View from the Hill

Work Experience - good for all

For the last two weeks we have had the pleasure of two students from local schools, undergoing work experience. Eamon is 15 at a local school and Hawa is 17 and studying at a nearby college. The timing was fortuitous as they started at the same time as our new Administrator, Shelley (who is 18 and who I found handing out her CV in a local bookshop - never one to miss an opportunity I pounced and brought her back to the office for an interview and she joined us the following week).

Eamon and Hawa have been a delight to have, they have sat in turn with each member of the SHR team understudying and sometimes doing their work with them. They have restored my faith in the education system as both are numerate (essential when checking piles of temporary worker timesheets) and also articulate. They have both impressed Gary our accountant with their intelligent questions about accounts and quickly picked up the essentials of Records Management - I think they know more than me about retention scheduling now.

It takes time to put a work schedule together for them, and then more time to sit with them and explain our work processes but the team here have been happy to share an insight into work in a busy SME, which I think has benefited them as well as Hawa and Eamon. 

In all our years of having work experience students from local schools and colleges we have never been disappointed. In fact one of our work experience students came back here and worked for seven years. He is now a Senior Credit Controller for an investment bank and another (Karen) who joined us straight from school, is a mother and works part-time for us in our payroll and credit department.

Breaking news!

Last night Sue Hill Recruitment made a national splash across the evening news (6.30PM Wed, 27 Oct 2010).

The new auto-enrollment government pension scheme requires that anyone over the age of 22 who is earning more than £7,475 per annum will automatically be enrolled in this new scheme.

While pensions are a good way of saving for the future, and more effective the earlier you start paying into them, they will not always suit everyone at every stage of their life.  Following this year's announcements on tax increases and budget cuts it is likely that anyone earning around £7,500 per annum may prefer not to automatically enroll in this scheme and defer setting up a pension in order to funnel all of their earnings into paying for their minimum needs.

However as the state pension looks to become an increasingly unlikely way of sustaining UK workers in the future it is difficult to deny that taking the initiative and investing in one's own future is for many going to become essential.

But this is not the end of the head-scratching.  With may employers currently offering a better pension than this new scheme would provide, will employers to encouraged to lower their pension provisions to the statutory minimum, leaving many currently with pensions worse off than they are now? 

Add to this the administrative headache for small businesses, recruitment agencies being a good example considering the disproportionally high headcount when you take into account the temporary staff working via an agency.  Temporary staff make up a substantial percentage of the overall UK workforce and not all temporary workers would choose to pay into this scheme.  How will small businesses, some already struggling with reduced staffing levels, manage to administer this scheme?  Where will the knowledge and advice come from? Where will the man hours come from?

In my opinion everyone should consider taking up a private pension of some sort, do the maths and work out if it is right for you and also whether you can afford not to.  The sentiment of this new scheme is good, but the logistics are flawed.

This is Sue Hill Recruitment on TypePad news at 10(AM), good morning.

- Jeremy Clarke

Credit control - more important than ever

More so now then ever credit control has become a bigger part of my role as accounts administrator at Sue Hill. If you don’t chase the outstanding debt then guess what? They don’t pay! You need to keep on top of credit control and keep the cash flowing.

Most clients are trying their very best to hang on to their money for as long as possible until after one, two or sometimes three phone calls they decide they had better pay up. By then they could be 40 days overdue. You need to adopt a chase policy if you are going to be successful in chasing debtors.

• Give a call as soon as the invoice is due that way you can iron out any obstacles before it becomes overdue.
• Always use the phone as your first point of contact
• Always get something from them i.e. a date when the invoice will be processed or a day to call back to check it's been processed.

Credit Control is a very important part of any business as it’s the main point of keeping the cash flowing. As the recession bites it is gratifying to see that our clients are continuing to pay their invoices promptly. Cash flow is particularly important for recruitment companies who have a weekly wages bill to pay. By the time the client gets their invoice around 80% of the invoice value has already been paid to the temporary worker.  Every month we also pay a percentage of those invoices to HMRC for Tax and NI and VAT.

You will find that just spending one hour per day chasing debtors will make a huge impact on your cash flow. Once debtors know you are on the ball and are expecting you to call as soon as the invoice is coming up to be paid, they will think "Let's just pay and get it out the way and save the phone call." Believe me this does happen.