A commercial and apprenticeship training provider based in Congleton will create more jobs as part of its plans to boost the expansion of its services both across the UK and internationally following a management buyout (MBO) and private equity backing, a recent news report in the local business media has been able to suggest.
Instep works with companies such as AO.com, Vodafone and ASOS, and has enjoyed exponential growth having broadened its offering two years ago.
Its senior management team, comprising chief executive Andy Murphy and corporate services director Leanne Gagic, has now acquired equity in the business, alongside private equity house ScaleUp Capital.
They will all join Peter and Suzanne Hitchen, who founded Instep in 1992, as shareholders.
As a result of the MBO, Murphy will lead the company as chief executive while Julie Trimble will be made finance director. Angie Brothers and Ringo Sandhu have also been appointed as operations director and performance director respectively
Also joining the business is new chairman Richard Martin, who brings experience of working with high-growth private equity-backed businesses.
Murphy said: "We are confident that we can build on the success we have achieved so far at Instep, increasing the scope and coverage of the commercial and apprenticeship training services we provide to UK companies.
"This is an exciting time for the training sector as business and industry evolves in the current climate."
Time and Attendance North West — Your Workforce Management Experts
A major increase in staff numbers, such as Cinch is planning, can cause unforeseen problems for staff performing HR, admin and accounts job roles if the company's method of recording time worked has not been updated.
For example, it is very easy for staff to fill in paper timesheets incorrectly. Sometimes this can be deliberate time fraud, but sometimes it is just new staff getting confused, or people forgetting to fill in their timesheets until a week later, by which time they've forgotten their exact shift details and are likely to just fudge it.
Even if the details are all correct, most paper timesheets must then be manually transferred to a database (usually an Excel spreadsheet) before being sent to payroll software.
There are many opportunities for human error to kick in during this time-consuming process — e.g. making an unrecognised typo in entering, or misreading employee's handwriting (1 or 7? O or 0 or D?).
Incorrect data can also foul up HR tasks too, making it much more difficult to spot issues like adherence to the Working Time Directive or someone taking three 30 minute breaks plus lunch.
At Time and Attendance North West, we offer specialised attendance management software which can work either with smartcards or with biometrics.
Our smartcards are about the size of a credit card and fit nicely into most wallets. The Radio Frequency technology means that you don't need to physically swipe the cards, just hold them up near the reader terminal. This reduces wear and tear. We also sell Long-Range smartcards, which can be read from several metres away.
For the ultimate deterrent against time theft, we can provide a fingerprint reader and/or a facial recognition unit. Smartcards can be lost, or swapped with colleagues to input fake times. This isn't the case with body parts! Please get in touch for more info!