Andy Morrell - Creating an open culture and how it can drive performance, growth and positivity.

Welcome to the Recruitment Rollercoaster podcast. My name is Hishem Azzouz. Today I'm joined by Andy Morell, who is the CEO at Oscar, who are an award-winning recruitment agency that Andy joined in 2007. They deliver talent across technology, digital, energy, and construction. They have a global footprint as a business with offices in Manchester, London, Austin, and Houston. There's circa 80 people who currently work for the brand and are currently sitting at £28 million turnover as a business. Andy, thank you for joining.

Morning, how are you?

I'm good. How's it been? How's life been over the last couple of months, Andy? Talk to us.

Do you know what? I think on a relative basis, pretty good. Really thankful on a personal level, I think, for having outdoor space, family around me. You know, to help with, uh, with mental health and things like that. And business-wise, it's been challenging, but we've come through it pretty well. And, um, fingers crossed, I think we're going to come out of it stronger than we went into it with. So, um, happy, but, um, it's been a real graft. And for sure, and our guys have put in monumental efforts.

Yeah. So, Andy, I've been looking forward to this. Oscar is a brand that I associate with one of the sort of leading recruitment businesses up north. Hopefully.

Very kind of you to say so.

Yeah, so I'm sure there's lots of people interested to know more about the Oscar story and the Andy story. So we're gonna focus today on you joining Oscar and that sort of 13-year or so journey. But just for context, so how— from what I saw online, you've been working in recruitment for nearly like 20 years, basically.

3 months from yesterday, I'll be 20 years exactly.

Wow. Okay. So 20 years.

October 23rd, 2000.

Okay. And then for like pretty much 13 and a bit of those, you've been at Oscar?

Yes, that's right. Yeah. Okay.

So we're going to focus on the Oscar journey. So before that, from what I saw, you was a contract it manager for a business. And you joined Oskar in 2007.

Yes.

Why don't we start? I know we said before this that things, a lot of things changed at Oskar when you moved from Disbury to Manchester. But when you joined the business, what did it look like, just for context?

So I was kind of parachuted in by the owners of the business, a bit of a turnaround sort of change project, really. The company had been going since 2001. Started, I mean, not a lot of people in recruitment remember, everyone remembers 2007 to 2009, right? The financial crash. Things were difficult in the early 2000s as well in tech. First dot-com bubble had burst, post-Y2K, there was an awful lot of engineers in the market and not jobs, and the business sort of started in that fire, really. And I think because it started as a tech recruitment business by guys who'd worked together before, and over the course of sort of those 6 years or so from then, because it was a difficult time in tech, I think we branched out and started to do a little bit of everything. So what I walked into was a small business, you know, sort of single figures of staff, but there was like, there's like, there's 2 junior guys doing tech, There was 2 guys doing, uh, uh, rec-to-rec, there's 2 guys doing oil and gas, there's 2 guys doing rail. It was just kind of like a bit all over the place, um, and they were without a leader, um, because the previous directors had a bit of a fallout, um, so I went in as an MD just to kind of put in processes, um, that were linked up between all these disparate parts of the business. Um, they weren't really working on a unified database Seemed to me at the time that the lead consultants changed the commission structure every month to suit what was going on with their business. It was— there were some good people there and it had potential, but it was a little bit of a, I don't know, kind of like a boys club in a way. Do you know what I mean? It didn't feel like a business. And I think there was, I said, there were some really nice people and there's some people with potential that we built around, and two of them eventually made directors.

Amazing.

But it was starting from, you know, we were in a spit and sawdust office above a charity shop and a bookies and a pub, and it was that kind of environment really. And I think that, as with a lot of recruitment businesses, the existing population there had kind of been bred to, by the person that ran it, whoever comes in after this isn't going to be as nice as me and they'll be horrible to you and blah blah blah. So I kind of, I walked into a bit of a bit of a wall of hate, to be honest with you. So 27 was interesting.

Yeah, so you joined there when you was 27?

Yeah.

Okay, yeah, yeah. And obviously before then you had led teams, like managed teams as well?

