their progressive working practise, Taskmaster is now recognised as an extension of our recruitment process, and at this time I can see no reason why this would not be maintained well into the future.

From a cost perspective, Taskmaster have been market tested and offered best value for our Trust.

I am extremely satisfied with the service, response times, fill-rate and follow-ups provided by the Taskmaster management team and their consultants. The calibre of staff supplied remained consistently high throughout the duration of the contracts and the retention rate is exemplary.

In conclusion I would, without hesitation, recommend Taskmaster to any organisation seeking a temporary staffing solution

Bradford District Care Foundation Trust has used Taskmaster for the provision of admin and clerical roles since December 2013. During that time Taskmaster we have forged an excellent partnership with them. Taskmaster has always provided an excellent service, they are very customer focused and responsive to the changing needs of the Trust. The staff provided by Taskmaster are of a very high calibre (skills, experience and motivation) and the feedback from managers has always been very positive.

In addition to the above – Taskmaster have delivered a 100 percent fill for staff in agenda for change pay bands 1 to 8 and helped the trust reduce its agency spend. The margins are lower than our previous provider and workers are usually appointed at the bottom on the band. To date we have had no complaints about the staff or service provided by Taskmaster

I have worked with Taskmaster for almost 5 years and have no hesitation in recommending their services.

Candidates are met in person by the Wigan Taskmaster team which helps makes sure only individuals with the right calibre and skills are allocated shifts.

On the rare occasions when we need same day cover, Taskmaster provide a fully inducted candidate over 98% of the time.

Barbora has a fantastic understanding of our business needs and goes above and beyond to ensure all our requirements are met as shown by over 85% of temporary candidates transferring to permanent employees after 12 weeks.

Taskmaster and TM Onsite has been a dedicated partner to Polypipe for over 17 years. Polypipe is an iconic employer in the South Yorkshire area and has provided many people long and varied careers. From supplying just, a handful of staff in production in 2006 to up to 300 colleagues per day across all departments at its peak, the Taskmaster team, and the service provision has evolved with the business.

One of the very first On-site managed service solutions in Doncaster, Taskmaster led the way in added value and strategic partnering. Darren and his team created a unique sourcing, selection and onboarding program that sought out the very best talent at the entry level, focussing on those who could train and develop and that had the potential to be the management of the future.

For many years we consistently delivered high service levels and created long term careers for our people. In 2021 we reported on the number of permanent staff on site who were originally sourced by Taskmaster.

• 75% of the Assembly staff
• 85% of the Despatch staff
• 90% of the Moulding staff
• 15 members of the management and supervisory team

These statistics demonstrate that working with Taskmaster as a strategic partner means so much more than hitting KPIs that week, it means building a workforce fit for life.

The Challenge

We were approached at the end of Jun 2023 by South East Water to find a logistical solution which would enable them to have the capability to deploy their 2 x Class 2 Tankers 24 hours a day 365 days a year in the most cost effective way.

The Action Plan

Although this was a brand new client, the challenges posed were anything but. We were very quickly able to put together an action plan as follows:

• Present an existing model already in use with an existing client in the form of a 12-week 4 on 2 off 2-shift rota for 6 drivers on a standby retainer basis.
• Put together clear costings detailing exactly how we arrived at our final pricing structure.
• Draft up specialised recruitment ads.
• Screen and recruit suitable candidates
• TM Utilities Senior Managers arranged client visits to ensure complete satisfaction.

The Result

On being given the go ahead from South East Water things moved swiftly. We had an excellent response to our adverts and were able to select the drivers not only most qualified to do the role but who were happy with the nature of the role which does include a lot of down-time.

Within 2 weeks we had 6 recruits who were able to start in stages subject to notice periods at current employment. The first 3 started on the 17th July just 3 weeks from the initial call. The remainder of the team were able to start 2 weeks later.

To ensure all went smoothly we deployed one of our existing highly experienced Class 1ASV Tanker Drivers to be present for induction and to ensure all our new recruits knew exactly what would be expected prior to starting the job.

Within 6-weeks of the initial call we had a fully operational team working.

