REC scoops two top awards

REC received a tremendous accolade last night as it picked up two prestigious awards at the trade association forum Best Practice Awards 2005.

The REC received both Magazine of the Year and Website of the Year

Commenting on their success Gareth Osborne, Managing Director, REC says, This is great news for the REC and more importantly for our members the last two-years has seen a major turnaround and our performance over the last twelve months has been remarkable. We needed to have great communication tools and have invested heavily in making sure we communicate back to our members. This is the icing on cake but we will not become complacent, we understand whatís important to our members, thatís why we are achieving so much and thatís what we will keep on doing.

Commenting on the magazine the Judges were impressed with the new venture which was attractive and readable and which succeeded both in increasing information to members and in promoting the sector to external audiences. The Judges were also impressed by the scope and content of the REC website, which clearly provides an excellent resource for members, while the attention to design, accessibility and technical realisation made the site very fast and easy to use. An excellent example to which other trade associations may aspire.

Research conducted by the REC in 2004 indicated that, while members were satisfied with the existing bi-monthly newsletter, 84% were interested in receiving a monthly Magazine. The decision was taken to launch a new title Recruitment Matters and, working with external publishers Associa, the first issue appeared 12 weeks after approval of the concept. Recruitment Matters sets out to inform, challenge, inspire and lead the recruitment industry. Published 10 times a year, the magazine aims to cover the full spectrum of REC activities and wider trends in recruitment. The title is also a vehicle to promote the recruitment industry. In addition to the membership, which includes some 12,000 corporate and individual members, it is distributed to 7,000 key HR professionals, MPs and opinion formers

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation implemented a major website overhaul in 2004 with the aim of making it more accessible for members and the general public. For example, analysis had shown that of the five most visited areas of the site * Members Legal Service, REC Codes of Practice, Training and Events, Details of REC Members and Starting a Recruitment Agency * none was accessible directly from the Home page. At the same time, the language was not always meaningful to visitors. A complete re-design and restructuring of the content was undertaken. The accessibility has been enhanced by working to achieve a triple A rating in the recognised íBobbyí accessibility standard. Features include icons to increase font sizes of the display on every page. Traffic to the site increased by 25% in 2004 and has continued to grow by a further 30% in 2005 to some 100,000 visits per month. 79% of members surveyed say they visit the site once a month or more.