Winner: Craig Morgans: Head of Talent Acquisition and Learning and Development, The AA

The sheer scope of positive change Craig has instigated over the last two years has been phenomenal.

• Craig has turned round a traditional, fragmented recruitment function, driven by people who weren’t talent attraction experts, along with a very much ‘post and pray’ advertising set-up, and an exceptionally low, poor-quality calibre of applications.
• With a remit of transformational change, he’s inspired the business to make major strides – overhauling its employment proposition and dramatically improving its ability to strategically deliver against ambitious business objectives.
• Through forging great relationships across the AA, Craig took time to understand senior figures’ frustrations. He has translated their needs into pragmatic, workable and innovative solutions, which have led to results in many aspects of the business, including employer branding, attraction planning, engagement, selection, hiring and onboarding, and business partnering.
• Craig’s team is unanimous in positive feedback and praise for his leadership and teamworking. Just some of the responses are: “He’s highly collaborative and works closely with the internal team, stakeholders and our recruitment partners to develop a vision and strategy, which we all work towards.” “His original attraction ideas have made a real difference to the number of inductions we’re filling, as we now have a continuous pool of good candidates to draw upon. Gone are the days of struggling as a recruitment team.” “Craig is an amazing leader and always one to think outside the box and come up with innovative ideas to keep his team engaged and hungry to learn more!”
• Craig believes recruitment should be fair, open and consistent, with the aim of finding the right people, with the right skill set, for each role. He has therefore tailored the assessment and selection process to not only attract the best, but also allow for the fact that people with limited working experience may actually be the best choice for a role.

Judges’ comments: “Craig is clearly an inspiring leader who has championed change and innovation over the last 12 months. Craig showed he was diligent in his approach but understood that the basics were important when implementing change and use of data and insight to drive decision-making. He seems to have significant skill and empathy in his role, along with a large dose of humility making him a worthy winner in this category.”

SHORTLIST:

• Adrian Thomas: Head of Executive Recruitment, Civil Service

 

Winner: Charlie Appleyard: Director, Annapurna Recruitment

The judges found the winner’s tenacity and resilience truly inspiring, particularly in coaching other employees and sharing his passion for his job.

• Charlie spearheads the Munich business and is a big advocate in the London office for as many employees as possible to learn German – he has hired a German teacher who comes in three times a week – as a way of creating a culture across the channel and enabling the offices to feel inclusive.
• Charlie created Annapurna HPP (High-Performance Program) to give new employees the chance to optimise their business capabilities at an earlier stage. The HPP sets weekly and monthly targets, which are aligned to what Annapurna’s top performers deliver upon, and was implemented as a way of new starters being able to determine what ‘good’ actually looks like.
• Charlie has been a leading advocate of embracing technology for real business benefit. Every Monday, Charlie records a Hinterview (video interviewing platform) and sends it around the company to give market insights, congratulations and motivation for the week ahead.
• Charlie was the lead project manager for celebrating Annapurna’s 10-year anniversary throughout 2018 and co-ordinated this across the company in his weekly company Hinterviews. The 10-year party was part of his wider employee engagement plan to engage the community in the success of the company so far, encouraging each and every employee to play a key part in Annapurna’s success going forward.
• Charlie’s vision for recruitment: If you empower your employees to be entrepreneurial and give them the opportunity to excel in an organisation, they will flourish.

The standard was very high and it was a close call between all entries. All demonstrated strong leadership skills both internally with growing their companies, as well as externally with regards to giving back to social issues. The judges felt the passion and human side to the sector through all the shortlisted entries.

Judges’ comments: “Charlie showed a passionate belief in how to run a modern community-led recruitment business. His enthusiasm about how he drives his beliefs through his company was clear to all the judges.”

Highly commended:

• Sasza Bandiera: Managing Director, Oyster Partnership
• Raj Tulsiani: CEO and Co-Founder, Green Park

Shortlist:

• Saffa Ayub: Founder / Managing Director, Bramwith Consulting
• Rod Carmichael: Managing Director, CarmichaelUK
• Debbie Caswell: COO, Search Consultancy
• Tanya Loosemore: Managing Director, RGB Recruitment

 

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