New service for recruiting temporary workers

As part of our financial control measures, to help reduce spend we must be doing all we can to avoid using temporary agency staff for vacant posts and where we have to ensuring we first seek approval from the relevant Workforce board.

For many years, we have been supported in recruiting temporary staff by Matrix.

Over the past 12 months, we have been exploring options available for the provision of temporary agency workers.

Following a procurement process, we have decided to use the WMTemps service, which is a regional agency solution provided by Opus People Solutions in partnership with West Midlands Employers, the Regional Employers organisation for the West Midlands.

The recruitment market is becoming increasingly challenging and this partnership solution provides a combination of agency worker provision and workforce development support, which will help us with our ongoing recruitment and retention plans.

Opus People Solutions are well established, public sector owned organisation who specialise in providing cost effective, high quality end-to-end recruitment services. They come with good public sector values and will continue to support our commitment to social value and local recruitment.

We will move to Opus People Solutions and the WMTemps service will commence on Monday 21 October 2024.

Over the next few months, we will be working with Opus People Solutions to implement the WMTemps service, to ensure a smooth transition and there should be no impact to your current placements.

In the coming weeks, we will be providing more detail about the transfer process and working with our hiring managers during the transition period, but for now please continue to work with Matrix.

You can find out more about the changes by attending an introduction session with our new provider:

Date	Time	Location	Registration Link
Tuesday 8th	12:00-13:00	Microsoft Teams	Register here
Friday 11th	11:00-12:00	Microsoft Teams	Register here
Thursday 17th	10:00-11:00	Microsoft Teams	Register here
Monday 21st	11:00-12:00	Council Chamber, Shirehall [In Person Only]	Register here

We will be communicating with you regularly about these changes and information about our agency provision will be made available on our HR extranet.

We’ll keep relevant information updated here going forward. If you have any questions in the meantime, please contact your Strategic HR Business Partner.