As employers continue to secure the advantages of an agile workforce, and the government seeks to curb some of the unwanted uncertainty around flexible employment contracts, attracting and retaining an hourly and contingent workforce is becoming more challenging than ever. In a webinar from The HR World, HR practitioners with hands on experience on these kind of workers spoke alongside webinar sponsor Deputy in exploring the challenges and opportunities in this area.

James Cust, Senior Account Executive, Deputy provided an over-arching industry voice together with insights from his company’s recent annual survey of shift workers. Meanwhile Kirsty Murphy, Chief People Officer and COO for Learning Disability, Alternative Futures Group (AFG) and Gareth Neale, Head of Human Resources, Crimson Hotels both spokes of their experiences and some of the initiatives their organisations were taking in order to attract, recruit and retain these types of employees.

There’s no doubt but finding the required talent is a challenge. However it was interesting to find that AFG was hiring for values only and then training its recruits with the skills required. Crimson Hotels also deployed a comprehensive training plan, one which had recently been updated and was continually being assessed to ensure that even at this early stage new recruits were engaged and motivated to work for the business.

As Neale pointed out, many flexible or shift workers work in this way in order to stage work around other commitments in life but it is still necessary to ensure they feel they are a part of the business – an aspect supported by Deputy’s survey which found a significant number of shift workers are motivated by doing meaningful work. It was also interesting to note that both employers clearly took an ongoing interest in the talent they brought onboard, offering them the chance to grow and contribute further to the organisation rather than simply staying in the hourly roles where they start.

All the panelist reported being engaged with the Employment Rights Bill and the implications for zero hours contracts and other aspects of employing hourly and contingent workers. Certainly the changes present further complications for employers to get to grips with, but they also establish an important new balance between employer and employees when it comes to what is expected from an employment relationship. As these development continue we will no doubt be hosting debates and information to help HR steer a compliant path.