Yeah, I'd only— I've worked in one business, started as a trainee, um, in 2000, late 2000, IT contracts. So very salesy, very old school, like standard hours were half 8 till half 7. That kind of environment, which I'm really glad I did because you kind of, I think, again, you forge strong relationships and I think strong ethics from that. And I was, I had gone through from being a trainee to running a division and I was quite successful in training and managing people. That's where I really found my oomph. I was a good recruiter, but I was never the best. I don't think I was overly salesy. But I loved working with people from— it's that old typical background of having led sports teams and all that kind of stuff as being younger and taking that and then maybe learning to be not so one-dimensional, you know, as the years pass. So I'd led teams and I got to the stage where I was running a contract division. I didn't think I was ever going to get directorship of that business or ownership of it. I was kind of considering, do you start up on your own? What do you do? And then this opportunity came to kind of to go into something where there's a very shaky platform, there's a platform there, there's a challenge, build it and see what you can do with it. So yeah, so I took that opportunity up and it was very different because everybody who'd worked under me before as a manager had been trained by me since day one. So they—

totally different.

They've seen me build, they bought into me, they bought into what I could develop other people into. And so that you come into a culture, you become indoctrinated by it, right? I had to go in and indoctrinate them into what I wanted the business to do, what I thought it could do, rather than me sort of go native and just going to be their friends because that way you don't actually affect change. Yeah. So it was an interesting start. And so we kind of— I heard about it on, I think it was like the Thursday, and then I went in the Tuesday morning. We went in, we interviewed, me and the owners interviewed all the staff. How would you feel about this? Where are you going with it? Blah, blah, blah. They disappeared and left me to it. And I was like, I'm in the business, what do I do now? I honestly didn't know what to do. I remember walking into the boardroom and there's like a little corner away from the window and the door you couldn't see. I just sat there for about 10 minutes. I was like, put your head together, what do you do now? And then it was just like, trust your instincts and your processes really and go from there.

Okay, so we're gonna attempt to sort of break down this journey that you've been on, right? So why don't we try and think about the early days, the first 3 to 5 years, which I'm sure a lot went on. But I know when you said, obviously, so when you moved to Manchester from Didsbury, which is, I'm assuming, where this original office was when you joined, why did things start to change from there?

I think I went in in quarter 2. Of 2007. And again, bearing in mind, this is just the start of the financial crisis. Amazing timing again. But I think for me, I wasn't going to go somewhere and just tread water. It was important that we invested in things properly and we made it a viable business that could grow consistently and sustainably. And I think you have to show investment in people. I mean, actually, those of you, if you know Didsbury, it's a lovely place in South Manchester. I lived in Didsbury, so the office was like 2 minutes' drive from my apartment.

I've been to Didsbury Business Park because I've been to Moriaborn, Finney James.

Yeah, yeah. So it was just between, we were just in the village from there. So it wasn't as swanky as those guys. But so it was, I'd never worked in Manchester before actually. Where I worked previously was out in Cheshire. I started to try and recruit for the business and I was realising that people from the city centre or the satellite towns north, east and west of Manchester, they'd be loath to go to Didsbury over the city centre, right? Transport links, the M60 is a pig and various other reasons. So I figured, right, if we go to the city centre, I'll be able to attract people from not only sort of south Manchester, Stockport, Didsbury, Hale, around there, but also Wigan and Bolton and Oldham and people relocating as well, potentially. Yeah, and it was just at the time when I think there was a really, a bit of an explosion of growth of city centre living, because in the past in Manchester, not many people actually lived in the city centre. You know, in the late '90s, after a certain time, on the weekend, it was a ghost town. Everybody came in from the suburbs, but there was this explosion, urban splash stuff, everybody was building flats and I figured that the young sort of go-getters, which traditionally we build recruitment businesses around when we do organically, your post-university guys, and obviously Manchester's the biggest university city in the UK, a lot of them want that, you know, that kind of that New York loft lifestyle where you walk to work, you grab a Starbucks, you go to the gym, and then after work, if you want, there's a bar on the corner or a restaurant or what have you. And I figured that Didsbury's cool, but for me, I thought the potential in growing it into something interesting would be from the city centre. So we took a massive punt, took out a 10-year lease on an office, 4,000 square feet, could fit 50 people, and went from there. I mean, we could only do that because, to be fair, the first sort of 6 months or so after I'd gone in, the guys responded quite well, quite well in the main, and we could see straight away, we could see a path forwards out of the IT and the oil and gas areas of the business and the rest of it we just got rid of.

