Safe Screening on YouTube

Posted: 28/05/2012 16:12:59 from Web by Renata

Watch our latest video: http://youtu.be/XcPZLvAFJ_U

Follow our channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/SafeComputingUK

Safe on YouTube

Posted: 16/05/2012 16:09:35 from Web by Renata

Watch our latest video:

http://youtu.be/czQCkuMmvMs

Follow our channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/SafeComputingUK

Should employers, agencies, or employees pay for recruitment checks?

Posted: 23/04/2012 15:39:12 from Web by Renata

Pre-employment background checks are becomingly increasingly compulsory and complex in many industries. Every UK employer needs to check at least that their candidates have the right to work in the UK. Some industries require more processes in line with current legislation.

It has been recently reported that two blue chip name airlines ask potential employees at the point of job offer to pay for their criminal record check to be conducted themselves.

This has caused controversy with a spokesman for a well-known trade union speaking out their opinion that employers should foot the bill for pre-employment checks. The argument posed centred around those who have been faced with unemployment for an extended period of time, for who this process would potentially present a financial bar to returning to work.

Another airline is currently happy to pay for staff security clearance, for which additional background checks are currently compulsory due to anti-terrorism legislation.

Some employers, it seems, adopt a hybrid approach, like an airport ground handling firm who reportedly initially ask potential employees to foot the bill, offering a refund if then successfully hired.

Whoever pays, the price of a manual process can be costly. Software which can manage the checking process can offer per unit price reductions based on total volume transactions over time. One such supplier is Safe Screening. To find out more, visit www.safescreening.co.uk or email info@safecomputing.co.uk.

Did you earn or buy that degree?

Posted: 16/04/2012 14:14:02 from Web by Renata

Did you earn or buy that degree?

An ever growing problem for those recruiting, is knowing if certificates candidates present, are real, or fake.

With the global recession it has been widely reported that the number of new job opportunities has declined, whilst the number of people looking for work seems ever increasing. The impact of this means there is currently more demand per role than ever before.

Pressure is therefore placed on candidates to stand out from the crowd, so even the most honest of applicants may decide to enhance their CV by supporting this criminal trend. Fraudulent ‘academic institutions’ have been known to sell degrees which are simply a certificate as a result of a financial transaction only and thus representative of no actual formal training process. As fraudulent as this appears, passing off a simply bought qualification as a tangible representation for an actually studied for one, it is hard for law enforcement officials to stop it. The company behind the certificates sold is not in itself, or it’s company name, pretending to be another institution, so there is no copyright infringement to that aspect of their ‘trade’. As an employer recruiting you may try calling up the ‘institution’ to find out if it exists, thinking that could verify the qualification. The ‘institution’ could well dutifully answer the phone to confirm it does indeed exist as an organisation. This too, is not illegal. This does not however guarantee at all that the candidate has studied for the qualification, it could still have come from a simple vendor only organisation and as such be as worthless as the paper it is printed on in terms of the skills set you, as a recruiter, seek to hire.

As an underground process, it is unregulated and fraught with the usual dangers of dealing with less than reprehensible traders. Some job seekers may pay and not even receive their fake certificate. Certain websites have even set up shopping comparison experience forums, calling themselves a sort of unofficial watchdog, to advise potential shoppers who are the most and least trustworthy of the available certificate purveyors.

Clearly these organisations seek to mislead employers and with the rising competition for available positions business seems to be booming for them. However they are on the fringe of the law. What these organisations are doing is clearly wrong and is only vaguely legal as their activities don’t yet have enough legislation against their operation to effectively police it. Thus outlawing this activity is only a matter of time. With cross boarder communications via the internet too, this type of e-tailer is even harder for the authorities to stop.

The cost of the wrong hire isn’t just potentially a fine for an illegal worker, or the costs of advertising twice over to hire. It’s the human resources involved in interviewing and training. It could also be potentially the damage limitation involved in the wrong person coming into contact with personal information.

So as someone looking to hire, or place a candidate with a client, how can you safeguard against fake qualifications? The resultant fact for the organisation seeking to hire is it is very difficult to know which qualifications are real and which aren’t. Post hire it could be several months before the candidate shows the tell-tale signs of knowledge gaps. One software solution can verify qualifications against leading UK academic institutions and automate academic referencing. To find out more about it, visit www.safescreening.co.uk.

