Recruitment agencies should be an extension of the client’s recruitment team, according to Punch Tavern’s talent and resourcing business partner.

Catherine Smith, who began her career as a consultant at Brook Street, told Recruiter: “I absolutely get the value of recruitment agencies; that is where I come from and when I am looking for people for my team I want people from that background.

“But if you are going to work with an agency they have to be an extension of your team, they have got to understand your business, they have got to get the culture and they need to understand your strategy.”

Smith said that one reason Punch Taverns has reduced agency use by “hundreds of thousands of pounds” was that if you work with hundreds of agencies, you are never going to get that understanding.

“It’s about having a couple of really key relationships, and me investing in them and them in us,” Smith added.

Smith said that initiatives, such as Punch’s recruitment toolkit introduced 18 months’ ago, helped hiring managers to do their own hiring (see Profile, p22).

Smith added: “It is always best to have stability in a pub, people that understand the business rather than having a kitchen where you have temporary chefs every week. They can’t really understand the menu or get to know the products, and how the ingredients work together.”