Naton, first Slovenian HR agency going worldwide
They’ve been one of the leading agencies through the years in Slovenia and first Slovenian agency. Last year they have started sharing their knowledge and solutions in Croatia also. With years of experiences Naton is going worldwide in 2013. Their goal is to meet the evolving challenges tailored to the needs of clients and enables them to cooperate with their trust worth partner in several markets.
They combine years of experience in the field of human resources, professional selection of personnel and consultation with services such as graphological analysis for HR purposes, psychological tests, compilation of regulations and other individual clients pecific services. Their mission is to fill clients HR demands, while they focus on their primary business activity.
They have gain the trust of successful Slovenian companies as Hella Saturnus Slovenija, Mercator, Lek, Ilirija, Ljubljanske mlekarne, Akrapovič, Sogefi Filtration and many others. In fifteen years of providing solutions for their clients they have employed over 1.000 employees. Today they have 600 employes working for their clients of which 350 are permanently employed in Naton. That makes them a second biggest HR agency in Slovenia.
“As labour market is rapidly changing and fields of business have to follow those fluctuations agency work contributes to it s better functioning” says one of the Naton"s HR managers.
What is the contribution of agency work to a market?
Firstly, agency work contribute to a labour market.
Agency work contributes to reducing unemployment and help people enter, and re-enter, the labour market. By rapidly placing agency workers on assignments allows people to remain active, thereby enhancing their skills and experience, and helping them to quickly find a new job. Working via an agency also allows to regain self-confidence, acquire new skills, and demonstrate their capacities to potential employers.
Less people are unemployed after working as an agency worker then before. Many agency workers are officially registered as “unemployed” before working with an agency. This proportion falls to less than half that level after working as an agency worker.
On average, the proportion of those in employment before and after having worked as an agency worker is more than doubled. This supports the argument that agency work serves as a stepping-stone, especially for first time entrants to the labour market.
Agency work is also an effective way of finding permanent work. Temporary agency work helps people find permanent work. Agency work’s acknowledged stepping-stone function, whereby it facilitates transitions from a temporary contract to a permanent one.
There appears to be an inverse correlation between penetration rate of agency work and level of undeclared work. By serving as a legal alternative in sectors often plagued by illegal labour, agency work can bring to the labour market.
The agency work industry establishes training schemes to suit the specific needs of the labour market, so agency work actually facilitates quality transitions trough skills upgrading. It is also generally the agency that takes the initiative to train a worker.
Agency work increases labour market flexibility, whilst providing basic rights and working conditions to agency workers. Because the agency remains the worker’s employer, his rights are capitalised from one assignment to the next. Agency work thus integrates “outsiders” in the labour market, who then benefit from the same working conditions as those provided to other agency workers. Through private employment agencies, disabled agency workers are integrated at every level of companies.
Agency work offers groups such as migrant workers, women returning from childcare breaks, disabled and unemployed people across to the labour market. Agency work gives “outsiders” a viable access to the labour market, thereby increasing labour market participation and diversity.
Secondly, agency work improves companies competitiveness.
To remain competitive, organisations must improve their response to output fluctuations, by adapting their workforce and skills to changes in a competitive environment, and focusing on their core business. The range of services proposed by private employment agencies answers these challenges.
Jobs created by agency work would not have existed if agency work were not an option. This confirms that agency work is not a substitute for permanent employment, notably because it does not meet the same needs, as it is generally used for specific flexibility requirements that cannot be covered by permanent contracts.
By using agency workers, companies aim to minimise their exposure to risk when the near future seems uncertain. Once the outlook brightens, agency work helps companies to cope with sudden increases in demand or to face seasonal fluctuations. The use of agency workers is also an effective means of finding the right employee, whether to fill a permanent position, or to replace a worker leaving. The overall flexibility provided by agency work is a key argument for the services sector, whereas the manufacturing sector uses it to evaluate staff for permanent recruitment, or merely to help keep running costs down.
As an instrument for employers to adapt the size of their workforce to fluctuations in product demand, agency work is very sensitive to variations in the business cycle. Companies use agency work for two primary reasons: to absorb peaks in demand and to cover for short-term staff leave. Agency work is considered the most appropriate solution to meet these flexibility-related needs. It is also seen as an alternative for many HR-related functions traditionally carried out internally by companies, thus allowing them to focus on their core activities.
The agency work industry can quickly call upon a large pool of workers, and provide organizations with appropriate workers to better manage competitive pressures. As a result, the agency work industry is among the first to create jobs as soon as the economy recovers, as companies first hire agency workers to meet an increase in orders, before recruiting permanent staff when the situation stabilises.
The agency work industry not only creates jobs that would not otherwise exist, but it also accelerates the number of jobs created once the economy recovers. As business picks up, companies first hire temporary help, before recruiting permanent staff once business has stabilised.
