Recently we have had a number of clients approaching us or our partners acknowledging they need to move away from their labour broker (Temporary Employment Service) relationship because of the increased risk they face following recent changes to the Labour Relations Act requiring:

• “Equal pay for equal work”; and
• Deeming those providing supervision and control to be the employer of workers irrespective of contractual relationships

These changes have been backed up by court cases making it too risky for employers to use labour brokers except in specific circumstances.

However, they have been concerned that as their labour broking staff make up a material part of their workforce that they will not have the resources or systems to handle the additional burden. In some cases this is complicated further by the client not having structures and policies to suit blue collar workers traditionally sourced through labour brokers.

While it may be daunting for an HR and/or Finance Department to think about taking on hundreds of new employees overnight in practice there are various options available to manage the transition process.

Key amongst these would be looking to a company like HRTorQue to assist. HRTorQue can provide a full service (with a likely cost saving against labour broker charges) for the transition to bring employees in-house.