The Federation of African Professional Staffing Organisations have been at the forefront of the lobbying and advocacy initiative around the labour law amendments, in particular, ensuring that South Africa remains competitive by having access to a flexible, skilled workforce.
What do they do?
APSO represents South Africa and the entire African continent in the global staffing sector, striving towards professionalising the staffing industry. APSO ensures that their members are able to offer compliance and professional services by providing a range of products, services, advice, and toolkits to members in order to improve their service offering to benefit the public.
APSO is the largest staffing association in South Africa, with more than 700 hundred members, of which 80% are SME’s. APSO is a member of the International Confederation of Private Employment Agencies (CIETT), being involved in global initiatives and ensuring that South Africa conforms to international best practice. They empower their members and general stakeholders to better understand the staffing industry and to promote the industry as an important contributor to the South African economy. APSO is also a member of the Institute of Ethics South Africa.
The federation ensures that the minimum standards in the industry which are globally aligned, are adhered to so that members follow these standards in promoting good service in the staffing sector.
APSO holds the seat on the National Skills Authority, representing the private employment services sector, in driving professional best practice in South Africa.
Given the large scope of industries and responsibility that APSO bears stake in, membership to APSO is not automatically granted, and members are reliant on meeting the strict compliance criteria to ensure:
- Legal compliance for the business
- Statutory compliance
- Operational standards align with the APSO code; and
- Consultants to pass the APSO entrance exam
APSO, in its mandate to protect the public and stakeholders, to uphold the ethics and quality of staffing professionals in South Africa, is pioneering staffing industry codes of conduct and providing valuable resources to its members. These include:
- Advocacy and Lobbying with all industry bodies– APSO is represented on the World Employment Body, CIETT, and therefore provides members with access to international trends, information and global best practice standards
- Access to free telephonic support at APSO HQ to ensure compliance
- Access to their Verified Service Provider Programme that provides a range of products and services (geared towards staffing businesses, especially SME). These include IR services, software, BBEEE, legal, accounting, job boards, social media, digital marketing, verification, benchmarking, HR software etc.
- Access to E-Learning (quality, affordable learning programmes aimed at staffing businesses and busy recruiters)
- Access to staffing industry-specific training and development
- Assistance with ethics, compliance or fee disputes via their ethics and fee dispute arbitration processes
- Regular updates and communication about aspects that affect business’ ability to operate a profitable, compliant and successful staffing business
- Networking opportunities; and
- Access to member-only resources such as toolkits, guidelines, products and services
Immploy is a proud member of APSO due to the organisation’s high ethical standards they have set in place. Our aim is to be the best medical recruitment agency in South Africa, and we believe we will achieve this by following the example set out by the industry leaders in APSO.
By adhering to APSO’s stringent ethical and compliance standards, we believe there are benefits to all our role players from candidates who register, to clients who we provide staffing to, and ultimately to the communities where the candidates work.
With South Africa’s high unemployment rate, and difficulty finding work, there are people who fraudulently try to bypass compliance processes. Thanks to APSO’s guidelines, we ensure compliance procedures are maintained and promoted, making the recruitment industry better for all.
If you are a qualified locum and would like to apply for one of our locum positions, visit our job portal at jobs.immploy.com
For more information about the APSO, visit http://www.apso.co.za.
