Goodman Masson

Goodman Masson  is a finance, technology and Recruitment Process Outsourcing recruitment business, with offices in London, Dusseldorf and New York.

  • The company founded its ‘Be a hero, make a difference’ – BAHMAD – team in January 2020, which places diversity, inclusion and respect at the heart of the corporate ethos.
  • Its DI&R change initiative, which is split into four networks, has fundamentally changed the way staff understand and think about equality. Everyone has participated in training.

                1) Pride, embracing the LGBTQ+ community.

                2) Origin, supporting a race-inclusive culture and providing a safe space for employees to educate themselves on social issues around race, class, religion and heritage

                3) Balance – supporting gender equality through encouraging positive career support and

                4) Access – the exploration of the company’s approach to disability

  • The company used its connection with the world of social housing to roll out two new offerings during the pandemic: The company recognised that lockdowns would be a very lonely time for many residents, particularly the vulnerable and elderly, who would be in need of social interaction. So, a befriending offering called ‘We’re free to chat’, was designed, in which volunteer furloughed staff called residents at home. During the height of lockdown more than 2,600 people across nine housing associations were called. Second, Careers Start @Home was a series of five online programmes designed to boost residents’ employability skills. Each of the five recorded webinars last roughly 15 minutes and have been attended by at least 250 people per webinar. Included were: how to navigate LinkedIn; CV writing; searching and applying for jobs; preparing for interviews; and additional qualifications and development.

Judges’ comments: “As with the ‘small’ category, we focused our judging on firms’ reactions to Covid-19, as opposed to financial performance. The winners went the extra mile by helping out their community. For example, having furloughed staff speaking to the lonely via their befrienders programme, and helping housing association residents upskill with an employability skills programme.”

Also: We were impressed by companies’ speed of reaction in assisting their staff and clients throughout the pandemic.

Seven Resourcing 

Seven Resourcing is a multi-award-winning, global recruitment agency supplying staff across eight core sectors, and played a pivotal role in supplying crucial temporary health & social care staff to the front line during the fight against Covid-19.

  • Seven Resourcing yielded a 40% increase in gross profit and a 10% increase in staff during the pandemic, thanks to a team willing to work around the clock for its clients and innovative recruitment processes to match, to meet the huge demand for health & social care staff.
  • Seven’s marketing team yielded a 40% increase in web traffic, a 60% increase in conversions (CV uploads, contact forms and job applications) and a 30% increase in social media followers.
  • The agency introduced its digitised PayTech timesheet system, saving Seven and its clients time and money.
  • By retraining staff in frozen sectors (animal health, education, etc), Seven accomplished its promise to its staff that nobody would be furloughed, would lose out on pay or made redundant as a result of the pandemic.
  • The agency also invested resources into mental health support for its staff, employing a full-time mental health professional and organising workshops. Seven also brought the Mind charity on board, to professionally train managers to an accredited standard in staff mental health support.
  • Staff benefit from a rewards system that includes access to fully funded, external learning & development opportunities.

 

Judges’ comments: “Not only did Seven Resourcing experience impressive commercial growth during a difficult period, the business also illustrated innovation, investment, compassion and reward. The development of new online offerings and technology to change the way their clients process temporary staff has been a game changer and the commitment to the wellbeing and mental health of all its stakeholders is fantastic.”

Also: This category is always hotly contested as it’s a large space in the UK recruitment market – the quality this year was really impressive. Strong focus on the internal stakeholder and the customer experience, both of which will continue to elevate the profession.

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Signify Technology

Signify Technology is a bespoke recruitment solutions agency that serves the Scala community.

  • When Covid-19 hit, Signify Technology decided to support the community in any way possible. They organised two virtual, global conferences, where attendees could watch talks presented by their favourite industry inspirations. The conferences were hosted over 13 hours in one day and presented by 13 speakers. The ticket sales were donation only, and all proceeds were donated to charity.
  • A commitment to charitable causes overall has been a priority for the company over the past 12 months.
  • A commitment to diversity is integral to the company’s progression as a business. It is continuing to build a diverse workforce, hiring based solely on skill; the workforce is 29% BAME and 48% female.
  • Despite challenging times, Signify has still managed maintained its business growth. Since 2017 it has achieved an 884% growth in sales, thanks to the high level of determination and the tenacity of its consultants. In 2020, it partnered with 118 new companies while the market was increasingly difficult to navigate, with many organisations putting a freeze on hiring.
  • The team took great care, commitment and sensitivity when working with those who had been made redundant because of the pandemic and were able to successfully place 257 engineers into new roles.