How to avoid being ‘named and shamed’ by the government

Posted: 24/02/2012 15:39:06 from Web by Renata

How to avoid being ‘named and shamed’ by the government

No company likes bad press. Building a brand with a noble reputation takes time, good on-going strategy, whilst it can cost a considerable amount in advertising spend.

It has been reported that from February 2012 the UK Boarder Agency will be naming any employer caught employing workers without the proper paperwork and right to work within the UK. As the current fine, per worker, for any illegal employee found is £10,000, the fines can be hard enough for any company in this tough economic climate. Any negative press associated with a brand could damage sales, the impact financially of which could be considerably more.

Statements issued by the agency will be quite specific, leaving nowhere for those who don’t comply to hide. Specified within these ‘name and shame’ communications, accessible to all, will be a breakdown showing the number or illegal workers found in operation in any one employer. Also the agency will state the amount the offending company has been fined, whilst showing a breakdown by geographical location.

Should that not be damaging enough potentially for your brand, the agency also plan to publish names of those who are tardy in paying their fines, giving a company a grace of just 28 days to pay post appeal.

There is only one sensible operating strategy to save your company from the possibility of these issues, which is to check thoroughly those you employ. Manual processes can be costly, time consuming, which can’t guarantee that your teams won’t be duped by falsified documentation. A solution such as Safe Screening can automate a number of checks against key databases and provide a full audit trail to defend your company against any fines or brand devaluing press. See www.safescreening.co.uk, email info@safecomputing.co.uk, or call 0844 583 2134 to find out more.

So many job applicants, so little time…

Posted: 31/01/2012 15:59:34 from Web by Renata

So many job applicants, so little time…

Yes, there’s been a global recession. Yes, times for many businesses have been and are still hard. However for those lucky or clever enough to have sailed through these troubled times of our economy, life goes on, business goes from strength to strength, which means more people will be needed going forwards.

One double edged sword for those recruiting and bucking the trend is the surge in applicants fighting over their jobs. Before an employer could have expected for example 50 applications before the recession per advertised role, 10 of which stood head and shoulders above the rest. Those same employers are now faced with over 200 to process, perhaps 50 of these being of a perfectly adequate standard for the job. How else can you make your shortlist?

What about checking all their claims are true? Time consuming? Safe Screening cloud software can help, automating lots of pre-employment checks. The cloud software gives you a portal on the web which means you can set which questions to ask referees and fully brand the site to your business. By entering some simple contact information, emails containing secure links for respondents are generated and sent. So you can check your job applications swiftly in just a few clicks. The site collects the information for your due diligence and audit trails. For anything that can’t be checked automatically against various leading database sources or via referees, the system will alert you. You can then either manually check this, or ask the Safe Screening team to investigate. If you wanted to, you could even outsource the whole process to the Safe Screening team. Call 0844 583 2134 to find out more.

www.safescreening.co.uk

14 million P2 Coding Notices and RTI

Posted: 06/06/2011 10:58:28 from Web by Renata

As HMRC continues to progress their PAYE computer system with the National Insurance and PAYE Service (NPS), they are expecting to issue 14 million P2 Coding Notices to employers in tax year 2011-12 as Pay and Benefits magazine recently reported.

The problems associated with incorrect tax codes were well highlighted in the national press during 2010, due to the introduction of this new system. These problems have been attributed to a mismatch of information between employers HR and payroll software systems, pension providers and HMRC. The system had to be updated to make sure PAYE will work well in time for the introduction of Real Time Information (RTI).

In readiness for the tax year 2011-12 and in light of previous problems, HMRC issued largely electronically P9s. For those unable to receive P9s electronically in time for the new tax year, HMRC advised they follow the P9X procedure, the main crux of which was to add 100 to any tax code ending in L to reflect a change in allowance. Perhaps ironically, those who couldn’t receive this electronically, thus perhaps the least technology savvy of their audience, were told the full details of how to follow P9X procedure were available on the HMRC website.

Pressure to modernise to leaner greener paperless electronic systems leads organisations such as HMRC to increasingly direct people and organisations to more electronic means. The large HMRC website for procedural information can make it difficult for payroll managers to keep up to speed with all the latest updates and impossible to those who still use paper based systems and manual approaches to payroll. HR software, payroll software, also other payroll solutions such as time and attendance software can all help with compliance through digital updates. However there will still be companies who can’t afford that level of investment, but need that level of processing power. For those, payroll bureau services, or fully managed payroll outsourcing could be the best solution to keeping HR payroll activities up to date.

