How working via an agency can deliver on your flexible working needs

Where you work is a big deal, as your job essentially pays for your life. However, for many people, being tied to a permanent position doesn’t offer them the freedom and breadth of experience they want. That’s where HCRG Staffing can help, as we can give you the freedom to work in a broad spectrum of roles, all across the country.

Being able to take up a contract in a range of different places can make you a more well-rounded practitioner, as you gather experience and develop your practice in varying roles all tied to your area of expertise.

Moving roles more quickly

As a permanent member of staff, you typically have a notice period of two to three months which makes moving roles quite difficult and time-consuming.

We, on the other hand, can help people move between contracts quickly and seamlessly, moving locations and making tweaks according to the individual requirements of our practitioners.

A good social worker or nurse can do their job in a new setting very easily, and the flexibility we offer means they can take advantage of this without issue.

Hybrid working

Being able to work on a hybrid contract is of the utmost importance to many of our practitioners. Since Covid, the hybrid model of work has really driven the market. Covid has shown that people can work effectively at home, and most of our candidates want to take advantage of this. With the exception of a couple of very specific roles, all of our contracts offer hybrid working, often with more days at home than in the office.

It means there can be really strong flexibility on when, where and how you do your hours. Provided you’re good at what you do (and our practitioners are the best at what they do) you can do the school run, be around for bedtime, and get your work done at home around family life. As long as people complete the work required there is lots of flexibility on the days and times it’s carried out.

Compressed hours and part-time working

We have lots of people doing a nine-day fortnight, meaning they work full-time hours but with one day off every two weeks. There are also lots of opportunities for people to work five days’ worth of hours in four days. There are part-time roles over three or four days, and for roles like nursing in particular, there is shift work. This means our candidates can be flexible not only with the hours they work, but with which days they do them.

Experienced consultants

The job of our consultants is to listen and support our candidates to find exactly what they’re looking for.

Every division at HCRG Staffing is headed by somebody with at least 12 years’ experience in their field, and they lead a team of experienced and long-standing consultants. The long-serving nature of our staff and their expertise in their fields means they have strong working relationships with managers across all disciplines. Because of this, they hear about roles first and can find perfect matches for our practitioners based on factors of pay, location and flexibility.

Work anywhere

Agency work gives you the flexibility to work anywhere. As a permanent staff member, you might work for 10 years in the same place. You’d gain experience, but only related to that location. With HCRG Staffing, you could spend a much shorter period at multiple different locations and learn so much more. It can lead to you offering more varied expertise to employers and becoming a more well-rounded practitioner.

Pay and time off

When you work as a contractor you get paid weekly. This can be really helpful to people, as it means you don’t have to wait for a monthly pay packet as you likely would if working somewhere permanently.

It’s very common and very easy for our contractors to schedule a break between two jobs, so they can relax at home or take a holiday. Having that option really helps with their work-life balance and maintaining good mental health. Jobs like social work or being a nurse or doctor are high-pressure roles and they’re stressful. Being able to easily build in a break really helps people to re-energise before starting a new position. And, because agency work generally pays more than a permanent role would, practitioners can afford to build in these breaks without being worse off.

Instead of committing to a permanent job without knowing what it’s like, you have the option to try out a role and see if you like it. Often this can lead to permanent work, but agency work means you can be flexible and test out a few jobs to find which is the right one for you.