SME employers may be concerned about the risks of recruiting from priority groups, such as the need for increased resources and additional support, and concerns about reliability and low levels of retention.

You can help them to identify ways to minimise these risks and increase the chances of successful recruitment. It will help if you understand individual employers’ concerns, identify the potential risks they see in recruiting from priority groups. This will help you to direct them to an employability organisation that can help them.

For Example:
An employer with only a small number of staff might be concerned about their ability to provide additional support to new recruit - and that this would increase the risk of subsequent drop out and therefore increase recruitment costs.

In this instance, you could signpost them to an organisation that could provide effective and sustained in-work support for clients where appropriate.

Unlike larger businesses, most SMEs do not have dedicated HR departments and are likely to need help in establishing effective and accessible systems for the recruitment and retention of new staff.

You should be familiar with best practice guidance in areas such as advertising, developing job descriptions and person specifications, short-listing and interviewing.

The resources section provides details ands to a number of different employment guides and toolkits covering a range of different priority groups which may be useful to you and the employers you are working with.