Okay, interesting. So what was your vision for this business for the first, when you got to Manchester, for the first 3 to 5 years? What was you thinking? Was you just thinking growth? Was you thinking I need to get some core processes in place to enable us to scale? I'm assuming that from, it seems like from the get-go, this is a business that you're looking at scaling. So like, what was the vision for the business for the first sort of 3 to 5 years once you got to Manchester?

I think long-term vision and the type of vision that we deliver now to our businesses, we didn't have, and you know, admittedly so. I don't think I'd ever been exposed to a vision. The business I worked for had been relatively sort of small to medium-sized business, and you were never given that by the owners. It was, you work hard, you make money, and you can kind of organically grow up through the business. Where that goes, we don't know. I'll be honest with you, it was just, well, we just keep doing that and see where it takes us. So common. And we, you know, to be honest with you, even until it was probably only 5 years ago that we really had a proper structured vision in the business that we were able to deliver out to the people that work for us to buy into. Back then, it was, it was you bought into your own story and your own needs and wants, and really, if the business gave you the platform to do that, that was great. You didn't think about people buying into the larger picture of the organisation, or what we did. I'm sure there are businesses out there that did, but not really having any guidance.

So interesting.

You just followed what you, I suppose, what you knew but wanted to do it better.

Yeah, so why don't we then, Andy, I think, why don't we break this down where we talk about the business up until that point where you made the time to think about vision, values, etc., which I'm sure went into this because I'm sure Because I keep hearing this, Andy, I'll be honest, that it's really common that recruitment businesses end up scaling, they get to this point where they're like, well, actually we need to think of what we need to be aligned with, and that really impacts culture and scalability, etc. So I guess, was the focus more on then, right, we need to get some good people through the door, we need some good processes? What did you focus on implementing that you think helped you get— because where was you as a business before that last 5 years ago when you thought about the vision and these things, where was you as a business at that point?

So we've actually had— our growth hasn't been linear, you know, we've had the alottiness monster, like a lot of recruiters do with the desk, right? We've had that as a business based on a number of different things. So to break down into areas, if you like, yeah, so from 2008 we moved to Manchester. For the first couple of years, we're doing— at this point we're doing tech in the UK, and we're doing oil and gas globally from Manchester because there's a global market, mainly permanent stuff, super high fees. I mean, when I walked in there, you know, we're dealing with some clients at 40% on, you know, £150K salaries, right? So you're able to do some big deals, but it wasn't— there was no sustainability or consistency to it. And we identified two guys to build— one guy we'll build tech around you, one guy will build oil and gas around you. And 2008, 2010, 2011, UK economy wasn't great, right? Well, the world economy wasn't great, but the oil price was still pretty good. So the oil and gas guys are still having a great time of it and the tech team are growing slowly but surely. And then I suppose, jump a little bit, we've talked eres, you flip that on its head to 2014, 2015, when the oil price crashes, but the economy's doing kind of okay in the UK, so the tech guys keep them up. So often, I suppose it's been a spread of risk, but there's also a counterbalance with one part of the business doing better than the other. But in those early years, we were just trying to, to be honest with you, I was trying to, I suppose, replicate what I'd done successfully at my previous business, which was why I was asked to do this job in the first place, to grow, to scale, to build out vertical markets, with consistent processes, to train. I was, in my previous business, I'd written sort of the training suite that all the managers used, because I was quite passionate about it.

That was going to be my question, Andy. When you say that, what were the things that you focused on implementing that you think could give it the platform to be successful?

