Demand for agency workers is on the increase nationally and that was reflected in Pathfinder Personnel’s statistics for 2015, which saw a rise of 19 per cent in staff allocations compared to the previous year.
Over 73,000 roles were filled across all UK locations with the Southampton office alone 26.25% up on 2014. So, what are the prospects for 2016?
News will soon be published of one of our sister companies winning further cruise ship work that will expand our UK footprint. In the South of England, my expectation is that our business, and the need for more people to service it, will continue to grow as clients see the value of flexibility in their labour use. Most importantly, as our business grows, we will be in a stronger position to offer personnel more regular work.
Our search for committed, reliable people therefore continues apace. If they come complete with driving or cargo hand ling experience even better; if not we will undertake to train the right people so that they enhance their capability to secure more agency work at better pay rates.
Naturally, we’re fully committed to improving the service that we provide to our people and our customers. As a result, we have recently commissioned two surveys that provide us with the data to address customer needs more effectively and to make Pathfinder a better place to work for our people.
My aim for 2016 is to make Pathfinder the preferred agency wherever we have locations. One of the avenues to achieving this is to grow the number of annual allocations further so that we offer our existing personnel better opportunities and attract more high calibre people.
Although the national economy is growing slowly and there is a still a degree of apprehension out there, my experience in port activity is that cargo volumes are on the up. At Pathfinder, we’re ready to take advantage of that and pass on the benefits to our agency workers.
