Welcome to B & M Bulletin, produced specifically for users of IT technical services. In this issue:
 
•  Update on the Agency Workers Regulations 
•  Tech View: Service Oriented Architecture
•  Top 10 ways to attract the best people
•  B & M ProLegacy
Update on the Agency Worker Regulations
 Matt Jones, B & M HR Manager explores some aspects of using contract staff that could affect employers
Regulations may affect IT contractors
The Agency Worker Regulations (AWR) 2010 is due to be implemented in the UK on 1st October 2011. The regulations follow an EU Directive which was devised in order to protect vulnerable, low paid temps by making their employment conditions no less favourable than non-agency workers operating within the same hirer (end user).

The regulations will entitle all agency workers to equal treatment from day one of their assignment and equal pay and conditions after a 12 week qualifying period.

At B & M, we believe that many of our contractors who work through their own limited companies consider themselves to be both professionals and ‘in business on their own account’, and therefore outside of scope of the regulations. Some contractors working through payroll or umbrella companies may also be outside of scope depending on their particular arrangement with their company.

We have been in touch with many clients who are likely to be affected, but anyone who is unsure about the impact of these regulations should check with us whether individual contractors provided by us fall within scope of the regulations or not. However, it is considered best practice for organisations to implement the day one access rights for contractors, regardless of whether they believe their contractors are within scope of the regulations. Ensuring collective facilities are available to workers in scope of the regulations is the responsibility of the hirer.

Clients also have an obligation to provide, on request, information on standard employment terms and conditions and pay rates in order to ensure that the UK agencies can put in place terms which are no less favourable than equivalent direct hires for those individuals that are within scope of the regulations.
Details of the full UK regulations can be found here and the guidance document here.
Service Oriented Architecture
 Technical Consultant Tim Crossland explains how SOA can enable organisations to benefit from separating underlying technology from the user experience
The goals of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) are ones that the IT industry has been striving to deliver upon for many years, namely
  • Promoting reuse of business logic
  • Ensuring that the interfaces for services are clearly defined
  • Allowing any application to communicate with any other application
  • Use of open standards.
When implemented correctly, SOA can bring in many benefits and, as it evolves, businesses should find that they are regularly reusing existing services rather than starting from scratch again. These services could be recently developed web services or legacy business applications.

In order to implement a Service Oriented Architecture, an enterprise service bus model is required. This should provide:
- A broker component, such as WebSphere Message Broker and Fuse Message Broker, that performs the transformations required to expose technology-dependent services and combine data from different sources
- An orchestration engine, such as Oracle BPEL Process Manager and WebSphere Process Server, to execute process logic.

In addition, a robust messaging platform is required, using technology such as WebSphere MQ, Apache ActiveMQ etc. The Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) model should support the following open standards:
  • Web services are defined using the Web Services Description Language (WSDL), allowing communication by providing a standard description of the interface for the service
  • The Service Oriented Architecture Protocol (SOAP) is used to define the format of messages between applications.
Using these concepts, it is possible to decouple the technical aspects underlying a service from the consumer’s view of the service. A consumer does not need to be concerned about the technology underpinning the service (whether it be SAP, mainframe COBOL, etc.). It is the responsibility of the broker component to transform data from the interface provided by the consumer to the format required on the specific technology platforms.

As a result, an organisation can then change the use of technology without the consumer having to make changes, reducing vendor tie-in and providing greater flexibility and code reuse - something most businesses need in the current climate.
10 ways to attract the best people
 Skilled IT professionals are hard to find. Jerry Smart has identified some of the key factors that you may want to consider to attract the best people - permanent or contract: 
  1. Give recognition for a job well done
  2. Set standards and communicate clearly
  3. Provide a healthy and fun working environment
  4. Offer worthwhile and meaningful work
  5. Deliver an environment that offers appropriate levels of responsibility
  6. Enable people to be accountable for their work
  7. Provide compensation commensurate with performance above the norm
  8. Offer learning opportunities and an opportunity to develop
  9. Ensure clear understanding of the goals and objectives
  10. Provide the opportunity to work with interesting, motivated and responsible people.
B & M ProLegacy
 enduring support for legacy systems
B & M ProLegacy is an enduring legacy support service which ensures that critical business applications and platforms continue to work effectively. The service enables organisations to improve the efficiency and productivity of their IT function by outsourcing the support and maintenance of systems software environments whilst reducing organisational complexity, headcount, cost and risk. B & M ProLegacy is designed to provide support for any stabilised production system where further development is not anticipated.

B & M will manage the customer's software infrastructure to ensure that legacy systems offer optimum levels of availability. The service allows organisations to outsource the maintenance of their legacy systems, freeing up in-house IT staff to focus on development of future IT infrastructure. For information about how ProLegacy could benefit your organisation, contact sales@bmeurope.com.
B & M Europe Limited
B & M has specialised in delivering skilled ICT specialists to meet the needs of leading organisations throughout Europe since 1992. We focus exclusively on providing technical services, consultancy and support for z/OS, UNIX and Linux enterprise systems, including third-party systems software, open systems and networking connectivity. We add real value for HR and IT professionals by taking the time to understand their needs and applying best practice methods to deliver results.

To find out more about our approach to providing the best skills for each business, go to B & M Services.

The views, opinions, positions or strategies expressed by the authors are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, positions or strategies of B & M Europe Limited or any employee thereof.

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