Book temp staff online launch

A web-site is being launched in partnership with recruitment agencies, which will offer an online booking service for their customers to book temporary staff online.

Simon Neale, 41, is the Companyís founder and Managing Director and it is Simonís experience working in corporate recruitment in the IT sector that led him to create the ìBook AÖ.î concept. In April 2000, Simon launched BookaTrainer.co.uk, an online application for booking IT and management skills trainers, and grew the business to turnover of 1.2M per annum.

Using the Book A Trainer model, Simon quickly realised that the concept could work as successfully in the mass market commercial recruitment sector and BookaTemp.co.uk was born.


In his own words, Simon had to ìtake the gloves offî and ìthink right outside of the boxî with the Book A Temp model. Whereas Book A Trainer is run exclusively as an internally run online business, the plan for Book A Temp is to franchise it across the UK and Ireland by developing partnerships with small and medium sized independent agencies in key geographical regions.

The reasoning behind this is simple explains Simon. ìFor years, the smaller independent employment agency has had to fight the National high street multiple agencies for market share. The Adeccoís and Manpowerís of this world have huge resources and often, the corner shop versus the supermarket scenario arises within this sector.

Recently, many of the national agencies have repositioned their businesses to embrace the opportunity that the web offers and a number are considering developing their own online staff booking applications ñ thereís no way that independent agencies can compete with this as development costs can run into millions of pounds.î

Simon believes he has the answer. ìBookaTemp.co.uk can operate nationally with a national brand but also be run locally and powered by the independents who understand their markets perhaps better than anyone else. Book A Temp is a ëdoes what it says on the tiní application that can be run by XYZ Recruitment in Bristol and ABC Recruitment in London. Each agency will have full exclusivity over client enquiries and candidate registrations in the areas they own and operate. By franchising the product in this way, we can empower the independents and compete with the nationals.î

In January of 2003, Simon recruited Nick Day to the board of Book A Temp Limited. Nick has over 13 years experience in the high street recruitment market and is currently listed in the official ëWhoís Who of Britainís Young Entrepreneursí and ëWhoís Who in Recruitment.í

That Nick disposed of his interests in a profitable recruitment agency to join Book A Temp surprised some, but for him, the reasons were clear. ìFor some time I have believed that the Internet will play a major part in the future of the recruitment industry. Although many of us became disillusioned by the explosion and then implosion during the dot com era, recruitment is a prime service business and, as such, is perfectly placed to embrace web technology.î

Nick says the Book A Temp brief is simple. ìThink Easyjet.Com in airline travel and Egg.Com in financial services and you will understand how we believe BookaTemp.co.uk will impact in the recruitment sector. The key to our success will be how we as the core business drive the sales and marketing of BaT amongst our partner agencies and their clients. We already have invested in a state-of-the-art mobile IT centre, equipped with web connected PC work stations which we will drive across the country to enhance the brand and sign people up. Weíre talking Premiership here.î

The business is still in its infancy but the plan is grand. The next stage in the companyís development is to pilot the website with up to 10 partner agencies across the South-West of the UK. ìWeíre already talking to a number of potential partners,î explained Neale, ìit is crucial to the success of Book A Temp that we select our partner agencies carefully. They need to be onside and realise that weíre not just offering a piece of software here, weíre offering them a brand new service for their clients and a new division to add to their existing business.î

With economic uncertainty in the air Simon Neale and Nick Day might be described as optimists by launching a new product into a cautious market. ìOn the contrary,î they explain, ìit is at times like this when protecting market share and maintaining margins are crucial. Book A Temp is an ideal way for our partner agencies to move their services up the value chain. To run BookaTemp.co.uk exclusively in their area, we envisage that a partner agency would be looking at a monthly spend not dissimilar to a medium sized advert in their local recruitment press.î