It was, at the time, it was all organic growth. It was picking up graduates and taking them from there. One, because we we probably wouldn't have attracted anybody decent who was experienced. Well, I feel like there's the odd couple, but for the main part, no, we didn't have a brand, we weren't really well known. And it was putting them through, I suppose, essentially the training that I'd set up for my previous business and just trying to replicate that and replicate that. There were obviously nuances of the oil and gas industry, which I found very difficult myself individually to come to terms with because that wasn't something that I knew about when I first doing the business.

Did you deliver the training?

I delivered all the sales training and all the candidate acquisition and through that process training. We started, as the company grew, we started then to try and pad that out. I mean, we've had a training function for the last, oh God, about 5 or 6 years. We've had a training manager, actually looking for a new L&D manager now if anybody's interested. Hey! So we, but again, that came organically out of somebody who was, who became subject matter expert in a certain part of the recruitment lifecycle, wasn't really a salesperson, but was a real good asset to the business. And we built, I suppose we built a function out of this chap. But what we started to decentralise training a little bit and have other people bring in parts to it as the recruitment process changes and as it evolves and bringing in people to do what they're best at. But for me, The most important thing was being super granular with it and really, really detail-oriented. I think one of the reasons I became quite good at recruitment in the first place, again, I don't think I'm a great salesperson, but I really hate fucking losing, first of all. I can't stand losing. I've been that way through sporting background. But I found a way to— so if you like that, I think you'll find a way to win. And I found a process that worked really, really well. And Matt Southworth, who's our MD for the UK, He's the person that we built the IT piece around. And he was similar, really, really good guy, really solid, really, really process-driven. And for me, I think if you can put those processes in place, but allow and then hire people that are bright and intelligent and allow them to use their creative spark within it, so they're not inhibited by it, you can build a model that then is scalable. I mean, we've all worked with people that are super talented, really, you know, could charm the snakes down from the trees sort of thing. But those people, I think it's really, really difficult to scale that. So don't think you can build a business that grows on that. So for me, it was about finding consistency. I've always been a big advocate of finding out what good looks like, and that might be different from territory or from vertical market or from industry or from brand, and actually from individual skill set in a way as well. well then trying to replicate that, and that's a good way of growth. You know, I was told in my early days of recruitment, find out who the top biller is, go and sit with them, buy them lunch, take them for a pint, and just bend their ear, you know? And in theory, if you can do exactly what they're doing, why can't you get the same results? And I don't think it's necessarily as straightforward as that, because I think personality is a big, big thing. But if you do it within that framework, I think you've got every chance of success.

That's really interesting. So did a lot of your core focus end up on being the process around training development because you was getting in grads and non-experienced people in and then obviously, yeah, refining that, getting great at that? And then what other, what other sort of processes or even potentially tools did you start to implement that helps you get more of the good out of people and help build this solid platform that you felt could give you the best chance of scaling?

I think for me, a lot of it is— if you talk about being able to maximize somebody's potential, when somebody comes to you and joins you straight out of uni or from a sales job, all they are is this bag of potential, recruitment-wise, because they've not done it before, right? So it's finding that mixture of different things that will make them maximize that potential. Now, often One of the things that I learned the hard way, actually, is it's not actually making them the best recruiter they can be necessarily. I've got a little equation that I use, so forgive me with this, it's very rudimentary, but— so I used to manage people, I used to be so evangelical back in my latter days at Senator, my early days at Oscar, I wanted to get everybody to be better than me, I wanted them to be 100% because I felt when I went there, anything that went out the door of Oscar had my name on it, And I'm a bit of a perfectionist, right? But what I realized was that when you manage people that hard, and you mean the right things, right? You genuinely, you do it for them, but you manage them that hard and you get so upset about little things they don't do, right? What happens is, I could make you a 10 out of 10 recruiter, right? But for the things that I'd have to do and you'd have to do to get to that stage, you'll want to do the job and your drive and your desire and your motivation will probably drip to a 2 or 3. Right, so your output's 10 times 2 or 10 times 3, say 20 or 30, right? That's your output you get from somebody. Yeah. Whereas let's say actually what we want to do is get maximum output. It's not about, it's not about being right, it's about winning. It's not about making them technically the best recruiters in the world, it's about putting them in a situation where they do the best job. So if I get to a stage where you're my trainee, Hishem, and I say I can get you, I can get you, you'll do the rest yourself, I can get you to 7 or 8 out of 10 without all the shit that we've got to go through to get you 10 out of 10. I guarantee that your want for the job and your motivation will still remain at an 8 or 9 or 10, right? Yeah. So what's 10 times 7?

