Companies urged to shorten recruitment delay

There is an average six-week gap between a member of staff leaving a company and their replacement starting, new research has found.

Addeco's PayCheck Survey 2008 spoke to 700 employers and revealed that the typical length of employment tenure in Britain is 5.6 years, Personnel Today reports.

It also showed that skilled managers are particularly difficult to find a substitute for, taking almost seven weeks to replace.

This recruitment gap was found to have an impact on other members of staff in some workplaces: 36% of survey respondents reported increased workloads in the interim period, while one in five admitted that staff work longer hours.

'With the average time to replace an employee at a skilled manager level at nearly seven weeks, companies need to consider a more efficient approach for sourcing the right employees,' Steven Kirkpatrick, Managing Director for Adecco UK and Ireland, commented.

One way in which this problem could be alleviated is by involving line managers in the recruitment process, something Vice President of training at SHL Claire Little recently suggested is 'crucial.'