SafeRec - Part Two: Account for Every Worker

In Part One of the Beyond the SafeRec Certification Series, we described the unusual wave of umbrella acquisitions we began examining during the first months of 2026: the recurring approaches, the valuations being discussed and the questions those transactions raised about ownership and control. At the same time, another part of the SafeRec framework was doing exactly what it had been designed to do: giving recruitment agencies independent visibility of the payroll being processed for their workers.

From the beginning, SafeRec Certification was designed around more than auditing an umbrella company and awarding it a certification. We wanted recruitment agencies to have an ongoing audit trail that they could independently reconcile against information only they hold. An umbrella company knows what payroll it has processed and SafeRec knows what has been submitted through its audit controls, but the recruitment agency knows something equally important: how many workers are sent to that umbrella company, how many workers are expected to be paid, and how much money it has transferred for those workers.