Is your social housing recruitment team under pressure to reduce agency spend? But does spend keep spiralling anyway? If so, this article’s for you. Keep reading to learn which three big issues typically drive-up agency use, and how to address them.
Social housing recruitment is a tough gig. Inside Housing report that 44% of housing associations found it harder to recruit into frontline roles in 2023 compared to 2022, for instance.
And it’s not getting any easier. Skills shortages, on the up. Churn, on the up. Pressure, also on the up.
Read more: 9 biggest challenges for social housing recruitment teams
For many housing associations, the result is ever-more reliance on recruitment agencies to plug those talent gaps and get the people where you so desperately need them.
But spending money with agencies takes funds away from where they’re needed most. And relying on agencies is a stop-gap. It does nothing to fix long-term problems with hiring. It’s robbing from tomorrow to fund today.
Let’s talk about breaking that cycle.
Keep reading to learn which three problems typically drive-up agency use, and how to address them. So you can sustainably hire the great people you depend on – to provide homes your community depend on.
3 ways housing association recruitment teams can slash agency spend
Problem #1: Talent shortages
Many housing association recruitment teams resort to agencies because they’re struggling with application volume. If you’re not getting talent through the door and agencies are, it’s Hobson’s choice.
Skills shortages are the big issue. For example, 40% of housing association recruiters say talent shortages are their biggest hurdle to recruitment.
Plus, the problem’s exacerbated because if you don’t have the pool of applications to choose from, you’re more likely to make less-than-perfect hiring decisions. That’s a major driver of churn – which 36% of housing associations say is increasing. High turnover turns the organisation into a leaky bucket, which makes agency use even more likely.
Focus on: Candidate attraction
Shortages make life tough, for sure. But the fact is, there is talent out there. So the question becomes: how can we do more to ensure those people are coming to us?
Focussing on candidate attraction can help you increase applications, so you’re less likely to need agency support. Two great areas to address:
- Employer brand and EVP. Are candidates clear on what makes your housing association special? Do you run recruitment marketing campaigns to get your brand and EVP in front of the right people?
- Candidate experience. Are you giving candidates a fast, modern, respectful journey that does your brand justice, so they’re more likely to stick with your process? And reapply in the future?
Problem #2: Internal under-resourcing
Another big reason you might be over-spending with agencies is if you’re under-resourced in-house.
Too much to do, too few hours in the day. And hiring managers are busy, busy, busy – which from a recruitment perspective means slow, slow, slow.
You’re losing candidates because you can’t pull them through your process fast enough. And often, everyone’s running around like headless chickens but without seeing any gain for your pain.
Turning to recruitment agencies feels like your only option. Sure, it’s expensive. But they’ll help you fill roles and they’ll take work off your plate. Agency spend keeps spiralling and spiralling – and you’re never addressing the problems driving you there in the first place, so there’s no way out.
Or is there…?
Focus on: Recruitment efficiency
If this scenario’s ringing bells for you, it’s a good sign you need to review your recruitment software – to make your team more efficient.
Lots of housing associations rely on legacy hiring tools, usually a basic all-in-one HR platform with an uninspiring recruitment add-on.
And maybe that used to be fine.
But recruitment today is tough. And it’s even tougher without purpose-built tools. At the least, software actually designed for recruitment. Ideally, recruitment software for housing associations, so it’s tailor-made for your challenges.
Two of the biggest benefits of better recruitment software are:
- Comprehensive automation. Automation is the fundamental point of recruitment software is efficiency. Speed up the manual bits, cut out the boring bits. Give everyone more headspace to focus on what matters. No more manual admin. No more email threads.
- Manager self-service. Most social housing recruitment teams we see are small and nimble, but you’re often juggling an enormous workload. Managers are a force-multiplier, if you work with them more effectively. Good recruitment team should make managers’ lives super easy, so you can turn recruitment into well-oiled machine.
It might feel counterintuitive to talk about upgrading recruitment software in the same breath as talking about reducing agency spend. But ultimately, it’s about taking back control over your hiring and building a function that’s sustainable long-term.
Unless something major changes in the housing association recruitment landscape, that’s extremely hard without good software.
Problem #3: Reactive recruitment
Are you team order-takers, pulled this way and that at the whim of managers? Are you in an endless race to recruit roles yesterday that you only just heard about? For many social housing recruitment teams, that’s the reality.
Each time a request comes, in, you’re back to the drawing board. Ads out. Waiting for applications. Managers breathing down your neck because their team is struggling and they desperately need someone.
Same old problems. Same old resignation, eventually, that agencies are probably your best bet to fill the role.
But it doesn’t need to be that way.
Focus on: Building and nurturing pipelines
What are recruitment agencies if not order takers? They have very similar pressures and priorities to you.
But an inefficient, reactive, firefighting agency wouldn’t last long. The difference is the processes agencies use to manage those pressures and priorities.
Agency recruiters are pro pipeline-builders, so they’ve never starting from scratch. Almost their number #1 job description is to build and nurture relationships, so they’ve got warm candidates good-to-go when orders come in.
That’s a mindset that in-house recruitment teams can adopt, to operate more like an agency yourself. By:
- Building talent pools: do you keep track of great candidates, so you can find them again when you need them? Do you run evergreen jobs for your common roles and actively collect candidate profiles for the future?
- Nurturing relationships: do you keep relationships with candidates warm with relevant, interesting comms? Does your recruitment software include great CRM functionality to make that stuff easy?
Look at your foundations before you build
Recruitment agencies absolutely have their place. They can super useful to plug the gaps on your hardest-to-hire jobs. They can headhunt for senior leaders. And if they happen to stumble on an excellent candidate, sure, maybe you’re open to spending.
But leaning on agencies consistently isn’t sustainable. And it’s a trap that gets harder and harder to get out of, because you’re never addressing the problems driving you to agencies in the first place.
Breaking the cycle of agency spend means taking a step back to address your own people and processes – so you can stride forward, for your organisation and your communities.
Tribepad is the trusted tech ally to smart(er) recruiters everywhere. Our talent acquisition software is a springboard for fairer, faster, better recruitment for everyone.
As an official NHF supplier, we’re trusted by major UK housing groups including Gleeson, Notting Hill Genesis, Yorkshire Housing, and the Wrekin Housing Group.
