Keystone Employment Group

For any institution to function efficiently and profitably, significant organizational planning and architectural stability are vital. After establishing the hierarchy of C-suite executives and management, the next step for any company is to recruit talent for various job roles and responsibilities. However, attracting and retaining candidates who effectively cater to an enterprise’s business needs in a technologically advanced and generationally disparate workforce— retiring baby boomers and interest-piqued millennials—is proving to be complicated for growing and established organizations. “Historically, recruitment has been a manual effort,” expresses Malcolm Paice, group managing director of Keystone Employment Group. “Over the last few years, the process of ensuring that workers are compliant with company rules and that their compensations and working hours are controlled has been transforming into a digital milieu.”

Originally conceived as a traditional recruitment agency in 1958, Keystone Employment Group has developed a comprehensive understanding of the needs and requirements of organizations concerning their fundamental HR processes. “We used to have branches across the UK, handling a wide range of temporary and permanent recruitment operations. Today, with the adoption of cloud-based technology, we now offer online recruitment and Talent Bank solutions,” explains Paice.

Keystone Employment Group developed a SaaS solution, the DirectTemping platform, to streamline the process of hiring and managing of temporary recruits. Over the past five years, through numerous improvements and updates, the platform has now evolved into Talent Bank: a solution for the purpose of sourcing, management, and compliance of temporary talent within an organisation.

With this end-to-end offering that incorporates talent search, online timesheets, and payroll services via a unique one-stop-shop application, companies are empowered with a highly configurable, white-label approach allowing clients to create a customized talent pool which suits their requirements as well as their brand and image. Keystone Employment Group’s platform seamlessly integrates with an organization’s existing HR and payroll systems, providing managed payroll services directly to the users. Such flexibility proves vital for HR representatives who consistently wage war with resumes and deadlines on a daily basis.

Having spent a significant amount of their time catering to higher education institutions, team Keystone Employment Group has partnered with like-minded organizations, like WhatsUp?, and has developed bespoke mental health and wellbeing solutions as well. WhatsUp?—a student wellbeing smartphone application—is designed to help students cope and adapt to their new university norms and lifestyle positively and productively. “The app allows users to raise personal concerns in a non-stigmatised, digital environment. We are proud of our partnerships where we utilise technology effectively to serve our clients better,” says Paice.

The anecdote of London South Bank University (LSBU) shared by Paice is an exemplary case study of how Keystone Employment Group’s Talent Bank solution benefits an institution looking to revamp their internal temporary staffing system and create an external facing recruitment service. Keystone not only built a customized HR talent management tool successfully but also established an in-house commercial recruitment agency that targets partners and blue-chip clients of the university to deliver temporary and permanent recruitment services. The HR tool—LSBU Employment—developed with Talent Bank’s intuitive recruitment management software functions independently and has exceeded profit margins in the first year of operation.

“What we delivered was a first-of-its-kind solution in the market. It demonstrated that through our offering, innovative institutions like LSBU can positively impact the local community and improve its economy,” extols Paice. Moving forward, Keystone Employment Group intends to continue delivering solutions that seamlessly integrate with disparate HR and payroll systems throughout the region. With additional booking and scheduling tools for managing a large number of workers, the company aims to develop specialized solutions to meet partnering universities’ Higher Education Achievement Record (HEAR) requirements in 2019.