70.

That's a lot more than 30, right? So I think for me, to answer the original question, what else did you put in place? It's not just about technical training. It's about creating an environment that they thrive in but also want to work in and stay in for longevity purposes. And it took me a long time to get that right. Long, long time. But it's building role models, it's building pillars, it's building people they want to be and want to work for. They've got to want to work with you and for you as well. You've got to be able to give them a clear route to money. It's got to be super, super transparent about how they get to the next stage in their career, how they earn X amount of pounds to to pay off their student debt, to buy their first house, to go on a swanky holiday, to whatever it is they want to do. I think those things are really important, and it's also about giving them all the tools so they don't feel— because we all have those shit days or weeks in recruitment, right? The last thing I ever want is somebody who works Oscar and those days to go, "Well, if I was up the road and I had this super sexy CRM or LinkedIn Recruiter license that I don't have here, then I'd do better." So we give them what they need. And if you combine those things for me, then I think you've got the best chance of success. Yeah.

And that's the journey that you've been on, it seems like, then, to build all this together. So where was the business 5 years ago then before you— like, what prompted the focus on vision? Like, did you have any values at that point? Like, because it seems like, yeah, you had to go through that learning process, but where was you as a business 5 years ago?

It's that whole thing, isn't it? You know, it takes a decade to become an overnight success, right? And I think, I don't think there was a moment. I don't think there was a flick of a switch. I think you evolve and you learn and you continue to try and process what you've been through. And, you know, there is a topic du jour, isn't there? Whether it's personal branding, a few years ago it was meetups, before that it was LinkedIn, before that it was something else, right? And I think it's just making sure that you're adding to what you're doing to make sure you are using, I suppose, relatively bleeding-edge recruitment techniques so that you're not just dragged along with it, so that you have to do it because everyone else is doing it. Yeah. And I think, I think the whole branding, I, I was always a bit cynical because I've seen so much during my time recruitment that said there was the, what, post-Y2K dot-com bubble bursting in 2001, then 9/11, so the world was difficult till 2004. And then there's a financial thing, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011. And then there's the oil and gas thing absolutely killed us in 2014, 2015 when the oil price fell off a cliff. So you look at these things and I used to say, well, what's the point in setting the long-term vision? Because there's always going to be something outside of our control that dictates that we can't do that. I was so wrong, right? Because I think if you say, right, this is where we want to get to in 3 years, and this is how we're going to do year 1, year 2, and year 3. If something changes in year 1, That's cool. We just realign it and we go again. But if we're not talking about our values and our vision and our purpose, then it means fuck all. I mean, you know, we've had a mission statement and values on our wall for years. If you don't talk about that, if you don't get the pillars underneath you to buy into that and talk about with their teams and they talk about it with their teams, it's just a facade, right?

Yeah, exactly. And this is what I keep finding with business owners like yourself. So just for context then.

Yeah.

So I'm assuming, yeah, just after the oil and gas plummet, where was you as a business, like headcount-wise, turnover-wise, just to give some context as to the sort of growth and things?

So we've got turnover up to, up above £10 million. I think possibly one year we got it to mid-teens. At one stage we had as, bordering on as many staff as we had now. We don't opened up in Singapore. The plan was that Oscar will be open 24/7, UK, US, Singapore over there. And we'd also won a bit of a mini RPO over in Houston when we first went over to the States, which became a bit of a chain around our neck actually, because we made the mistakes again. But the next part of this big project was going to be in the shipyards either of South Korea or Singapore. We were told by the business that ran it that any chance of getting the next stage of it, the fabrication part, you've got to be over there. So that drove that a little bit, but we opened up Singapore and then within a year the world comes crashing down in oil and gas. We were too spread to be able to, at that point, bolster it with tech. So we shut it down and it cost us well over a million quid, you know, and that's why I say our growth hasn't been linear. It's been up and down and As I said, at one point, 65% of our NFI came from oil and gas.

