Q&A: THE ACCESS GROUP & ETEACH
outreach and digital marketing, we engage both active and passive jobseekers through education- specific job boards and in-house digital marketing expertise, exponentially increasing success rates whilst preserving budgets and removing costly agencies.
We’re also revolutionising supply coverage through CoverStaff, putting direct control back into schools’ hands. This platform enables trusts to build, nurture and deploy their own supply staff pools, reducing the £1 billion annual supply spend whilst ensuring consistency, better relationships and greater accountability through comprehensive reporting.
What immediate efficiencies can trusts and schools experience in recruitment and administrative workflows? RH & ES: Schools and trusts immediately eliminate 3-5 hours of weekly recruitment administration through automated job postings, candidate screening, compliance checks, references and DBS alerts. The most impactful feature is the single candidate record – a “single source of truth” flowing from recruitment into HR, removing duplication and reducing errors. Candidates benefit from slicker, more responsive experiences with seamless onboarding that prevents nervousness and job acceptance remorse. Modern jobseekers’ high expectations are met through this integrated approach, reflecting positively on employer brand and driving positive word-of-mouth referrals. The professional, progressive image supports schools in attracting quality candidates in a competitive market.
What measurable cost savings and efficiency gains does the combined solution deliver? ES: Customers report significant reductions in agency spend as they can advertise and fill roles directly, alongside substantial time savings for HR staff. Integration across HR, payroll and budgets enables trusts to calculate staffing decision costs instantly, providing transparency that prevents costly oversights and supports sustainable
workforce planning.
The elimination of 3-5 hours weekly administrative work per recruitment process translates to meaningful cost savings. Schools benefit from reduced reliance on expensive supply agencies through direct supply staff management, contributing to addressing the sector’s £1 billion annual supply spend whilst improving classroom consistency and accountability.
Which specific pain points are solved by the integrated platform that standalone solutions can’t address? RH & ES: The primary pain point addressed is system fragmentation. Standalone solutions require multiple data entries, make compliance trails harder to prove, and create inconsistent reporting. Our integrated platform ensures candidate, employee and financial data flow seamlessly throughout the employee lifecycle. Key solved issues include: duplicated data entry elimination, enhanced candidate experience from application through onboarding, reduced cost of candidate attraction, and the crucial connection between recruitment and retention. The secure Access Evo platform provides single sign-on access, reducing security risks whilst maintaining focus on educational priorities rather than administrative burden.
How will emerging technologies (AI, analytics, adaptive learning) shape the next chapter of this collaboration? RH & ES: AI and analytics are central to our roadmap, enabling predictive vacancy analysis and targeted candidate matching. Adaptive onboarding content will accelerate new teachers’ classroom confidence, whilst analytics across HR and finance help leaders understand the true costs of absence and supply cover against recruitment pipelines.
Through this collaboration, new dimensions of ED&I data can be analysed throughout recruitment to identify and eliminate unconscious bias, supporting schools in building teams reflecting
their communities. AI applications include enhanced job requirement design, intelligent shortlisting and screening for high-volume recruitment, and personality-behaviour matching for stronger, more diverse teams. Through Access’s partnership with Microsoft, the Access Education Suite can offer world-class, secure AI technology supporting strategic decision-making from operational data.
How have customers responded to the integrated solution or service? RH & ES: Customer response has been overwhelmingly positive at this early stage. Existing mutual customers report the integration feels intuitive, “like systems were built to work together.” Candidates have remarked on the simplified application and onboarding process with fewer forms and faster start times. Trusts particularly value the visibility of seeing data across all schools in one central location. The seamless experience is creating new opportunities for schools yet to adopt HR platforms or ATS systems, as they recognise the benefits of integrated end-to-end solutions over fragmented approaches.
In what ways does this collaboration set new standards for competitors? RH & ES: This collaboration proves that operational excellence and candidate experience aren’t separate ambitions. For the first time, schools can recruit, onboard, pay and support staff within a single connected platform – something no competitor currently offers with this level of integration.
We’re moving the education technology sector away from harmful siloed approaches towards cooperative solutions that ultimately benefit pupils. This raises the bar significantly: schools no longer need to accept fragmented, manual processes. Integrated, AI-powered, candidate-first recruitment becomes the new industry standard, forcing competitors to reconsider their fragmented approaches in favour of holistic solutions.
December 2025
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