Last job driving has not worked out so have decided to go temping whilst I renew my RTITB counterbalance FLT licence & add on some extras to my ADR packages licence both in the next 6 months.
And hopefully this will make me more employable?
A few questions about agencies as not worked for one in 15 years!
Is pay a week or month in arrears?
Do you get holidays?
And do you get paid, If so how do they work this out?
What about a pension?
Can you claim for PPE required by the agency via HMRC?
I’m on agency I get holidays, paid weekly and they have a pension to. Holidays get paid to me 8 hours per day so it isn’t great but better than nothing, avoid umbrella agencies where they take a fee out of your wage to make out your paying loads of expenses when your not and it dodges tax (or some tax) can creep up and bite you on the arse in the future so I stick to PAYE
depends as a lot of agency’s now insist you work SE that way all they have to do is take their cut and feed you the crumbs…
Its a sad course that more and more agency’s are doing this pushing good drivers away.
I have a friend who’s been on agency years now (we worked together ), He changed to an old agency that we were on because the job we did came to an end. They put him into one of these umbrella company’s and the poor sod gets no joy with getting his pay sorted, he’s just unfortunate that he’s dyslexic with numbers and has hells work sorting things with number out …
skypilot:
A few questions about agencies as not worked for one in 15 years!
Is pay a week or month in arrears?
Weekly. Put your timesheets in for the previous week usually by Monday morning, get paid Friday.
Do you get holidays?
And do you get paid, If so how do they work this out?
Yes if you’re on PAYE. They do it one of two ways:
The Driver Hire way was to put an amount in your holiday pot for every hour you worked and then when you wanted to go on holiday they just paid it out.
The other way is to work out the average pay of the last 13 weeks you received a wage and pay that.
What about a pension?
Currently they’re not required to but that is changing. Some like Manpower do though but its opt-in.
Can you claim for PPE required by the agency via HMRC?
Yes via a P87 Expenses in Employment at the end of the tax year however the agency as your employer is legally required to give you PPE but all I’ll say is “good luck with that other than getting a hi-viz vest with their name plastered all over it.”
Any other things to look out for with an agency??
They all lie. They’ll say anything to get you to sign up and anything to get your bum in a seat.
