Brexit, Recruitment and Employee Scheduling

Brexit is approaching fast – and whilst currently, it’s still impossible to predict or assess the full impact, it is already starting to influence the behavior of UK businesses and its staff.

For companies that do business abroad, or those who employ EU citizens, the changes are likely to be significant. As organisations in every industry begin to plan for a post Brexit future, some businesses are already making big changes to their recruitment policy.

In this post, we explore the potential impact of Brexit on recruitment, and what businesses in every sector can do to mitigate the impact through effective employee scheduling.

The current state of affairs

Employment in the UK is at its highest levels since the 1970s, and has been growing steadily for several years now.

However, after several years of dropping unemployment to near-record lows, there are signs that this is slowing significantly in the wake of the Brexit vote. Some industries, like the finance sectors in London and Edinburgh, are already cutting back on recruitment, in an effort to brace themselves for a potential shift towards Europe in the face of Brexit.

Uncertainty about the country’s economic future is rife – Sterling has dropped against the Euro and the Dollar, growth has slowed and inflation has slowly risen. There is concern in some quarters about a potential downturn and in uncertain times, businesses become more cautious. Taking on new staff is a big investment, and we’re likely to see many hold off with expansion programmes and taking on significant numbers of new staff until the dust settles.

The potential impact on staffing of Brexit

When Brexit does finally come in, there are likely to be real implications for businesses that currently recruit their staff members from within the EU:


* The value of the pound – if Sterling remains low and inflation high, then Britain may not be as attractive a proposition for work as it is currently. This could raise the cost of recruiting from abroad

* Freedom of movement – it could become more difficult to recruit talent from overseas, depending on the immigration policies enacted once Brexit is finalised

* Brain drain – according to a recent (2017) Deloitte survey, 47% of high skilled EU citizens are considering leaving the UK following Brexit

* Staff shortages – the same survey also suggested that 38% of lower skilled EU citizens are considering their options


Many sectors, including engineering, caring, accountancy, IT and seasonal agriculture are already struggling to attract enough employees, and rely heavily on EU migrants to fill positions. If it becomes too hard, or too expensive to recruit, these businesses need to look at other ways to manage their workloads.

Alternatives to recruitment – Effective employee scheduling

Every company wants to get more out of its existing resources, and in light of current uncertainty, taking steps to increase productivity by getting more out of every team member makes a lot of sense.

Improving employee scheduling will have a real impact, in terms of reducing staff costs, cutting waste and improving productivity in the workplace. It can even mean that businesses need to recruit fewer additional members of staff.

In the majority of businesses, resource scheduling and staff scheduling is done manually, via a combination of shared emails, spreadsheets, white boards, sticky notes and calendars. This inevitably leads to missed meetings, double bookings, unnecessary trips, inefficiency and waste – whilst taking up significant time, effort and resources to manage.

A better alternative is to invest in dedicated employee scheduling software, like Schedule it.

Do more with less – with staff scheduling software

Schedule It makes managing staff easy. Whether you’ve got a small team, or thousands of employees, Schedule It software brings everything together in one place – so you can schedule workloads, appointments, meetings, holidays and sick days across your organisation.

Improve staff efficiency, productivity and utilisation – get started with Schedule it today.

Last updated, 12 August 2023, 14:36