Judges’ comments: “Signify made employees and community their priority. They did a great job pivoting their conference to a successful online event, which also raised money for charity. Their financials look good, too. Good growth, despite the pandemic.”

Also: The judges added that they were looking for a brilliant business overall, plus their reaction to Covid-19 and how the entrants looked to enhance the reputation of recruitment during difficult times. Overall, it was a hotly contested category with a good number of commendable response.

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Select Offshore

Select Offshore provides crewing and recruitment services to the offshore wind farm and oil & gas industries globally, with clients across Europe, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Nigeria. The company positions itself as a staffing solutions provider, rather than purely a supplier of labour.

  • Recruitment in these specialisms is typically with large employers who impose their own terms, and the company has made compliance in the supply of key workers a sales strength. Select is certified under the Maritime Labour Convention and manages a complex supply chain, including transport to offshore sites worldwide, visas, international tax regulation, testing, health and safety.
  • The market brings its own challenges – staff must fully understand the roles they recruit into. Pulling a worker off a remote offshore wind farm because they are unsuitable or circumstances change is not practical.
  • The Covid-19 pandemic brought a specific set of demands. The company has provided a wider range of services in order to keep up the supply of key energy workers; for example, in chartering planes to complete crew changes in countries with closed borders. The provision of a Covid-19 quarantine hub in Amsterdam was a big benefit to existing clients, but was also a way to develop relationships with new ones.
  • In addition to this, the firm has managed to grow its recruitment business extensively; it has strengthened its sales capacity and processes, improved management information and ensured that its own internal processes (employment contracts, policies, all terms of businesses) are compliant and up-to-date, introducing a new CRM and accounting software to facilitate this.

Judges’ comments: “We were impressed with the combination of breadth of service and financial performance, along with the ingenuity and the scope encompassed into their service, in particular with the international mobilisation of the workforce and all of the extra work required to make the service possible.”

Also: The judges were delighted to see the tremendous diversity in applicants, the level of growth and expansion in this category, as well as entrepreneurship, innovation and niche businesses.

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Seven Resourcing 

Seven Resourcing supplies temporary staff across eight core sectors, with the back office playing a critical role in supplying crucial temporary health and social care staff to the front line during the fight against Covid-19.

  • Seven’s back-office operation provides full candidate and client support, compliance, marketing communications, cutting-edge technology and a highly successful candidate generation process.
  • Everyone in Seven’s back office is trained in recruitment legislation, compliance and personal data security. Self-improvement and career progress are a fundamental part of the company ethos and staff in the back office complete qualifications specific to their role.
  • In turn, Seven’s compliance team guarantees that every candidate is qualified, experienced and safe to work. Using Seven’s custom-built compliance technology (SafeGuard), every day the team processes a huge number of files and candidate information.
  • Every week the payroll & finance team processes thousands of timesheets, guaranteeing that candidates are paid on time, every time.
  • Utilising SmartSearch, Candidate Generation adds 600-700 new candidates on to the system every day, so that finding the right people is easy for their clients and faster than the
  • Seven’s marketing team runs all Marcoms in-house, including paid advertising, search engine optimisation, graphic design, web design, email marketing, social media, content creation and data analytics.
  • The in-house IT team ensures Seven’s tech runs smoothly. All staff work on four ultra-HD screens, complete with a full set of wireless peripherals.

Judges’ comments: “In a year that asked so much of the health and care sector, Seven Resourcing delivered on many levels.”

Also: This was a highly competitive category, and all deserved recognition for what they achieved under such difficult conditions.