What the Client Said

“We were looking for a fresh way to ensure we had cover for our tankers 24 hours a day 365 days a year and having researched extensively the various supplier options available we approached TM Utilities to find a logistical solution to this. They were able to offer us a tried and tested model which they had been successfully using with another utilities client which involved recruiting specially trained drivers working on a 12-week rota on standbys and shifts. We were happy with the rates provided and the clarity in how the costings were put together. TM Utilities recruited a team of 6 drivers and initially deployed one of their highly trained ASV Fillers to coach our new team members until they were fully up to speed with what was required. This system has been fully operational since mid July and we are very happy with the results to date”.

Parris Durrant, Alternative Water Manager Operational Projects

(South East Water)

When we first approached JW Filshill, the only distributor of Scotland's finest Buckfast, they were using no less than 5 different recruiters to support their labour requirement, having always believed the notion more suppliers means more candidates. Moving into new premises the following year, they felt they needed yet another supplier on board.

After the first meeting we knew we could show the management team a better way, but needed to build trust, and show them that the transactional relationships they held with current suppliers was the reason for average KPI delivery and a revolving door of new starters.

We committed to placing a team member on site for 2 weeks to learn all about the business, shadowing roles, inductions and walking through the new starter process ahead of any recruitment. Once we knew about the business we;

• Built a small pool of new candidates based on the type of person who was already thriving at JW Filshill and who would move to the new site.
• Delivered an onboarding program that put the colleague experience first, highlighting the elements of the company and the role that mattered to them.
• Gave close support and feedback during weeks 1-4 to ensure retention and satisfaction.
• Provided open feedback and posed challenges to the management team to drive change. 

The new site launch went ahead in March 2023 and at this time Taskmaster was onsite full time, working with the management team to support the transition. Our numbers had grown to 40-50 temporary colleagues and we were the main supplier to site for industrial roles. To date, we have now successfully had around 30-40 temporary to permanent roles fulfilled with JW Filshill and continue to be their number one choice for flexible staffing solutions.

The latest labour market overview from the ALP includes a number of interesting statistics, news and insights to inform your next hiring decisions.

The government has announced £12.4m of funding for the following projects to better understand barriers to getting into work:

• Impact of endometriosis on women’s participation and progression in the workforce
• Evaluate whether programmes to reduce type 2 diabetes and obesity improve people’s ability to join the labour market
• A new pilot to address barriers to work faced by those aged 18-24 living in supported housing
• Two HMRC projects to evaluate the impact of tax-free childcare in parent’s choices and women’s return to work after maternity leave
• DWP to trial employment support and rent incentives to move people out of work or on low earnings into work or onto higher earnings

The LSE (London School of Economics) study: Is the UK undergoing a “quiet quitting” revolution? found that there has been a decline in working hours post pandemic of 36 hours (4.5 days) a year compared to pre-pandemic levels.

This has impacted on the post pandemic UK recovery particularly amongst the younger generation. Given the 24.5 million UK full-time, full-year workers, “quiet quitting” equates to an estimated 55.1 million discretionary hours lost to the UK labour market each year between 2020 and 2022, 48 per cent of which are accounted for by Millennials.

UK Immigration Policy

The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has published its Review of the Shortage Occupation List and has written a letter to the Home Secretary and the Immigration Minister. The MAC are recommending that only 8 occupations remain on the UK-wide SOL and a further two on the Scotland only SOL. There are no RQF 1-2 occupations being recommended for inclusion in the SOL.

In addition, the MAC is recommending the removal of the going rate discount as it does not see the SOL as a sensible immigration solution for shortage issues in low wage sectors. They are also recommending that the SOL be re-named the Immigration Salary Discount List (ISDL). The MAC is planning their next review in Spring 2024.

The Migration Observatory’s latest briefing on UK Public Opinion toward Immigration: Overall attitudes and level of concern has found that overall views in the UK are divided with 52% thought the immigration numbers should be reduced, but there are fewer people (32%) saying that immigration was a bad or a very bad thing. British people make clear distinction between types of migrant with the highly skilled preferred to unskilled overall and the majority in favour of making immigration easier for health care workers.

