Thorn Baker Construction: White Collar Recruitment Specialists

Video interviews have been on the rise for a while, video tech is now being used by 60% of hiring managers, it's become essential during COVID-19. Just because people are working from home doesn’t mean you have to miss out on talent or jobs. In this blog, we share our top tips for video interviews as well some tech tips for Zoom, Skype and WhatsApp. Rob Ford, Head of Thorn Baker Construction Setting the Stage Ahead of the interview, you need to think about and decide where you’re going to get set-up for the interview. Choose a space that is quiet, tidy and will be free from interruptions. This could be a space that is away from where you normally work from at home, does it need a quick tidy? What’s on the walls? Does the space look professional? Does it have good lighting? We would recommend thinking about the direction your camera will face and take a look at the room from that person’s perspective and make any changes you think are needed. This will help you to focus and what you’re doing and serve as a reminder that you’re taking part in a formal interview. You can show your personality for sure but if you have a secret, under the stairs Harry Potter-themed space it might be best to pick another room. The aim is to create a professional and distraction-free environment for both you and the person you are speaking with. P.S don’t forget to prepare what you’re going to wear as well! Find out the Format You need to start your preparation by knowing whether this will be a live interview or a pre-recorded interview. For both types of interview, you need to prepare yourself to get a feel for personality fit, look a little further into your experience and to get to know each other a little more. Live: Pro’s and Con’s A great benefit is that you can build a rapport together – it’s always a good idea have a look at both your interviewers LinkedIn and the businesses social media platforms. What kind of news have they been sharing recently? Make some notes on recent articles or blogs that they have written and you can bring these up within the interview. The flip side to the above is babbling. Being prepared can help to limit this, remember the person conducting the interview may have several people to speak with and running overtime with anecdotes could force an interview to be stopped short and you could miss out on highlighting your great work experience. Pre-recorded: Pro’s and Con’s A plus side to a pre-recorded interview is that you can really have a think about your answers and practice them as more often than not each answer will have a time limit. Why not ask ahead if you can have a copy of the questions? If you get a copy of the questions practice just enough so that you’re confident but not that your answers sound rehearsed. The downside is that you lose the personal experience. Meaning you won’t have the opportunity to ask direct questions or bounce off of each other’s responses. But perhaps you could turn this to your advantage and send the interviewer a follow-up email with any questions that you’d like to ask. Test the Tech It may seem obvious but this is a crucial step whether your interview is live or pre-recorded. Here is our top test the tech tips: Do you need to set up an account? Whichever platform is being used you’ll need to set up an account, make sure to do this well ahead of the interview. Login and have a look around the interface and get familiar with the features Test your audio and webcam – again do this before the interview. Could you test this with a friend or family member? Make sure everything is working so that on the day you are calm and maintain professionalism. Internet connection issues. This is something that everyone has experienced and unless you have a superfast connection you could run into problems. If you know your internet speed is not always the best make sure that no-one in the house is adding to that. Is anyone online gaming? Are downloads happening? There are several options available these days for video interviewing and we have a top tip for the four that we have experienced the most. Zoom Did you know there’s a ‘touch up your appearance’ feature? Click on one of the icons in the top-right corner to access your settings menu then click Video. Alternatively, you can start or join a meeting, then click the arrow next to the video icon and choose video settings. When you’re in the video settings click ‘touch up my appearance’. Skype Struggling to get a background you’re happy with? When you start or join a meeting in the bottom right you’ll see a ‘blur my background’ button, turn this on. WhatsApp Using voice notes during pre-interview or even for the interview? Instead of pressing and holding the microphone icon press and swipe up, this will lock the function ensuring nothing you say will be lost if you take your finger off. Did you know there's a desktop version? It's really simple to set up and It mirrors your account perfectly. You can read about how to set it up here.

