Although there are a multitude of recruitment agencies that find jobs for temporary and contract workers, many of these agencies don’t keep a certified accountant on staff to handle payroll and the PAYE scheme. As a result, these agencies choose to work with a UK umbrella service that handles payroll for workers.
The recruitment agency collects payment from the client (the hiring company) and sends payment to the umbrella service. At this point the umbrella service calculates taxes and National Insurance payments in order to get the net amount owed to the temporary/contract worker.
Pulse Umbrella stands out from the crowd because of the fact that they seek legal advice from Lawspeed and pay special attention to the new regulations in place which are intended to protect the worker’s equality rights. Since 1 October 2011 the UK has instituted regulations which have the sole purpose of giving many equal opportunities to temporary and contract workers which have hitherto been reserved for permanent employees. Amongst these rights are equality in pay and working conditions.
The name of the legislation is the Agency Workers Directive and in order to qualify a worker must be placed with a company for 12 continuous weeks and still on the job after that qualifying period. Unfortunately, any workers who were on the job prior to the institution of the directives in October do not qualify for these benefits.
Because there is a great deal of misunderstanding in regards to the directive and with the added burden of payroll, many agencies have chosen to utilise umbrella companies like Pulse that can tackle both with equal aplomb. Pulse works in partnership with agencies to ensure that workers are treated fairly, get the best tax breaks possible and are paid promptly when the client submits payment. Together, agencies and Pulse Umbrella are a formidable team.