Winner: Venari Partners

Sponsored by: Class People

Venari Partners is an emerging international executive search firm that places strategy and commercial executives across a range of sectors. It has launched a series of training workshops to equip its 10 consultants with the tools to be the best in their respective sectors. The firm has rewarded employees for success with annual trips to the Dominican Republic and Spain and monthly incentives such as spa days for the team. In the year ending October 2017, the firm’s turnover increased by 42% year-on-year to £1.64m and its profit increased 29% in the same period to £863,396. Having established itself in the travel, transport and logistics industry, Venari focused on its recently launched life sciences and technology, media and telecommunications practices.

• The firm further aligned executive search with strategy consulting to deliver targeted talent management networking dinners. Building on the success of the previous year, it co-hosted a further three roundtable dinners with McKinsey management consultancy, and there are plans to extent the events to digital health and medical technology.
• The firm has maintained its position in the travel, transport and logistics industry, winning new mandates. In life sciences, it has carried out transactions with more than 10 new clients across the world in the past 12 months, from the US to Eastern Europe.
• The training workshops launched in 2017 focus on areas such as sourcing candidates, new business development, and managing the offer process.
• On the environmental and social responsibility side, the firm has started moving towards a paperless product. It has increased its charity work over the past 12 months. With each search, it sends out a brochure detailing its charitable efforts and encouraging clients to sponsor or join it in supporting these causes.
• The firm continues to hold innovation meetings where everyone is encouraged to present an idea that will further improve the product offering or the company. It expanded this arrangement and encouraged employees to present specific ideas to further improve the standard of customer service.

Highly Commended:

Flair 4 Recruitment

Judges’ Comments:

“The winner has evidence of extremely strong financial performance, and is a clear global expert in its field. A clever strategic partnership has supported its impressive success.”

Winner: Gravitas Recruitment Group

Gravitas Recruitment Group is a global specialist recruitment company that provides contract and permanent services in the technology, insurance and banking sectors. The business needs global support for five offices in the UK and Asia, including accounts, credit control, contracts, customer care, first-line IT support, administration, travel booking, marketing, communications, management information reporting, facilities management, HR and personnel services. The back office team works with an external legal consultancy when necessary, within legislative environments in the UK and Asia that cover employment law, agency worker regulations, HMRC/financial law, data protection, immigration law, equal opportunities, privacy and electronic communications, and contractual law.

• In 2017, Gravitas bought boutique search firm Atlas Global Search in Hong Kong. With the purchase complete in the first week in June and the go-live date for the initial transition of staff and systems into the Gravitas Hong Kong office scheduled for 1 July, the back-office team had to react quickly. The business-critical project needed collaboration – not only between teams, but also internationally. The various functions worked together across borders to meet deadlines, and the project was a success.

• The team’s contribution to customers is shown by its work on advising contractors in the public sector what HMRC’s IR35 changes might mean to them.

• The team has made improvements to the efficiency, effectiveness and compliance of the business, including the amalgamation of Gravitas UK with Gravitas Asia into one global business. There were huge differences in back-office processes, policies and procedures, leading to inconsistency, process inefficiency and lack of compliance. The team ensured that systems data and reporting are now accurate and consistent globally.

• Process efficiency is woven into the business, and back office is expected to take the lead on this. As well as being reactive to business demands, the team also proactively drives its own projects forwards, consistently bringing innovative ideas on improving and growing support.

Judges’ Comments:

“This entry showed sound knowledge of legal considerations and the contractor care service offering showed great value added. We were impressed by the collaborative approach in managing the acquisition in Hong Kong.”

Winner: Class People

Sponsored by: The Recruit Venture Group

Class People is an independent education recruitment specialist, providing supply teachers, teaching assistants, tutors, special educational needs staff and early years practitioners to schools and settings across the South West of England. The company runs a foundation that provides sponsorship to key clients using money that has been put aside to give back to schools. In various schools, it has sponsored a behaviour reward system, sports kit and country dancing t-shirts, and contributed to an end-of-year production. Its corporate social responsibility initiatives include a project that ran over the 2017 summer holidays.

• An example of the company’s contribution to client success is its work with Field Court Junior Academy, which has been a client more than 10 years, during which its teachers have contributed to the school’s success and its Ofsted rating has gone from ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’.

• A challenging vacancy was an Apple education sales consultant for Western Computer. Class People realised this would be the perfect opportunity for a teacher looking to use their relevant experience towards a new challenge, and approached a candidate sourced recently for supply teaching work, who mentioned that he had been looking to leave the teaching profession. The candidate jumped at the prospect of staying in a field related to education but not in the classroom.

• Excellent client service is shown by company’s strong relationships with its schools. Its consultants often give up their evenings or Saturdays to participate in clients’ summer fetes, circus days, face painting or running of bouncy castles. Over the summer holidays, the Class People team took time out of the office to build a pond and nature garden at another school.

• The company’s excellent service to temporary workers is illustrated by its support for a primary teacher who moved to its area from London. He said he left his induction appointment “feeling enthused and ready to face the fresh challenges of teaching in a new part of the country”.