Seven Resourcing

 Seven Resourcing supplies temporary staff across eight core sectors, and played a pivotal role in supplying crucial temporary health and social care staff to the front line during the fight against Covid-19.

  • Seven does not offer zero hours contracts. The agency primarily offers short-term (one to two months) and long-term (six to 12 months) temporary contracts, as well as ad-hoc shifts on project work.
  • In social care, the contracts are usually long-term temporary positions, varying from three months to a year. The roles are mostly for social workers, support workers and in management Because of the candidate-poor nature of the sector and the quality of Seven’s candidates, these positions often roll over and staff can stay for years in the same roles as temporary workers. Seven works with many county councils in the country and many of the leading government-run and private social care services.
  • In nursing, 75% of the business comes from ad-hoc/shift-based roles. This is an extremely demanding market as hundreds of new shifts across multiple sites have to be organised daily; hundreds of staff nationwide have to be managed, and up-to-date compliance documents for all of them have to be maintained. Popular roles include mental health nurses, general/staff nurses and healthcare a
  • Seven supplies staff to leading UK healthcare organisations, including the NHS, Virgin Care, Care UK, Priory Group, Elysium, Cygnet Health Care and Thornbury Community Services.
  • The life sciences team work in a more corporate environment, supplying temporary pharmaceutical professionals and business experts to some of the world’s largest organisations.

Judges’ comments: “The level of investment and innovation made during the past 12 months by Seven Resourcing was noteworthy. The company has shown great bravery in a time of adversity and this is testament to the growth delivered during the period.”

Also: A number of strong contenders made for a difficult decision.

Seven Resourcing

Seven Resourcing supplies staff across eight core sectors, and played a pivotal role in supplying crucial temporary health and social care staff to the front line during the fight against Covid-19.

  • With the arrival of Covid-19 in early 2020, Seven’s health and social care divisions were inundated with requests from the UK’s leading health and social care services for key workers. This piled huge pressure on its compliance and payroll teams.
  • All major UK healthcare organisations use paper timesheets, and manually inputting them was creating huge pressure on the company. In response, Seven’s MD and team of compliance experts devised a groundbreaking piece of payroll software called PayTech. Automatically sending, storing and processing timesheets with minimal effort, and all on one digital platform, PayTech has revolutionised temporary recruitment in healthcare. Major healthcare organisations, such as Priory Group and Cygnet Health have adopted the technology, changing their traditional and outdated timesheet systems. There has not been a more innovative breakthrough in temporary recruitment in recent years and it is only a matter of time before the NHS move away from their current, outdated system, towards a more secure, effective and convenient alternative in PayTech.
  • Due to the challenging nature of temporary work during the pandemic, in the early days candidates were desperate for PPE. To alleviate the pressure on their temps, Seven’s team worked late into the nights and through long weekends to source PPE and create ‘Hero Boxes’ for every one of their temporary workers, packed with high-quality goggles, FFP3 masks, isopropyl spray, antibacterial gel, a box of gloves, bacterial wipes, pens, and a reusable mug as well as plenty of small treats. Seven also delivered them to local NHS hospitals as a token of appreciation for their hard work.

Judges’ comments: “The judges were very impressed with the all-round performance, looking after and caring for clients, colleagues and candidates. It was clear that they are committed to the sector and went the extra mile, truly embodying the spirit of the times.”

Laurence Simons Search

Laurence Simons Search is a specialist legal, compliance and legal operations search business with offices in London, Frankfurt, Geneva, Amsterdam, Dubai and Sao Paulo. A management buy-out in 2018 from EMK allowed the company to become a more agile and search-led business. This means it can partner more effectively with its  clients to acquire the best talent at the senior end of the in-house and private practice market.

