Staffing Match is an award-winning UK recruitment agency that drives business into unprecedented levels of success by filling qualified candidates in temporary and permanent positions. With a solid team of professional and dedicated consultants, we collectively have over thirty-five years’ worth of experience and have established an enviable reputation in the staffing industry, by providing a service that is second to none.
SM Global Consultancy Ltd, trading as Staffing Match, recognise human trafficking, forced labour exists, and could be a risk to our business.
Staffing Match commits to developing and adopting a proactive approach to tackling hidden labour exploitation and recognises that modern slavery is a potential risk to our business, however we are aware of our obligations to ensure that any form of slavery is eradicated and removed at any point during our working journey. We are dedicated in working with all organisations that take slavery as seriously as we do and who share our goal to reduce and eliminate this threat in the UK.
Everyone within our business has a responsibility to ensure that human rights are protected and if any abuse is found it is reported immediately. We are proud to have strict policies and procedures in place to ensure that there is consistent monitoring of our temporary and permanent workers, to ensure we are checking for any signs of labour exploitation, consistent monitoring of our workforce for the signs of human trafficking and labour exploitation.
Staffing Match are proud members of the Association of Labour Providers (ALP) and accredited by the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority. We not only remain compliant against all the required standards, but we go above and beyond this to ensure that any form of slavery is acted upon and managed accordingly.
As part of our ongoing mission to reduce the opportunity for anyone to profit from vulnerable people, we work alongside other agencies and strategic partners to share intelligence on potential victims or offenders.
Full training on how to spot the signs of potential MDS, what reporting lines to trigger in potential offences and how we can protect the alleged victim is carried out with our consultants and onsite teams, from their induction and as part of their continued personal development.
We have the ability to pull live reports on any houses of multiple occupancy, any duplicate contact numbers or bank details being utilised. These are then investigated with the support of the Compliance Manager. HR surgeries are carried out to manage the welfare of our workers. Any actions needed are fed back to the branches & onsite teams to enhance either the registration process or their onsite management service.
Staffing Match shall:
1. Designate appropriate managers, to attend “Tackling Hidden Labour Exploitation” training and to have responsibility for developing and operating company procedures relevant to this issue.
2. Accept that job finding fees are a business cost and will not allow these to be paid by job applicants. The Company will not use any individual or organisation to source and supply workers without confirming that workers are not being charged a work finding fee.
3. Ensure that all staff responsible for directly recruiting workers are trained to be aware of issues around third-party labour exploitation and signs to look for and have signed appropriate Compliance Principles.
4. Ensure that labour sourcing, recruitment and worker placement processes are under the control of trusted and competent staff members.
5. Adopt a proactive approach to reporting suspicions of hidden worker exploitation to the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and police.
6. Provide information on tackling “Hidden Labour Exploitation” to our workforce through a variety of formats such as workplace posters, worker leaflets, induction as well as continual internal and external training courses.
7. Encourage workers to report cases of hidden third-party labour exploitation, provide the means to do so and investigate and act on reports appropriately.
8. Positively encourage and support employees and agency workers to report such exploitation which may be occurring within their communities, by contacting their local branch, on-site account team, or the local police.
9. Require labour providers and other organisations in the labour supply chain to adopt policies and procedures consistent with the above.
Due Diligence, Processes and Action Taken
Staffing Match are committed to ensuring we have processes in place to ensure trained staff are completing regular checks right from the registration process.
As a supplier of labour, we understand the risk involved with human trafficking and the exploitation of our workforce is high, therefore we have designed our recruitment process to attempt to highlight issues from the beginning.
As a business we have invested in the following audit programme. All Staffing Match sites are audited regularly by HR and Compliance to cover the following areas:
- Right to work checks
- Work history
- Documentation in relation to address, bank accounts
- Common telephone number, email or addresses
- Full payroll process
- Registration – application forms are checked to ensure applicants fully understand what positions are available
We welcome our clients to audit us on a regular basis to ensure we have met the required standards.
From the point we receive a registration of an applicant, checks are completed on documentation, with interviews conducted to ensure any issues may be highlighted and picked up at an early stage. All applications are signed off to ensure a secondary check is completed post completion of the application form.
Once applicants have been verified, they will be uploaded to our computerised database where during the time with the company the applicant’s documentation can be monitored for expiry. On payroll we can check addresses and same bank accounts – all these which have been flagged through the system.
System will flag any issues every week in payroll and should there be any highlighted this will be escalated to the senior team to advise next steps.
Regular HR forums with workers are completed with HR on client sites, where we promote the process we have in place to tackle modern slavery including the whistleblowing process. Our dedicated confidential email will be used to help and identify potential issues and enable us to focus our work to help people alongside the GLAA.
Staffing Match prides itself in ensuring our staff are trained to deliver to high standard. We therefore require all our internal staff to complete a 2-day induction programme covering but not limited to, training on right to work checks, compliance, temporary workers, Modern Day slavery, and GLAA. Our training is reviewed and updated regularly
As a recruitment agency we are fully aware that we are at high risk for human trafficking and this can happen anywhere at any time. However, we are confident in the processes we have in place within the company to highlight any problems at a very early stage and with the commitment to meet workers and promoting our processes directly to the workers face to face and through other forms of communications such as emails, staff surveys and worker web pages.
In 2023/24 Staffing Match:-
- Added to the Compliance team members to act as Modern Slavery Champions, who have undergone extensive training
- Re-evaluated all our policies on worker rights and welfare
- Re-trained all our internal staff on spotting the signs of a potential victim of trafficking
- Increased our worker welfare surgeries by 40%
The Modern slavery statement has been approved by the Board of Directors.
Dan Carlin
Business director
For and behalf of SM Global Consultancy Ltd Date: August, 2024
This statement is reviewed constantly throughout the year, with an annual amendment made as a minimum.