Judges’ Comments:

“As a small private company, they were going the extra mile to deliver exceptional service … the passion and enthusiasm were shining through. We were impressed by their innovation, especially around corporate responsibility.”

Winner: Commercial Services

The recruitment division of Commercial Services is wholly owned by Kent County Council. Connect2Kent provides a master vendor recruitment managed service for the council for all categories of temporary, interim and contract positions. When required, the recruitment team engages with its OJEU-compliant supply chain, with zero off-contract spend. Increasing demand from other public, third and private organisations have led it to operate an external trading business, Connect2staff. An example of the company’s expertise contributing to clients’ success is its work connected with resettling Syrian refugees in Kent, where it swiftly mobilised an interpreting and translation business to source qualified agency translators, ensuring families were fully supported from arrival through to full integration into the UK.

• The company sourced assessors for adult social care. The council had a backlog of deprivation of liberty safeguards (DoLS) assessments, but a combined effort to source qualified best interest assessors allowed the assessments to be completed within the necessary timeframe.

• A challenging vacancy filled by Connect2Kent is placing six independent chairs, for domestic homicide and for the safeguarding adults board, into the council and Kent Police – all six workers are ad hoc consultants and still work on a regular basis for the service.

• Connect2Kent provided temporary admin and education support staff to Virtual Schools Kent, which promotes the progress and educational attainment of children in care and young care leavers.

• Connect2Kent helped a care and support worker in their career path, assisting them in a move to work at a reception centre for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, and then to gain skills to eventually become a shift leader at this centre.

• Innovation during this period is shown by the company’s development of a mobile app, MyTimesheets, to meet the challenges of clients with shift workers. The app enables real-time approval of individual shifts that are captured for finalised authorisation by the hiring manager for the week as a whole on a secure client portal.

Highly Commended:

Baltimore Consulting

Judges’ Comments:

“The winner showed a clear focus on delivering solutions in a difficult environment … and showed innovation in creating an in-house recruitment agency, adding real value to the community and the council.”

Winner: DMJ Recruitment

DMJ Recruitment specialises in placing legal and company secretarial professionals into private practice and in-house clients. It has signed a preferred recruitment partner agreement with a professional institute (ICSA: The Governance Institute). As part of this agreement, DMJ was asked to increase the profile of the profession among students and graduates interested in a company secretarial or governance career. At the end of 2016, the company launched Insight Days, a CPD-accredited initiative that offers students and graduates the chance to spend half a day with a prestigious host organisation to learn about the role and responsibilities of a company secretary.

• The agency saw an impressive 51% increase in profits in 2015/16 and £1m net profit in 2016/17.

• DMJ has worked with insurance company Aviva as part of an internal transformation plan for its company secretarial/governance function, for which Aviva found difficult to attract and retain talent. DMJ has since assisted Aviva in implementing its longer-term strategy to retain its best talent, appoint high-calibre individuals and assist those being managed out.

• A case study of a challenging vacancy that DMJ has filled is the role of UK head of legal and company secretary at Bank of Georgia. The company managed a successful hire, improved internal practices and a positive recruitment experience.

• An example of excellent client service involves work with Tesco, which approached DMJ to help it with hires in its company secretarial/legal function. DMJ worked with the client on role profiles and eventually successfully placed five people on the team.

• A case study of excellent candidate service over the year is its work with a business law graduate seeking an alternative career. DMJ suggested the idea of her becoming a company secretary, and worked with her on obtaining a permanent role.

• Innovation during this period is shown by the Insight Days initiative that DMJ started to raise awareness of the governance profession among students and graduates. Benefits include increased student membership for ICSA, development of the future pipeline of candidates for DMJ and increased awareness of the brand in the market in which it operates.

Judges’ Comments:

“The winner demonstrated a clear link between valuing its own employees and business success… Taking the long-term view pays off.”

Winner: Peel Solutions

British policing is facing a record number of retirements after recruitment drives between 25 and 30 years ago. The company provides bespoke recruitment and training solutions for the law enforcement sector. Director Andrew Smith is a former detective superintendent who served with Cheshire Constabulary for more than 25 years. With operational links to the National Crime Agency, he understands the internal structures and mission to lead the UK’s fight to cut serious and organised crime. The other director, Dylan Cooper, brings over 20 years’ recruitment experience to the company after owning a successful agency in the industrial and IT sectors.

• Peel Solutions has created an innovative course entitled ‘Investigative Skills and Evidence Gathering Refresher’, to provide retired or retiring police officers with the knowledge that is required to keep their skills relevant.

• In another example of creativity and innovation, the firm has secured the domain policejobs.co.uk to create an exciting, police- focused job board.

• As an example of Peel’s quality of service, the firm was approached by a large-scale investigation team looking to recruit 10 disclosure experts, who would be required to get an important piece of work over to the Crown Prosecution Service. Peel was able to supply 10 appropriate candidates within eight weeks and received positive feedback.

• Peel offers differentiation and competitive advantage in police knowledge, skills and recruitment, owing to members of Peel’s team having worked in these sectors first hand. The firm’s head of investigation skills, Chris Davies, was also in the police force for 30 years. The firm has taken the knowledge that they obtained from their time with the police and the experience they had during the retirement process, and used it to improve the service it offers.

