Employers "poaching" temporary/flexible agency staff?

[amateur]

Hi,

Perhaps someone who is au fait with employment law can answer this.

Say if a company (employer) uses a recruitment agent to employ temporary/seasonal staff. The employer thinks "STeve from ABC temp agency is pretty good ....perhaps we should keep him as one of our own"... How long before an employer can "poach" a temporary agency staff .... Or what's the fee to have the temp "released" early from the agency? Or does it vary according to individual t and c?

This is a general query not rail related.

 

[Puffing Devil]

Depends on the contract with the temp agency. Normally temp to perm rates are in the contract.

 

[Smudger105e]

I am curently working as a contravtor, coincidentally for a rail company.

The rail companys tend to use the agency system as a trial for the staffs. I have worked for 8 weeks so far on a 3 month contract, it is likley that I will be retained after that date and offered a full time contract with the company after 6 or 7 months. At present the employer can terminate my contract at any time with no notice, which is not a situation with which I am particularly comfortable as it provides no security.

 

[Kite159]

Last year when the company I work for was recruiting chefs, the fee to convert from agency to permanent was something around £2000 from one agency, '6 weeks wages' from the other agency used. So it varies agency to agency as per the terms of the contract.

And how needy of staff the company is (more urgently ~ higher release fee).

 

[amateur]

I am curently working as a contravtor, coincidentally for a rail company.

The rail companys tend to use the agency system as a trial for the staffs. I have worked for 8 weeks so far on a 3 month contract, it is likley that I will be retained after that date and offered a full time contract with the company after 6 or 7 months. At present the employer can terminate my contract at any time with no notice, which is not a situation with which I am particularly comfortable as it provides no security.

Are you not allowed to start a permanent contract immediately after the 3 month contract ends? Do you have to wait 6 months before signing a permanent contract?

 

[CatfordCat]

Any arrangement between the employer and the agency would depend on the terms of the deal between them, and isn't really the employee's worry.

Although the employer may seek a short break between the two spells of employment, as it appears that tribunals can consider the whole employment period to be continuous for things like entitlement to redundancy pay.

I can find an article (aimed at employers) here which may or may not be 100% up to date.

As regards the employee - it is legal for employers to put a restriction on employees going to work for a competitor within X amount of time, although these often come down to arguing at any subsequent tribunal as to whether they are 'reasonable' or not.

It might be reasonable (for example) for a major transport plc to put a restraint on someone who has led the rail franchise bidding team going and working for a competing transport plc straight away. It is less likely to be considered reasonable to impose a similar constraint on someone who's been a station cleaner, and even if such a clause has been put in to a contract, a court can rule that it's an 'unreasonable contract' and refuse to enforce it.

Is the permanent job just being offered, or are you applying for a post that's been advertised publicly? I can think of no restriction on someone who's working via an agency applying for / being offered a permanent role with the client company. And if it was illegal to offer a permanent role, then I'd have thought that the company wouldn't do so if it was illegal.

This (from ACAS) may be worth a look (although it's more about agency workers rights in general) - and a call to their advice line (free and confidential) may be worthwhile.

All the above subject to the disclaimer that I'm not any sort of lawyer and it's a while since I was a union rep.