The Heating and Ventilating Contractors Association has launched an organisation to improve professional standards among employment agencies.
The Building Services Engineering Employment Agency Alliance is a voluntary group of employment agencies which supply skilled personnel to contractors across building services engineering.
To qualify for membership, an agency must be able to demonstrate its compliance with the recognised industry standards contained in the alliance's key commitments.
These will be used to establish whether an organisation is operating on a sound commercial footing, is appropriately regulated and displays a commitment to the sector.
To ensure compliance with the key commitments, agencies seeking alliance membership must submit to a business audit carried out by BM TRADA Certification, the same organisation the HVCA uses for its own membership.
This process will be repeated every three years, with an annual compliance inspection taking place in each intervening year.
Capital Group, Oracle Global Resourcing and Phoenix Resourcing Services have already achieved alliance membership, following a series of pilot audits carried out in the second half of 2007.
'Formation of the alliance recognises the increasingly important role that employment agencies are playing in the supply chain, along with the need for clear standartds by which their performance can be judged', said Peter Rimmer, head of the HVCA's Employment Affairs department.
'It will also facilitate strategic dialogue between contractors and their manpower suppliers on a range of issues - including education and training, health and safety, workforce competence and legislation.'
One contractor told heatingandventilating.net that in this time of ever-increasing employment law, his company was risk adverse.
'Whenever there was an employment problem with a sub contractor or even a sub, sub contractor, then the problem comes back to the first tier contractor. Employment problems affect our brand.'
He added that human nature dictated that he worked with employment agencies which he trusted and being an alliance member would boost that trust.
William (Liam) Gleeson of CSS Recruitment Services told HVR he would be willing to join the alliance because it gave his agency and the others in the alliance more credibility and the chance to link up with other agencies and HVCA contractors to discuss industry policy.
Representatives of the first three alliance members were presented with their membership certificates during the launch on April 15. Chairman Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan awarded certificates to Michael Trott of Capital Group, Eugene Semeniuk of Oracle Global Resourcing and Mark Evans of Phoenix Resourcing Services.