On Thursday 18th of July our Regional Director, Daniel Simmonite and Vicky Weir, from Sanderson’s Manchester Office partnered with with Ward Hadaway and their employment partners Caroline Shafar and Laura Darnley to deliver a webinar discussing the key HR changes businesses can expect to see in line with the Employment Rights  and Equality (Race and Disability) Bills as set out in the King’s Speech.

If you missed this webinar, you can listen to the recording where we cover the discussion points below, along with practical tips for businesses to navigate this period of change.

Watch a full recording of this Webinar here. 

Here is a summary of the key discussion points:

• Ban on Exploitative Zero-Hour Contracts: Ensuring fair employment terms by prohibiting exploitative contracts without guaranteed hours.

• Day-One Employment Protections: Granting immediate unfair dismissal protection from the first day of employment (although probationary periods will be permitted).

• Ban on Fire and Rehire Practices: Preventing dismissing and rehiring employees on less favourable terms.

• Day-One Statutory Sick Pay (SSP): Legal requirement to pay statutory sick pay from the first day of employment and removal of the lower earnings threshold.

• Flexible Working by Default: Establishing flexible working arrangements as the standard for all employees.

• Protection for Maternity Leave Returners: Making it unlawful to dismiss a maternity leave returner except under specific, justified circumstances.

• Trade Union Recognition Reforms: Implementing changes to trade union recognition and negotiating rights.

• Equality Legislation: Introducing the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill. Mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for large employers.

• Extend Equal Pay Rights: New right for employees to bring equal pay claims based on ethnicity and disability, not just gender.

Listen to the full recording here

There is no question that hybrid and remote working is here to stay but does it create unintended challenges for those entering the workforce for the first time or those early careers roles that require on the job training and support?

Mark Beale, Director of Delivery and Engagement at Sanderson notes ‘The emphasis of our RPO solutions into the financial services sector has evolved over the past 18 months from the ability to deliver high volumes of hires to meet the post-covid surge in demand, to partnering with our clients to deliver strategies that help them retain and develop their early careers talent, creating sustainable succession pipelines for senior and specialist roles.’

A question recently posed to us was, ‘how do we provide a better employee experience so that we can engage and retain more of our early careers talent, particularly with the increase in hybrid and remote working practices?’

To get a deeper understanding of these challenges, Sanderson partnered with a variety of Banks, Building Societies, Insurance, Wealth & Investment companies to understand their approach to this challenge and we have shared our findings in a comprehensive and downloadable report.

Download your copy today via this link.

If you would like to discuss any of the issues discussed in this paper, or have any questions on your own early careers candidates, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

We are excited to be partnering with The HR World on a Breakfast Networking and Panel event in Manchester on July 3^rd exploring AI in the workplace.

In recent years, advancements in AI technologies have surged, permeating nearly every industry and facet of our lives. From automating routine tasks to augmenting human decision-making, AI holds the promise of revolutionising productivity, efficiency, and creativity in the workplace. However, with this promise also comes a myriad of questions, concerns, and ethical considerations that demand our careful scrutiny and reflection.

This event will be led by four experts: Sue Turner OBE, Founder of AI Governance, Dr Naeema Pasha, Visiting Fellow, Henley Business School, Richard Pell-Nolan Chief Operating Officer & Chief People Officer, Epos Now and Charu Malhotra Global Leader in Talent Transformation and DEI, who will be sharing their knowledge and experiences and look at the pitfalls and the risks of AI in the workplace.

With advancements in AI continuing to surge, this event will give you insights into how you can prepare and plan for your business.

If you would like to attend for free you can book your place here

At the end of January, the Projects team extended an invitation to all of our Associates to join us at the South-West APM Event around ‘Sustainability in Project Management’ with guest speaker Will Masters.

APM is the only chartered membership organisation representing the project profession in the world, so we’re really excited to be a part of their events. In true Sanderson style, APM also believe that project delivery is all about achieving our clients desired outcomes but is also about so much more than process alone. They challenge the status quo and champion the new to help the project profession deliver better.

At this event, speaker Will Masters was incredibly engaging and provided a clear and insightful approach to layering sustainability into Project Delivery. It was a stark reminder that Climate Change is happening all around us, and we all have a responsibility to flatten the steep curve, both in our day to day lives and through the project lifecycle.

What did we learn?

The biggest take home for us as a team was around culture, and that being the biggest driver in positive change.

Following the event, we as a team have been exploring ways we can reduce our carbon footprint, personally and professionally with an initial focus on travel to work.

We are collating data from within our Community and will be taking travel impacts into account for new Associates throughout 2024.

Coming up next

Over the course of the year, we’ll be offering more APM events out to our Projects Associate Community, so keep an eye out and let us know if you would like to join us!

As ever, if you would like to chat more about our Associate Community, or about our Projects offering, please do reach out at [email protected]

In conjunction with TechBlast, we hosted a Tech Breakfast meet-up event at our Manchester office.

Raising investment is one of the biggest catch-22 scenarios facing many businesses. Hiring the best teams and building game-changing products all costs money, so how can a bootstrapped business be expected to navigate the investment minefield? Choosing the right investor is a good place to start, but what if you pick the wrong one?

