A personal opinion from Jeanette Ramsden, Co-Owner, The Curve Group

BPO will continue to grow from strength to strength as outsourcing your non-core activity will be seen as “it’s what all companies do”.  No-one finds it in the least bit strange that organisations outsource their catering and cleaning and I feel this is exactly how an organisation will feel, moving forward, about BPO.  However, how medium sized companies are serviced will be interesting and provide a market opportunity.

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Laura King, Talent Executive for The Curve Group, who was voted one of the most influential women in recruitment on LinkedIn recently, was asked to provide some top tips on using LinkedIn for The Undercover Recruiter online magazine. Read the rest of this post

-Employers use harsh methods to reduce pension benefits-

In a nationwide survey conducted by UK HR services company, The Curve Group, 50% of companies who responded stated that the financial burden of introducing a new pension in light of the changes in legislation is restricting their ability to recruit new employees.

Equally surprising was some of the harsher methods employers have been using in the last 12 months to reduce pension benefits, such as dismissing and then re-engaging the entire workforce on a new contract with a 6% contribution versus the previously higher and differentiated rates.  Also none of the companies that responded are offering final salary pensions to new joiners and instead two-thirds of employers are offering defined contribution schemes and one third offering no pension at all. Read the rest of this post

In 2007 The Curve Group’s founders Della Wolfe and Jeanette Ramsden were joined by Lyndsey Simpson, who left a Corporate Banking career to join them as a Co-Owner of The Curve Group. Six years on and Lyndsey has written an article for Real Business magazine on taking the leap from FTSE 100 to an SME sized company, why she did it and top tips if you are thinking of doing the same, including making sure you find the right partners and having a laugh everyday.
To read the article in full click here

…our very own Laura King!

The power user list, which includes professionals from across the UK and from a mixture of large and small recruiting agencies as well as large organisations such as the BBC and Harrods, is a snapshot of the wide range of talent acquisition professionals using LinkedIn in their career. “The list identifies and celebrates the most engaged professional women in the recruitment industry and the value they are getting through the power of our platform,” said David Cohen, who leads the Talent Solutions practice in the UK & Northern Europe at LinkedIn.

For the full article please click here

One of the leading online SME titles Growing Business has covered some recent news of ours sent out by Lloyds Banking Group. The news details our current expansion plans and how The Curve Group has partnered with Lloyds Banking Group to drive this fast growth of the company. Check out the news here

You may have started to read in the papers about the next big mis-selling scandal to be hitting the Banks. This time it is about the sale of Interest Rate Hedging Products to Small & Medium Sized Businesses (SMEs) – 28,000 of them to be precise across 11 Banks. It featured in all the main UK Sunday papers this last weekend, but here at The Curve Group, we have been living and breathing this project since October 2012.

Why? Well at Curve Contractors, we are powering one of the Big 4 Banks review and redress project by exclusively providing them with all the skilled external contractors they need to support this critical project.

An easy task you may think? Not so when there is no established contractor market in the relationship management side of Corporate & Commercial Banking and of course simple demand & supply – 11 banks, running concurrent projects requiring the same skills set. Click here to view our short case study about our response to this Banking challenge.

Expert Insight to The Director Magazine

One of the most regarded business titles in the UK is The Director, which is distributed to over 50,000 business leaders including members of the Institute of Directors. In the December/January edition, which is hitting people’s desks right now, is a 60 second expert guide to Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) written by The Curve Group’s Lyndsey Simpson. The guide explains what it is, who it is suitable for and common misconceptions. This is the first time that the magazine has covered the subject and Lyndsey will be providing more insight to the magazine in the future.

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So is Integrated Talent Management another buzzword or is it the next BIG thing to transform HR within today’s organisations?

What is it?

There is no one agreed industry definition, but in our experience, it is when several of the following eight HR disciplines are interconnected with each other to create a holistic approach to talent and the employee lifecycle:

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Christmas party antics still rife

5th December 2012 – National HR Services company, The Curve Group, has revealed that staff are using work time for that all important Christmas shopping. According to The Curve Group’s recent survey, 62% have shopped online at work for Christmas presents and over half have gone shopping on the way back from a meeting. The cost for businesses doesn’t stop there with 76% of respondents admitting to sending their Christmas Cards out via the office post room.

On a lighter note, the Christmas party, meanwhile, is responsible for some very different results – one in five party people have ended up in a relationship with a colleague or their boss following the party, while over a third have taken the next day off sick. Read the rest of this post