It’s generally well known that changes to the governments ‘off-payroll’ rules (known as IR35) for the private sector come into force in April 2020. If your organisation engages or hires contractors/self-employed workers then you’ll probably find this blog a useful read. Paul Jackman: Thorn Baker Group CEO As you’d expect with any change in employment legislation we’re well prepared to keep our clients fully compliant. This blog will give our perspective on the challenges ahead and will be updated from time to time as we approach the deadline – it’s not legal advice and we’d strongly recommend you check out the suggested links for further reading at the end of this blog. What is IR35? Introduced back in 2000, IR35 is a set of tax rules that was introduced for workers (who typically refer to themselves as contractors) who provide their services via an intermediary, typically their own limited company. The aim of IR35 is to tackle tax and National Insurance avoidance by individuals who are effectively known as what is termed a ‘disguised employee’. Workers are either ‘Inside IR35’ where PAYE deductions must be made or ‘Outside IR35 where PAYE deductions do not need to be made Simply put, if the workers' relationship looks like one of an employer/employee relationship, there is a good chance they are inside IR35 and PAYE and National Insurance deductions must be made. What Changes will happen in April 2020? The responsibility moves to the end client for deciding if an engagement is inside or outside IR35. Currently, this decision is for the worker to make. If however the end client is deemed to be a ‘Small Company’ then the responsibility stays with the worker Is My Business a Small Company and Therefore Exempt From These Changes? If your business meets at least two of these requirements you don’t need to be too concerned about the changes to IR35 Annual Turnover less than £10.2m Balance Sheet total less than £5.1m No more than 50 employees We’ll be using Companies House to verify the status of our clients accordingly. If you are a small company then you don’t need to read any further. How Do I Know Where These Types of Workers Are in My Business? Only by carrying out a thorough audit of everyone in your business that is not a direct employee and who may be in your business next April. We have discovered that many of our clients have limited knowledge of the methods that non-direct employees are engaged. For example, your recruitment agencies may be using a wide variety of vehicles to provide the people who fill your vacancies, be that through PAYE, CIS intermediaries, Umbrella Companies or Personal Service Companies. Many clients have a significant number of ‘direct hires’ that IR35 impacts such as IT consultants, part-time FD’s or those individuals that are brought in on a project-specific basis. Things to consider: Who in your company is best placed to do this audit? Who may be joining you between now and April 2020 and what is their employment status? Deciding If a Role is Inside of Outside IR35? Making this determination runs to a level of complexity way beyond a mere website blog but a good starting point is to use the online tool CEST (Check Employment Status for Tax). HMRC will stand by the outcome providing you have used reasonable care to use it. The latest version came out as recently as the end of November 2019. There are other methods, most commonly being the use of IR35 consultants – or your own professional advisors. You’ll need to decide who is responsible and accountable within your business for making the decision (s) and how you will maintain appropriate records. If you have a HR department they should be well underway with IR35 preparations. Anecdotal evidence for the roles that we specifically recruit for in the Construction and Facilities Management Sectors suggests that they will virtually all fall within IR35 Cascading the IR35 Decision If a client makes a decision on a role, the decision and the reasons for that decision need to be passed down to all parties in the supply chain including the worker. This is usually done via a ‘Status Determination Statement’ (SDS) which the end client has to prepare and issue. We’ll have to assume that all our roles are within IR35 unless we receive an SDS to the contrary. Who Makes Deductions if Inside IR35 The Fee Payer (i.e. the organisation last in line who makes payment to the worker’s intermediary) is liable for making the correct deductions for deemed employment so clients can rest assured that Thorn Baker can operate this compliantly and make the necessary quarterly reports to HMRC. Liability If an incorrect decision is made and a worker is treated as outside IR35 when they should be inside IR35 then liability will rest with the party that has failed to fulfil its obligations – so if the wrong decision is made then the end client will be liable for unpaid PAYE and National Insurance. Ok, I’m Starting to Get This. What’s This Likely to Mean in Commercial Terms? So this is the really interesting thing – let’s examine this from two perspectives, the cost to hirer and the cost to the worker. Workers/contractors are very vocal online about how these changes are going to significantly impact their take-home pay. These are the workers who 1) currently deem themselves to be outside IR35 and thus benefit from let’s say ‘beneficial’ arrangements and 2) believe they will be deemed to be inside IR35 once the end client makes the decision. (One could argue that in this case perhaps the workers have made an incorrect determination – but nevertheless they currently are liable and responsible for that decision) We’ve done the sums and they are quite startling. For a hirer that may have a worker via a PSC outside IR35 on £25 hour x 40-hour week = headline pay of £1000/week, a typical weekly ‘take-home’ pay will be £805. Moving this worker to full PAYE employee status with Income Tax, National Insurance and Holiday Pay Contributions will increase the cost to £34.22/hour to maintain the same take-home pay. And that’s before any agency, including Thorn Baker, adds on their desired mark up. How many people can afford to have a significant reduction in take-home pay? How many end-users can afford to pay 37% more for the same individual doing the same work as before? If the end-user cannot or will not pay any more, the take-home reduction will be of the order of 20% Quite simply, the costs of end users making ‘inside IR35’ decisions may be quite alarming for many clients, especially if tied into long term contracts where the cost of workers is a significant proportion of overheads. Solutions It’s not the scope of this blog to talk about workarounds or explore loopholes but with planning, the right advice and enough time it may be possible to redesign roles to fall outside of IR35. With our first-hand knowledge of our clients and the sector’s that they operate in we expect the vast majority will deem all their roles to fall within IR35. What will then happen may include Transition to Perm (We will happily discuss a sensible take on fee) Continue to pay as a PSC but make PAYE deductions Move workers to Umbrella solutions Move workers to agency PAYE With the exception of taking on permanently, it will cost a fair bit more. Small Companies may find themselves gaining a competitive advantage as their hiring costs are impacted less. The Thorn Baker Approach As Corporate Member of the REC (Recruitment and Employment Confederation) and APSCO (The Association of Professional Staffing Companies), we have frequent updates on IR35 and access to qualified legal support. You can be assured we’ll keep you, our clients, compliant. Because the scope of IR35 is so vast, across all of UK businesses and not just our specific sector knowledge, and carries significant liability issues we would remind you that this blog is simply our current perspective. What we are doing is talking to clients on a daily basis to ‘nudge’ them towards dealing with their IR35 challenges and our Directors and Senior Managers are putting IR35 on the agenda of every relevant client meeting to ensure we’re adding clarity and transparency to future arrangements. If you would like to discuss any of the points raised in this blog, or simply arrange a conversation about IR35 then please contact the writer paul@thornbaker.co.uk 07970 075160 Useful Links gov.uk/guidance/check-employment-status-for-tax gov.uk/guidance/understanding-off-payroll-working-ir35 gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-status-manual/esm11000

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