Case Study – Mark James Search

THE CHALLENGE

Mark James Search was looking to strengthen two critical areas of their recruitment operations: payroll processing and employment compliance. With contractors and temporary workers forming a core part of their business model, accuracy, speed, and regulatory adherence were essential.

On the pay and bill side, they needed a reliable, scalable solution that could ensure contractors were paid correctly and on time while client invoicing remained accurate and efficient. On the compliance side, they faced the growing complexity of UK and overseas employment regulations where even small errors in right to work checks, documentation, or contractual terms can create significant legal and reputational risk.

Internally managing these processes would have required ongoing investment in specialist staff, training, systems, and technology, alongside the challenge of ensuring knowledge stayed continuously up-to-date in a constantly changing regulatory landscape.

THE SOLUTION

We implemented our outsourced pay and bill solution using our purpose-built platform, Evertime, providing an efficient, streamlined process for managing contractor payroll and billing. This, alongside the specialist support of our expert team, ensured accuracy, consistency, and visibility across the entire payment cycle while reducing administrative burden on the client’s internal teams.

Alongside this, we introduced a dedicated compliance support solution designed specifically for the recruitment sector. This included full onboarding and employment checks such as ID verification, right to work checks, and review of employment terms to ensure they were appropriate, accurate, and fully compliant with relevant legislation.

In October 2025, we began a controlled trial covering 30 workers. This allowed us to demonstrate the effectiveness and reliability of the compliance process in a live environment. The trial was a clear success, highlighting improved consistency, reduced risk, and greater confidence in worker onboarding.

Following this, the client expanded the service across additional offices, enabling us to support placements both in the UK and overseas, where compliance requirements are often more complex and varied. Our role became a central safeguard, ensuring every worker placed met the required legal and regulatory standards.

THE RESULT

• Reliable, accurate contractor payroll and billing
• No need for client to invest in or maintain their own pay and bill platform
• Reduced compliance risk through structured, expert-led checks
• Greater confidence in UK and overseas worker onboarding and contract management

Importantly, the client now operates with the assurance that compliance is consistently managed by specialists who stay up to date with evolving legislation and best practice. This removes the need to invest in internal staff training, system maintenance, and ongoing technical expertise.

This confidence in compliance reduces risk and strengthens their commercial position, helping them win more business by demonstrating robust, professional operational standards.

Chris Reile of Mark James Search said:

“Moving from in-house compliance to an outsourced model was a significant change for us, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions we’ve made! We partnered with Workwell over six months ago during a period of rapid growth. We were slightly apprehensive moving from internal management to an external partner but as we took on several large-scale contingent hiring projects, we realised that expert legal and compliance oversight wasn’t just ‘nice to have’, it was business-critical.

“We were looking for a partnership built on trust rather than a transactional one. The team delivered from day one. They are forward-thinking, responsive, and, most importantly, they bring a human touch to a highly technical field. Six months in, Workwell is a crucial part of our operation, we truly couldn’t imagine navigating our current scale without them.”

www.markjamessearch.com