WELSH employers are to be given expert help to cope with increasingly complex human resources issues.

Acorn Recruitment, Wales' largest recruitment and training company, has expanded its HR advice and support service in an effort to meet the demands of dozens of local companies.

The service is headed by Barbara Saunders, one of the region's most experienced HR professionals who has held senior management positions in a string of leading manufacturing companies and joins Acorn as HR manager.

As well as running the personnel department, covering more than 110 staff, she will offer advice and support to the dozens of clients who each day use more than 3,000 temporary staff supplied by the firm.

Personnel and workplace legislation is becoming increasingly more complex, in part because of new legislation emanating from Brussels and the UK Parliament, said Saunders.

Many employers, particularly in South Wales, are not large enough to be able to fund dedicated HR departments.

Acorn have identified a need for such firms to be able to access advice and support and their service is aimed to develop over the coming months.

Industrial tribunals and conciliation work is a growth business for the lawyers at Acorn who want to be able to help employers before it gets to that stage.

Barbara Saunders began her career at the then British Steel and most recently at Britax, the manufacturer relocated from Surrey to South Wales and currently employs 270.

Between these two she was a senior HR manager at the Inmos hi-tech start-up in Newport in the early 1980s, a business that employed 1,300, headed the recruitment function at the new Bosch plant in Miskin, near Llantrisant, was a senior HR officer at the new ACAT factory in Oakdale and senior assistant HR manager at LG Electronics in Newport when it opened for business.

Matt Southall, managing director of Acorn Recruitment, said Barbara had worked closely with Acorn for many years and was one of the most respected HR managers in industry in South Wales.