  • Like any other outstanding, specialist search business, the firm deals with a sector that requires it to understand not only what it means to be ‘an exceptional lawyer’ but also how that translates into a client’s requirements.
  • Their customer-facing team – both client and candidate – are mostly former lawyers, and many of the support team have law degrees. This creates credibility with hiring managers and helps to inspire confidence.
  • The business has client intelligence reports done by their support team ahead of any pitch or proposal meeting, to allow them to lead with business conversations, with the clients looking at what their KPIs or measures of success will be and how any hire would add to that.
  • Most of LSS’s specialised consultants and researchers are also qualified Lumina Spark practitioners; this next generation of psychometric testing aids the selection process by providing additional, in-depth screening of candidates.
  • Diversity and inclusion are an integral value of Laurence Simons Search. CEO Clare Beresford is a member of the 30% club, and a board member of Thomson Reuter’s Transforming Women’s Leadership in Law (TWLIL). LSS  has internal training and discussions regularly on D&I topics, and carries out due diligence checks on candidates and clients and where relevant provide support on gender equality in the workplace.

Judges’ comments: “An example of good practice, with a few ‘needle in a haystack briefs’ that the business did well to fill. Particularly effective in their international search, pushing through difficult conditions to engage people to relocate.”

Also: It was difficult category to judge as the entries were demonstrating good practice. Reassured to see continued best practice in challenging conditions.

Impala Search

Impala Search was founded in 2018 by Rob Blackburn and Ivan Lechev, who had spotted an opportunity to commercialise a relatively untapped tech market – software engineering across Europe. They are committed to a first-class client and candidate service, believe in investing in young talent and creating a diverse and inclusive culture where people feel empowered and excited to come to work.

  • The company believes that attitude is as important as skill sets, therefore they match their candidates to their clients’ core values. The recipe for success is knowledge and integration in tech and software engineering, an obsession with client and candidate service, a diverse, energetic and dynamic company culture and an eye for innovation.
  • As with so many organisations, they had to adapt to the Covid-19 pandemic extremely quickly. They explored how they could pivot new challenges and find ways to diversify the business, as well as adapt everyday operations. Having made this adaptation to remote working, staff are now having more interaction with clients and candidates than ever before and this has strengthened all of their professional relationships.
  • At the start of 2020 Impala Search was focused on Berlin, with the plan for 2021 to expand into a new country. This was brought forward when Covid-19 hit. Stockholm was chosen as the appropriate market as it mirrors the landscape in Berlin, both in terms of technology companies and how attractive it is to candidates as a place to live and work.
  • Impala has now made multiple placements in Stockholm and hired their first experienced recruiter to lead in this area.

Judges’ comments: “The business impressed judges with their focused approach, diversity initiatives and ability to adjust their business strategy to maintain sustainability.”

Also: The overall standard of entries in this category was high. Businesses demonstrated growth and innovation. In a highly competitive category several entries met the judges’ highest expectations and generated appropriate debate.

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Lucid Support Services

Established in 2002, Lucid’s certified team combines more than 125 years of experience of specialist, technical and IT project-based contract recruitment. Lucid has delivered projects for almost all of the top 25 IT resellers in the UK, along with a large number of smaller, independent niche providers. Its most recent venture, Lucid Connect, specialises in permanent recruitment solutions across the IT sector. The agency’s specialist teams include government digital, manufacturing/engineering and project delivery services.

  • The firm provides fast, reliable and cost-effective partnerships to IT channel clients, supporting their large-scale transformation projects.
  • Lucid’s right IT expertise is fundamental to the success of their clients’ projects. However, the majority of their customers are not technical resourcing specialists, so the agency has to perform this function on each client’s behalf.
  • To support clients in winning business and achieving project outcomes, the firm: assists clients to bid and tender for projects and frameworks; develops client-specific rate cards; provides up-to-date marketplace evaluations; schedules and manages multi-site deployment/installation projects free of charge; and sets up and maintains a ‘virtual bench’ of pre-selected consultants and engineers for the client to call on as and when required, often at short notice.

Judges’ comments: “The exceptional case studies from this entrant really stood out for the judges – and very effectively showed us how recruitment service can be a real game changer and value driver for the client – particularly when, as this entrant showed us, the service is embedded and not transactional. Excellent and very impressive examples of real innovation in the provision as well.

Also: The judges were pleased (and impressed) to see the innovation happening in this market space – in the offerings to both clients and candidates. Really inspiring to see the depth of IT expertise and knowledge our entrants possess and how this serves the success of the customers.