Recruitment Specialist

This special place in South West London between the capital and the country has been a Royal borough longer than anywhere else - it is where the first kings of England were crowned.

Today it is a vibrant and diverse borough, with a long history and strong cultural and community heritage. Kingston's riverside location, fantastic retail offer, historic market place and church, parks and gardens all make Kingston town centre the vibrant space it is, and each of our district town centres (Surbiton, New Malden, Tolworth and Chessington) have something unique to offer.

Situated in Zone 6, Kingston is among the best-connected town centres in London – with direct train links from Kingston and Surbiton stations to Clapham Junction and London Waterloo, as well as Wimbledon for an interchange with the London Underground and Tramlink.

Kingston’s people are innovative and entrepreneurial, and have a strong sense of community pride. The borough has been home to great industry and creativity for many years, reflected in assets such as the Rose Theatre, the International Youth Arts Festival and Kingston University, which boasts more new graduate business start-ups than any other.

We have seen tremendous generosity and compassion within our communities, particularly in response to COVID-19, which is a demonstration of Kingston’s key strength. The council offers a strong level of support to vulnerable groups and those who need additional support, which has also increased significantly as a result of the pandemic. Like most places, the average age of our population is rising as more people are living longer, so we are working closely with residents to help them maintain their independence and further improve the cost effectiveness of our service to meet the ongoing rise in demand.

Kingston is home to people from diverse and interesting cultures and backgrounds, which helps to create the rich sense of community shared across the borough. In particular, Kingston has a large Sri Lankan Tamil community and is home to more people from Korea than any other part of the UK.

We're recruiting for an HR Agency Recruitment Contract Specialist to cover maternity leave up until 31st March 2023. 

In this exciting and varied role you will manage and be the first point of contact for all temporary staffing needs across Kingston and Sutton Councils. You will work with and manage the relationship with our outsourced provider (Matrix SCM) to ensure all temporary staffing requirements are dealt with efficiently, taking the most appropriate sourcing approach and filled first time wherever possible, in line with our contract terms. 

This is a high profile role and you’ll have the opportunity to work with a number of key stakeholders across both Councils as well as the wider HR and Organisational Development (OD) Shared Service.

In this role you will:

• Regularly meet with our temporary staffing provider to monitor progress on staffing requirements, escalating if required and liaising directly with approved agencies to provide detailed briefs for hard to fill roles
• Support (and challenge when needed) hiring managers with their temporary staffing queries and needs in line with our policies and procedures, as well as relevant legislation including IR35, agency worker regulations (AWR) etc
• Produce management information reports (with analysis) on a weekly basis showing key trends for temporary staffing across both Councils, including factors such agency spend, staff tenure in post etc, broken down by different Council departments
• Ensure our agency recruitment and HR information systems are kept up to date and in sync to facilitate joint up and accurate reporting
• Ensure all payments to our temporary staffing provider are checked for accuracy and paid in line with our contract terms (using our in-house purchase orders and payments system).

For a full breakdown of the roles and responsibilities please refer to the detailed job profile.

This is an exciting opportunity to join a progressive Human Resources and OD Shared Service that focuses on our customers’ needs across Kingston Council, Sutton Council, and our partner organisations. We are building a strategically focused OD service that is responsive to our customer needs and enables them to provide the services needed for the communities we work with. This is a great place to be a HR and OD Professional.

This role sits within our Resourcing and Reward Team who manage the end to end recruitment process and overall reward and benefits offer for both Councils and our partner organisations.

To be successful in this role you will need:

• Demonstrable experience of working within a public sector recruitment and resourcing function
• Strong knowledge and experience of managing the temporary/agency staffing process
• Strong knowledge and an excellent understanding of the different types of employment status that apply to agency workers and relevant associated legislation, including IR35, (AWR) etc 
• Experience of managing contracts and monitoring supplier performance

As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we’re committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We’re constantly striving to improve our ways of working so putting your ideas across however big or small; will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic and experienced management team.

In addition we offer a modern and flexible working environment for our staff supported by our IT infrastructure, Google Chromebooks and Google Apps, which have acted as a key enabler for collaborative and streamlined working. The COVID-19 pandemic has required us to be even more flexible in how we work and manage staff workloads, ensuring they have the correct equipment and resources to be able to maximise their talents and looking after their wellbeing.

Employees have access to a wide range of benefits, some of which include:

• Generous annual leave entitlement plus bank holidays (pro-rata if part-time working hours apply)
• Three volunteering days per year
• Flexible and agile working arrangements
• Comprehensive learning and development programme
• Discounts on a range of local shops, restaurants, gyms and leisure centres
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Local Government Pension Scheme
• Bicycle loan facilities and cycle to work scheme
• Zip car scheme
• Free eye tests and contribution towards glasses
• Confidential wellbeing and counselling support
• Subsidised gym membership

We pride ourselves on being a diverse, tolerant and welcoming Borough and we aim to create a workforce which reflects the community we serve. We are respectful of difference and realise the positive value of diversity in our workforce. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds and particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates and disabled candidates as these groups are currently under-represented in our workforce.

We are proud to be recognised as a Disability Confident employer, and are committed to thinking differently about disability and taking action to improve how we recruit, retain and develop disabled people. We guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum/essential criteria for the role.   

We offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement forums, and inclusive staff networks who help drive our diversity agenda.

We are an accredited London Living Wage Employer and this means that everyone working at the Royal Borough of Kingston, regardless of whether they are permanent employees or third-party contractors and suppliers receive the London Living Wage. The real Living Wage is higher than the government’s minimum, or National Living Wage, and is an independently calculated hourly rate of pay that is based on the actual cost of living.

The UK has introduced a new points-based immigration system affecting EU and Non-EU workers and sponsorship requirements. We advise checking the GOV.UK website for right to work guidance.