Harris global: why we chose Standards in Recruitment
Alan Feast, director of Harris global Limited, talks to Standards in Recruitment about why the company decided to apply for the SiR accreditation programme.
“We’ve been operating for six years but from the outset we have had a clear vision of how we wanted to differentiate ourselves, in terms of service quality, but also in terms of ethics and compliance, to ensure that as a recruitment business we really stood out from the crowd. So, in 2014, we were proud to be the first recruitment consultancy in the UK to be accredited with overall Gold Award in the Responsible Business Standard from the Organisation for Responsible Businesses’ (ORB).
Building compliance credentials
“Having achieved the Responsible Business Standard, we embarked on a three year development plan for the company which included looking at how we wanted to build the company and its compliance credentials. I was familiar with ISO 9000 but we were looking for something more relevant to us as a recruitment business”.
Gap Analysis was spot on
Alan continues “The Standards in Recruitment programme seemed to match exactly how we wanted to develop as a company. Admittedly, before we embarked on the programme we were a bit apprehensive about opening up our business to external scrutiny, but in the end we found that the process leading up to, and during, the Gap Analysis, was extremely good and very straightforward. The Gap Analysis itself was spot on, as it addressed the issues that we were looking for. We are now working our way through the findings of the report which will act as a blueprint to help us through our current growth phase.”
Alan explained that the company is currently in the process of moving to larger premises, having almost doubled its workforce recently. It is also investing in more training, as well as new technology for analytics, document management and digital signatures.
SiR programme is great value
Asked whether he would recommend the SiR programme to other recruitment agencies, Alan said “For the information they would get from undertaking the Gap Analysis alone it would be worth the investment, as like us, it would allow them to prioritise and plan. The SiR programme is great value for agencies, so I believe they would be bonkers not to go for it.”
Harris global is an award-winning technical recruitment consultancy specialising in IT infrastructure and cyber security talent. In addition, they are heavily relied upon by government, defence and other highly sensitive organisations to provide security cleared professionals for transformation and change projects. Harris global is working towards achieving full SiR accreditation in 2017.