• Peel has recently begun to branch out into the health and social care world, adding a division to the company. Health and social care and policing go hand in hand in helping the community stay safe. Peel has appointed Jodie Stott for this division, who brings 17 years of expertise working in healthcare.

Highly Commended:

Source Technology

Judges’ Comments:

“Peel combines policing and recruitment expertise to create a business that clearly meets a need and is creating second careers for highly specialised and valuable people.”

Winner: La Fosse Associates

La Fosse Associates is a values-based technology, digital and change recruiter, working at all levels from the board down. The company treats candidates well because it believes it’s the right thing to do, but also because it’s a better way to do business. In 2016, La Fosse almost doubled its size. This experience created challenges; however, the process also gave the company an insight into what fast growth means. La Fosse decided to take these lessons and build a service line for clients, the Talent Advisory programme, that would draw on its own experiences to advise new enterprises on how to scale at speed.

• Working with fast-growing technology businesses has been at the company’s core since the start, and the Talent Advisory programme seemed to be the logical next step in providing value for the community of start-ups and venture capital-backed enterprises.

• The programme demonstrates La Fosse’s strength as a consultative partner as well as a recruiting body. Much of the programme’s structure is built around its internal hiring, HR and learning and development practices.

• La Fosse placed 25 candidates with long-standing client in 2017. La Fosse’s working relationship with the client means La Fosse now has an interview:placement ratio of 3:1 for the account.

• A case study of excellent client service during this year is a project with a public sector organisation during its transformation programme, when it was establishing a team from scratch. La Fosse helped the organisation fill 20 posts during the transformation period.

Judges’ Comments:

“La Fosse clearly aspires to be best-in-class at everything it does. Sustained financial growth and high net promoter scores underline how well the agency is run.”

Sponsored by: NatWest

LMA Recruitment specialises in banking, secretarial, finance, risk, compliance and HR staffing. The firm has enjoyed continued growth across all metrics in 2017. Its success comes from retaining and developing its team, investing heavily in training and implementing technology to allow its people to spend more time talking than typing. LMA aims to be a pre-eminent force with the professional services recruitment market. Its plans include growing its existing teams while establishing new teams in legal, tax and treasury. The company has a diverse culture that treats its employees with respect and maturity, which provides opportunities for recruiters to build and develop an amazing career, and provides an environment where staff in all areas can excel.

• Ongoing uncertainty over the Brexit process has caused many organisations to question their people strategy. Given LMA’s proximity to the candidate market, Brexit has been at the forefront of this planning process. Average call times in the team have gone up significantly, and this can be only because the company has been trying to advise people as best it can.
• The company saw turnover growth of 22% to £11,216,325; net fee income of 22% to £4,029,495, and group operating profit growth of 72% to £588,229.
• Banking and financial services clients contributed £542,340 towards group operating profit, equating to 92% of group operating profit.
• The company is becoming an industry voice on diversity. It held an event last year with the Lord Mayor of London, which generated positive press about the need for companies to embrace the diversity & inclusion agenda more.
• As LMA has developed relationships with long-term clients, it has tried to act as advisers to them. In 2017 it began a partnership with the Will Exell change consultancy to join the dots of recruitment, engagement and retention. Throughout 2017, we took one of the Will Exell team with us to strategic client meetings. This facilitated a far deeper understanding of our clients.

Judges’ Comments:

“The winner provided evidence of strong financial performance, of tackling difficult-to-fill roles, and of candidate service. It has also enhanced its offering and value to clients by partnering with a coaching business.”

Kite Consulting Group

Kite Consulting Group believes that the best agency is one that delivers the most customer value and satisfaction. Accordingly, the company has overhauled its business and redesigned its processes to put value to clients ahead of its fees. Clients get a good or great hire, or they get their money back for up to a year. In an independent survey, customers rated their satisfaction with Kite at 96%, as against average satisfaction with competitors at only 60%. This high appraisal rating is due to the development of innovative tools and practices that clients can rely on. In 2017, Kite’s number of clients grew by 240% and its staff by 157%, all without a sales function.
• Kite doesn’t employ salespeople. Instead, it relies on good service and word of mouth to generate new business.

• The company’s client service approach includes: integrity; only top-performer placements – average isn’t good enough; a video pre-interview between Kite and the applicant, embedded in each CV; interviewing each candidate’s previous manager on their job suitability before sending any CVs; including better data in CVs, with Scorecard; and using proprietary methods for capturing job specs, with Client Story.

• One example of Kite’s outstanding client service care was holding a capital markets networking dinner where attendees gained advice from experts in MiFID II regulation, which was increasing in pace and complexity during this period. The company’s insight into the senior managers who attended then helped it select hires for various clients.

• Kite also helped clients to develop blockchain capabilities by launching Blocktribe.com as a source of appropriate talent.

• In a third example, Kite provided market information on the behaviours and profiles of top performers with a Performance Trends White Paper, launched in partnership with the Change Management Institute.

Judges’ Comments:

“Kite’s innovative examples of how it supports its clients have contributed to excellent financial results, all backed up with clear metrics to underpin performance.”