To find out more about Safe EMS HR and payroll software and bureau or managed services visit www.safe-ems.co.uk and click on ‘enquire online’, or call us on 0844 583 2134 quoting ref ‘HMRC RTI’ to arrange a free demonstration.

Are you considering outsourcing?

Posted: 24/05/2011 11:17:19 from Web by Renata

Safe Outsourcing offer payroll, invoicing, credit control, all via an online portal. In these times of economic uncertainty and legislative changes, it can be tricky to always ensure compliance with in-house practices. Outsourcing seems to be falsely feared as a solution within the recruitment marketplace Safe Outsourcing is one of the few that is Safe in name and nature for your career. You retain full control of your payroll processes via our secure web portals. All correspondence is white labelled, so appears to come directly from your in-house resources. By outsourcing to us, you save the physical time calculating, printing, mailing your payroll, allowing you more time to focus on developing your business. By utilising the Safe Outsourcing model, you can rest assured that your payroll will be powered by award winning software made by Safe Computing, the company behind Safe Outsourcing.

Should your business also be considering funding to bridge the gap between worker payments and client receivables you can even benefit from our preferential rates with our funding partner, Leumi.

Use the links below to register to attend one of our seminars, where you can see our web portals in action and meet our funding partners:

London 27 May

Intellect, Russell Square House, 10-12 Russell Sq, London, WC1B 5EE

http://conta.cc/SafeOutsourcingLondonMay

Birmingham 17 June

Novotel Birmingham Centre, 70 Broad Street, Birmingham, B1 2HT

http://conta.cc/SafeOutsourcingJune

London 8 July - extra London date due to popular demand for this location!

Intellect, Russell Square House, 10-12 Russell Sq, London, WC1B 5EE

http://conta.cc/SafeOutsourcingSeminarJuly

Manchester 14 July

The Swan, Bucklow Hill, Knutsford WA16 6RD

http://conta.cc/SafeOutsourcingManchester

Agenda

9.30 Coffees and registration

10.00 Manage your pay and bill processes from the golf course - Our web portals allow you full automation and control from anywhere!

11.00    Coffees

11.15     Funding and how it can help your business - Leumi ABL

12.15    Close and lunch

Or to find out more now, go to www.safeoutsourcing.co.uk.

fair employment monitoring

Posted: 23/03/2011 14:43:54 from Web by Renata

Fair employment monitoring
The Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 (FETO), as amended by Fair Employment and Treatment Order (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003 , makes it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of religious belief and/or political opinion in the fields of employment, the provision of goods facilities and services, the sale or management of land or property and further and higher education. We created this solution specifically to serve the above legislative requirements.
This module can be added to track religions of those you employ in Northern Ireland, and works totally transparently to your employees.
For your HR teams, this module allows for data collection, so your business is able to demonstrate equality in terms of employment.
This allows your business to anonymously track levels of one religion and of another, so you can keep and demonstrate when questioned, a healthy balance.
To find out more about adding our FETO module to your Safe EMS solution, please contact your account manager or visit www.safe-ems.co.uk and use our ‘enquire online’ link.

Penserver interface

Posted: 23/03/2011 14:40:18 from Web by Renata

Penserver interface
Our penserver interface solution for Safe EMS assists with calculations of pensions for government agencies employees. This tool provides an interface for files of data relating to pensions, and the interface allows the product user to extract the correct information in the correct file format as requested by law. Laws surrounding government pensions are very specific, and file formats are defined within the law. Our penserver interface automatically populates the Safe EMS solution with pension deductions per employee. Captured information through the interface is sent to pension administrators who are usually external to our customer’s business, in a format easily accessible to all, namely Microsoft Excel files.
Some information will need to be manually inputted, for example spouse contact details, however we do provide you with a form screen to make this data entry easier.
You are able to choose the frequency of reports you can run for pensions administration, so if you pay a financial adviser to check these daily, monthly, or annually, you are able to run reports in time to match this agreement. Similarly, if you wish to run reports based on how often the information is likely to change, for example if you run two major recruitment events each year, you are able to customise report dates to suit.
To find out more about adding our penserver interface to your Safe EMS solution, speak to your account manager or visit www.safe-ems.co.uk and use our ‘enquire online’ link.