Selecting a supply chain

You will find information on this page, and in the sub-pages, on how to appropriately select the right supply chain for your organisation.
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Selecting an Agency - If you are looking into specifically a recruitment agency as a supplier, you'll find additional useful information here
Advertising Jobs Online - if you are considering advertising your labour needs online, you'll find information on how to advertise appropriately here

This page covers the following elements of the selecting a supply chain process:

• Clear understanding of the requirement

• Decide the process

• The sourcing process

• Due diligence

• Contract

Before starting any discussions with any potential supplier, you should ensure that there is a clear understanding of the requirement:

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• Clear understanding of your staffing needs: this will help you to understand the types of suppliers and organisations to reach out to. This can range from full managed service recruitment to a gig worker assisting with a project.

• Budget: Consider factors like average industry salaries for similar roles, National Insurance, experience, holiday allowances; good practice to consider a contingency if any negotiation is required.

• Clear job description: (ensure that you will engage with the line manager and any dependencies); working days and hours, type and complexity of the job, holidays.  Check if there is any labour or other legislation or regulation that would need to be followed (both locally and nationally).  Think not only about the hard skills but also the soft skills, and how this person should fit in the corporate culture as well as in the overall business environment.  Your Human Resources specialist can support you with these details.

​This way, you can aim specifically towards the right pool of suppliers, without wasting valuable time in the market by providing them with a clear and structured briefing.  

Next, you will need to decide the process to follow. 

• If you already have an existing and satisfactory business relationship with a supplier, you may wish to continue to brief them accordingly.  Of course, you could always – and it is recommended - to benchmark, even for the low scale projects, with at least three (3) suppliers by inviting them to quote (Invitation To Quote, ITQ).

• In case there is no existing supplier, and/or there is a large-scale requirement, then, you may consider the possibility of an Invitation To Tender (ITT), to select the partner you will work with for the selection of your temporary labour.

• If you would like to advertise your job requirement online, check our page for Advertising Jobs Online.

If you wish to procure labour specifically through a recruitment agency, please see our page on Selecting an Agency for further advice in addition to the information below.

Having made the decision about the process (ITQ, ITT or other), you are moving to the next phase of identifying the supplier pool and defining which supplier(s) should be invited to the next stage.

Reliable references are useful and can support your sourcing process, as well as the reputation of a supplier within the specific industry. The choice of the reputable and reliable supplier will be supported by the candidates who will feel more confident that their rights and time will be respected during the recruitment process. We would encourage you to use suppliers who are partnered with SAFERjobs JobsAware as this promotes transparency in the supply chain.

It is always good practice to invite the suppliers (especially when you have not worked with them before) to a preliminary/pre-tender meeting.  Even if you work with them, it is important that you are regularly updated on the market. 

Following the meetings with the suppliers, and having run the selection process (ITQ, ITT), it is time to evaluate and decide the supplier that you will work with for this project.

Before selection, it is important to conduct due diligence.  Your company may already have some strategies in place regarding the supplier selection process, one example of which could be pre-qualification questionnaires.  Even if you have not got anything in place yet, controls that should cover areas such as financial stability, coverage, competence, references, current customers, equality principles and compliance with local and national legislation, which will give you the confidence you need to evaluate how the supplier meets (or not) your temporary labour needs and expectations.

When you make your selection, everything (contractual parties, mutual obligations, fees, compliance to legislation, etc) should be clearly stated in a contract.  It does not need to be too complicated a document however it definitely should state everything agreed between the two parties.