Really?

Yeah, absolutely. And that came crashing down in 2014, 2015. Myself and a guy called Matt Holmes, who was a director who— when I came into Oscar, he was a consultant. He was one of the good people we built around. He went all the way through, actually to the same level as me, not even the director under me. And his expertise was that part of it. Me and him looked at the previous oil price crashes, every single other one in history had bounced back to become greater within a period of time. So the shareholders and those pressures that get rid of oil and gas, it's gone, it's dead, we're like, no, no, no, look at this history data tells you it'll come back, it'll come back stronger. For the first time ever, it didn't.

How long did you wait? How long did you give it?

We maintained a presence in the UK for maybe 6 to 9 months after it. We had a couple of corporate accounts. See, in the tech world, we have a real, real spread and risk of this portfolio of clients, whereas in oil and gas, it's a couple of real big corporate businesses, you know, global players, and you've got these big accounts and you think, if we stick in with this here, we will absolutely clean up. Afterwards. But of course, what happened was, from a contractor perspective, there were a lot of these huge, big behemoth recruitment agencies who were going around and mopping up all of the existing contractors for like 4% markup and stuff that economies of scale-wise we can't compete with. We're a small business. And for the perm stuff that we were quite good at, which is sort of bordering on search for a lot of these high-level oil and gas guys, we thought we still sat in a really good place. We maintained our We maintained our UK function. We were doing quite a bit of stuff in the Middle East. We essentially got screwed over by a player over there, which we continued to do business with, but they never paid us. But you try getting money out of certain places, then you've got no chance. You're hiding for nothing. So we made a super amount of mistakes. Again, it was driven probably by data-driven decisions and looking at history. And looking at putting our presence in the market. But we were wrong. And again, set us back a load. So we transferred our oil and gas practice over to the States completely. Say transferred it there, we just stopped doing it in the UK. The guys who were doing oil and gas either left of their own volition or transferred into the tech team. And the UK became tech only. Should we have done it sooner and reacted more quickly? With hindsight, which is always 20/20 vision, Absolutely. But at the time, as I said, it wasn't decisions that were made on a whim or without quality information behind them, but we still got it wrong. So Singapore shut down, Houston, we had to tag tech in on the back of that, which has since been very successful. But again, it was another fight. It was, at one point, it was a bit of a fight to survive. We've sort of gone from our best ever place to a fight to survive to really now building something where I think it's very sustainable. We've learned a lot from those mistakes and we're in our best iteration ever.

What do you think of what makes you feel more confident and sustainable?

I think that we're now better spread Although we still have the energy practice, out of that organically sprouted a construction brand. We just this week released a digital brand, which again is half a step away from tech, right? And we already have a footprint in that market. I think we're nicely spread because we're across different economies and we're across different industries. And, you know, take the coronavirus thing, which is obviously, again, it's the topic on everybody's lips at the moment, and there appear to be different phases of that. As a business, we've fared pretty well. We've gained in headcount of staff slightly, and we've been able to attract some really, really cool people that possibly, you know, not to do ourselves any disrespect, but we might not have had the opportunity to speak to these guys in other circumstances. And we fared well. The US have had consistent sales figures throughout this period and haven't dropped if you take the rolling average. The UK, we had a bit of a plummet in April, but we gained 40% into May and 89% into June. In June of this year, we placed as many people as we did in January when the market was buoyant. So far, we're into the last week now of July. This will be, again, just in terms of sales in the UK and Europe, this will be in our top— it'll finish somewhere between top 2 to top 4 of months ever. And I think that's because we, we have better relationships with clients, um, we've learned as people that run the business more, the culture is better so people won't panic and leave or think about their future necessarily, um, and I think we have a better understanding now of how to deal with circumstances that are beyond your control, from a psychological and a practical perspective. And I think, to be honest with you, I— for me, I know that this is going to sound really wishy-washy and flaky, but our mindset now is that we will carry on and be a success despite what's happening and irrespective of it, rather than just hoping we come through it. And I think that's one of the differences that we have to maybe some of the businesses from people I've interviewed recently, where, you know, they're kind of saying, "Well, we'll just get through this." We're talking about how we will come through this best and how we will use it to grow the business and continue to strengthen our position in the markets we're in.

