News & Blog
IT can only make it easier for a Recruitment business!
By Francis West on 10th March 2015
The answer is NO.
In the next two years, the Recruitment sector is going to experience the biggest growth they have had since 2008. Building any business is similar to building a house. Without a solid foundation eventually cracks will appear.
To ensure your recruitment business can sustain the growth, you will need to have the following in place:
- A reliable Internet line (not ADSL as it is not guaranteed and is shared with many companies around your office) such as Leased Lines or EFM. The government is now providing up to £3000 grant to install a 20MBps Leased Line. See https://www.connectionvouchers.co.uk. If you have to stick with ADSL, get a second Internet line with another provider such as virgin or any other cable provider.
- VOIP (voice over IP) do not even consider this unless you have a guaranteed Internet line in place, or your voice calls will drop out while speaking to your best customer. Rather stick with traditional BT ISDN 2e and ISDN 30 lines.
- Throw away PC’s that are older than five years. Replace them with a minimum specification of i5 CPU, 8gig RAM, 500gig Hard Disk, Windows 7 and your staff will love you for it. Did you know that if the user has only 1 hours’ worth of slowness or downtime per week, based on a salary of £23500, the net loss to the business is £750 per user per year?
- Dual screens for every staff member, if the PC is used for more than 4 hours per day. The ability to see your Outlook on one screen and your back-office system on the other will increase productivity (placements) by at least 15 minutes per day.
- Get rid of old-style accountancy systems that still need to be installed on a server/PC, due to high maintenance costs and single point of failure. You can now get www.xero.com online (or other similar systems) for £20 a month, unlimited users and zero downtime.
- Internet and PC security/lockdown. There are many products out there in the market for less than £100 per machine, which will record every keystroke on a machine and report back to the owners. This will make users think twice before stealing your data and setting up their own company in future.
- Asking your brother’s friend to do IT support and then having to wait until the weekend before he or she can fix a problem, can and will cost you placements. Proactive PC and server maintenance should be done on a weekly basis. This will keep machines running as fast as possible and ensure staff can achieve their targets and not blame the tools for underachievement.
- Back-office system - move to a cloud-based system that is recommended by the industry as soon as possible to ensure 99.9% uptime, access from any location you choose to work. This will also help with controlled cost increases when you grow.
The choice is yours; if you follow the advice above you will enjoy the growth and profits. If you don’t, IT will become the biggest pain in your business.
Written by Francis West – Westtek Solutions Ltd.
Providing IT Solutions and Support to the industry for the last 17 years.
Tel: 0203 195 0555 or email: francis.w@westtek.co.uk
Other people also liked:
Recruitment professionals take note! Your candidates’ CVs are safer in the cloud.
IT can only make it easier for a Recruitment business!
The answer is NO.
In the next two years, the Recruitment sector is going to experience the biggest growth they have had since 2008. Building any business is similar to building a house. Without a solid foundation eventually cracks will appear.
To ensure your recruitment business can sustain the growth, you will need to have the following in place:
- A reliable Internet line (not ADSL as it is not guaranteed and is shared with many companies around your office) such as Leased Lines or EFM. The government is now providing up to £3000 grant to install a 20MBps Leased Line. See https://www.connectionvouchers.co.uk. If you have to stick with ADSL, get a second Internet line with another provider such as virgin or any other cable provider.
- VOIP (voice over IP) do not even consider this unless you have a guaranteed Internet line in place, or your voice calls will drop out while speaking to your best customer. Rather stick with traditional BT ISDN 2e and ISDN 30 lines.
- Throw away PC’s that are older than five years. Replace them with a minimum specification of i5 CPU, 8gig RAM, 500gig Hard Disk, Windows 7 and your staff will love you for it. Did you know that if the user has only 1 hours’ worth of slowness or downtime per week, based on a salary of £23500, the net loss to the business is £750 per user per year?
- Dual screens for every staff member, if the PC is used for more than 4 hours per day. The ability to see your Outlook on one screen and your back-office system on the other will increase productivity (placements) by at least 15 minutes per day.
- Get rid of old-style accountancy systems that still need to be installed on a server/PC, due to high maintenance costs and single point of failure. You can now get www.xero.com online (or other similar systems) for £20 a month, unlimited users and zero downtime.
- Internet and PC security/lockdown. There are many products out there in the market for less than £100 per machine, which will record every keystroke on a machine and report back to the owners. This will make users think twice before stealing your data and setting up their own company in future.
- Asking your brother’s friend to do IT support and then having to wait until the weekend before he or she can fix a problem, can and will cost you placements. Proactive PC and server maintenance should be done on a weekly basis. This will keep machines running as fast as possible and ensure staff can achieve their targets and not blame the tools for underachievement.
- Back-office system - move to a cloud-based system that is recommended by the industry as soon as possible to ensure 99.9% uptime, access from any location you choose to work. This will also help with controlled cost increases when you grow.
The choice is yours; if you follow the advice above you will enjoy the growth and profits. If you don’t, IT will become the biggest pain in your business.
Written by Francis West – Westtek Solutions Ltd.
Providing IT Solutions and Support to the industry for the last 17 years.
Tel: 0203 195 0555 or email: francis.w@westtek.co.uk
Other people also liked:
Recruitment professionals take note! Your candidates’ CVs are safer in the cloud.
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