The Migration Observatory has also published a report on Family Migration to the UK. It found that in 2022, 3.5 million people living in the UK had originally moved to join a British citizen or settled resident. People on family unification visas are more likely to settle long term in the UK than those on work or study visas. Since 2020, dependents of workers and students have significantly outnumbered family unifications migrants.

The latest labour market overview from the ALP includes a number of interesting statistics, news and insights to inform your next hiring decisions.

The latest ONS Employment and Labour Market Statistics reported:

Early estimates for September 2023 indicate that payrolled employees were up by 1.2% on September 2022. This is a rise of 369,000 employees; it was up by 3.8% since February 2020, a rise of 1,102,000.

UK payrolled employees for August 2023 has been revised to show a decrease of 8,000 on July, because of the incorporation of additional real time information (RTI) submissions to HMRC.

Annual growth in regular pay (excluding bonuses) was 7.8% in June to August 2023. This is similar to recent periods and is one of the highest regular annual growth rates since comparable records began in 2001.

The number of vacancies in July to September 2023 was 988,000, down 43,000 on the previous 3 months. They were down by 256,000 from a year ago, although they remained 187,000 above their pre-Covid levels.
 
The British Chamber of Commerce has published its latest Quarterly Economic Forecast Q3 2023.

It reports that the UK labour market remains very tight, and their recent survey showed that 8 in 10 firms attempting to recruit were facing recruitment difficulties. It is expecting a modest increase in unemployment, peaking at 4.7% in 2024. Average earnings are expected to grow more strongly over the next three years, with 5.5% growth in 2023 and 3.5% in 2024, and 2.5% in 2005, this is above the forecasts for year-end CPI inflation in the next two years.

The CIPD’s latest survey report on Health and Wellbeing at work found that sickness absence levels are now the highest they have been for over a decade.

UK employees were absent for 7.8 days on average over the past year, and two days more than the pre-pandemic sickness absence rate of 5.8 days. As well as an overall increase in absence, it found stress to be a significant factor for both short- and long-term absence, with over 76% of respondents reporting stress-related absence in their organisation in the past year.

Key findings:

The top causes of short-term absence are:

• Minor illnesses (94%)
• Musculoskeletal injuries (45%)
• Mental ill health (39%)

Causes of long-term absence are similar:

• Mental ill health (63%)
• Acute medical conditions, such as stroke or cancer (51%)
• Musculoskeletal injuries (51%)

The findings also show that over a third (37%) of organisations reported COVID-19 as still being a significant cause of short-term absence.

The DWP (Department and Work and Pensions) is expanding its Youth Offer to provide tens of thousands of young people with support to find work.

This will give over 30,000 of 16-24-year-olds the option to access three types of support through the Youth Offer: additional time with a Work Coach early in their claim; access to Youth Hubs; and Youth Employability Coaches.

We are thrilled to announce and introduce our rebrand, marking a new chapter of innovation and highlighting our commitment to excellence.

The goal with our rebrand is to reinforce our dedication to empowering workforces, transforming lives, and driving excellence across diverse industries.

Over the past few months, we have undergone a comprehensive rebrand project that includes a refined vision, mission, and an updated identity that reflects our forward-looking approach.

TaskMaster is devoted to delivering exceptional workforce solutions that enable organisations to achieve excellence while fostering meaningful connections between clients and candidates. With our updated mission, we are solidifying our role as a catalyst for positive change.

Lucy Kuc, our Director of Business Development, has shared her enthusiasm about our journey: "Our rebrand is a testament to our dedication to providing innovative solutions that make a real impact. For over 20 years, we have been doing exactly that, but our rebrand enables us to communicate our message loud and clear in the market’.

With our fresh brand, we’re ready to make an even greater impact, collaborating with our clients and candidates to shape the future of work.

Take a look around our website and newly branded social media channels, and be sure to let us know what you think!

One of the first things I would say about the service received from Taskmaster is the high calibre of candidates they send across. We use 3.5 tonne van drivers and have been so impressed with a number of the temporary drivers they have provided that many have gone on to be offered permanent jobs with us and are still working for us now. As a client I also feel they offer good value for money In terms of charge rates when compared to other agencies.

I have only positive things to say about Taskmaster.