Mark SmithThe Association of Professional Staffing Companies has a specific role to play in the recruitment sector. Its mission is the promotion of excellence throughout the recruitment landscape – a mission that it follows by ensuring members are fully informed about current regulatory requirements within the market sector.
APSCo isn’t the only professional body associated with the recruitment industry. Together with other recruitment industry bodies, it helps form a layer of information and support uniquely set up to answer the requirements of one of the most fragmentary industries in the country.
Recruitment enjoys a strange relationship with its clients. Companies and individuals working in the industry become temporary components of client companies’ HR teams; meaning that they and the other organizations devoted to the promulgation of information within the industry must be on top of information pertaining to HR as well as recruiting.
There are a number of areas in which bodies like this are considered to help the recruitment industry. In addition to the provision of latest information regarding regulations and their effects on individuals and companies working with the sector, the organization is also there to help with routine business matters such as tax and insurance.
Like many of its members, it has a number of primary sectors in which it works. These include accountancy, marketing and creative, pharmaceutical and scientific, telecoms, banking and finance and law. Knowledge of these sectors enables the organization to provide informed backup for the members, who work within them.
Promoting excellence across the board means promoting provable methods of customer service tracking too. Members are required to adhere to the APSCo code of conduct, which both defines the behavior of the member and denotes the degree to which the member has joined the organization. There are three levels of membership and associated codes of conduct – the affiliates’ code of conduct, the members’ code of conduct and the “APSCode”.
The advantages to members lie with their ability to endorse. Wherever a Government body, an agency or another company is aware of the quality assurance denoted by their mark, the company or agency owning that mark is, in their own words, given a “clear commercial advantage”. The spirit of this advantage is clear. In theory, to join a body like this is to show potential clients and business partners that a respected industry body has endorsed you (as noted) for skills and conduct.
Honesty plays a big part in all the codes of conduct put out by the organization – as does the idea of on-going staff training. Members are expected to be honest with all clients and candidates, whether they are affiliated to the organization or not. They’re also expected to train their staff in the requirements levied by the codes of conduct, ensuring that the organization’s preferred behaviors are expressed at every level of a member company.
Organizations like APSCo exist to help companies navigate the minefield of HR regulation – a set of rules continually in flux. Its most valuable commodity is its knowledge.
APSCo is one of a number of industry bodies set up to promote best practice in the fields of HR and recruitment.
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