On the 18th April, we welcomed Senior Tech founders, Advisors, NEDs and Angel Investors to our Manchester Office. 

• Our panel of founders and a panel of investors shared their own stories of dealing with different types of investment. It sparked some really insightful debates and discussions looking at both sides of the investment process.
• It was a a great opportunity to understand what a good investment looks like, and the type of approach to take when taking your company to market for investment. 

Thank you to everyone who joined us, it was a great morning of networking and listening to people’s personal experiences. We are looking forward to hosting more events like this in the future. 

We are delighted to have been awarded a Vendor Neutral Managed Service into two key divisions of the Cabinet Office, namely Government Digital Services (GDS) and the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO).

Our service, launched in April this year, is branded as Extended Talent and Services (ETS) reflecting the programme ambitions to capture a wide-ranging pool of DDaT and Commercial talent to augment civil service and partner delivered resources.

The key aims for the programme are:

• Implementation of an ambitious sourcing strategy providing multiple routes to market. To deliver a talent partner solution that helps GDS and CDDO remain competitive in the market and to make improved strategic sourcing decisions.
• Reductions in time-to-fill rates, whilst increasing and improving engagement with key strategic suppliers who specialise in the supply of workers across DDaT and Commercial areas.
• Access to quality market research, talent market trends and accurate pricing data to support more informed decision making and offer choice.
• Implement market leading technology to reduce the admin and contractual burden, ensure all processes are transparent, and offer real-time and supportive reporting

Commenting on this latest win, Nick Walrond, Managing Director of Sanderson Government & Defence said;

“We look forward to forging a long term and successful partnership with the GDS and CDDO teams, whilst building trusted and effective relationships with the critical supply chain. Our aim is to offer a route for new suppliers to be able to be onboarded quickly and easily in alignment with the future skills challenges faced by these key areas of government.”

Our Government and Defence team are going to be at the Security Cleared Expo in Bristol later this month.

As the leading innovative government and defence talent specialist, we are recognised for delivering exceptional teams into a wide range of clients.

We only recruit for the UK government and their critical supply chains, including: Ministry of Defence (MOD) and areas of National Security; Central Government and Arm’s Length Bodies; National Policing and Justice; and the broader Public Sector.

Come and meet our team

If you are looking for a new challenge and have security clearance, come and meet our talent solutions specialists at the forthcoming SC Expo to be held in Bristol on 25th April.

The event takes place from 10-3pm at Aerospace Bristol under the last Concorde aircraft to fly. Registration to the event is free – click here to secure your ticket.

National Interview Week is an incredibly important initiative which has been launched to address the urgent development gap in schools across the UK.

In collaboration with YourGamePlan and Oppidan Education, National Interview Week aims to foster pupil confidence and arm students with the skills and tools they need as they get ready to take the next steps in their education or career.

Over the last few months, the scheme has been inviting schools and colleges nationwide and students in Year 12 and above to sign up as they gear up to provide up to 5000 free interview sessions during the Autumn term, and Sanderson has been helping.

21 of our brilliant colleagues across our Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Manchester offices volunteered for an amazing 66 hours to interview 126 students.

An incredibly worthwhile initiative and the team were inspired by the individual stories and career aspirations of the students they got to work with.

The Sanderson team were delighted to be a part of the South Gloucestershire Council’s International Communities Employment Programme (ICEP) to help deliver employability workshops.

Set up by the council, the programme offers re-settled communities in South Gloucestershire employment support such as:

• Job hunting
• Free ESOL courses
• Free employability courses
• 1-2-1 mentoring support
• CVs and cover letters
• Job applications

Getting involved with the programme, Lewis Snell from Sanderson Government and Defence Group joined Neil Giddens and Conor Hillier from Sanderson’s Insights team to deliver an employability workshop at the Kingswood Skills Hub.

A fantastic initiative, we caught up with Conor to hear his reflections on the day:

“We had a really successful day, terrific to spend time with people of such different backgrounds and to help a handful of talented people find their feet in UK employment and get ready for their futures“.

Well done to Kingswood Skills Hub for organising such a brilliant session!

At Sanderson, we believe it’s important to give back to the communities where we all live and work, and to put time and energy into our chosen charities and the vital work they do.

That’s why this week we were all super excited to get into the festive spirit, don our Christmas jumpers for annual Christmas Jumper Day and host our charity raffle event.

We are proud to say we raised more than £700 for Little Hero, an organisation close to Sanderson’s heart as it is inspired by John Rainsbury’s son, Will and his fight with a Childhood Brain Tumour – Medulloblastoma. Little Hero is continuing his fight by supporting others experiencing childhood cancer with stays at Will’s Woodland, an opportunity for families to escape and take a break away from a hospital setting in safety and seclusion as well as funding critically needed research into new treatments for the most aggressive paediatric brain tumours.

Thanks to the support of Sanderson, the £700 raised will send 4 children and their families to Will’s Woodland for a much-deserved respite break.

You can find out more about the fantastic work Little Hero does here.