Yeah, so ultimately it's the diversification, learnings from that, and everything that you're talking about there, that's really interesting. So what I wanted to dig in with you, Andy, one of the most common questions that I always get from personas, from recruiters around growing their business, and I'm sure you have this all the time, is always like, I get to this sort of certain milestone of headcount, it might be 15, 20 heads, and I always keep coming back down, going back up, or whatever. So I guess you've spoken a lot about training, you've mentioned a bit about culture, which I'm gonna dig into after this, But what do you think? How have you got better at hiring? How have you got better at understanding your hiring triggers? Because I think that's something that holds a lot of people back. And I think the second part to that, Andy, is what I see online is you've got a lot of people that have stayed at Oscar for a while. So you always hear people talking about new hires, new people that can build this, da da da. But clearly you've also been impacted, the retention. But what's been your learnings and how have you got better at hiring?

I don't think we've got better at hiring when we're talking about those entry-level people. I don't think we've suddenly accessed a different level of graduate, if that makes sense. I think we've become better— if you're bringing them into a better environment, then they will do better, they're more likely to stay. If For me, I think it's building pillars and it's building role models and it's having enough of those. I always say to people in my business who want to get up a level, I think it's super important to have ideally 3, but if not 2, very strong people underneath you that you want to step into your shoes. And I think, I actually think one of the real, really important things that we've done is generated a lot of female role models within the business.

What makes a role model in a recruitment business? What makes a good role model in your opinion?

Well, there's a couple of ways of answering that, I think, because the question could be interpreted in a couple of different ways. So if— so what makes a role model, and this is important, I suppose, to give context to it, um, what makes a role model, as in what people think a role model is, is very, very— is just important as to what makes a good role model, right? So If you're in a business where— so again, one of the big things we say about the change from a few years ago, looking back, we had some really strong, strong recruiters, strong builders, people who've gone to other businesses who are good at the job, been trained well. And I think we— again, me being honest— sometimes maybe had a bit of fear of losing those people and allowed them to maybe set the tone and set the culture a little bit more than we did as a business holistically, and I think sometimes that puts blockers on other people who were afraid to then find their voice, and I think that one of the best things that we ever did was say— we call it being on the Oscar bus, right? A few years ago we sacked a couple of people who were really good billers, and it was the best thing we ever did, and it wasn't about those people personally, they're good people, we get on now, but—

Why was it the best thing you did?

Because it was drawing a line in the sand that we are about a lot more than that. And it's about the contribution you make to the whole, which isn't just financial. And the greatest recruitment billers can absolutely be your biggest blockers on growth. And I went through a lot of time going, well, if we lose them, we could lose half a million pound revenue this year or whatever. But somebody inevitably always, if you've got that right, the rest of it right, somebody will step up, and somebody will step up who maybe isn't, um, a, um, maybe somebody who, who then maybe puts forward the wrong message. Um, and we've got this big thing about being on the bus, and I think once you have that— this is a big thing, and I, I take this from this phrase from all the senior people in the industry that I learn a lot from: if you make it cool to be good And that goes out with that whole role model thing. If the role models— because let's have it right, quite often we're growing up at school, you know, you look up to the cool kids or the naughty kids, right? Yeah, yeah. The people, the role models, the kids who get straight A's? Not necessarily, right? And I think that even when you go into your 20s, the same thing sort of applies. And I think if you can try and change that culture and make it cool to be good, that is the biggest thing. And that was one of the biggest changes that we had. And You create that culture by ensuring that the people are a success, are good, good people, good for the business. We always sort of talk about wearing the company hat, being on the Oscar bus, and inevitably those people will get the best success longer term. I would much rather have a greater number of good billers than 2 or 3 super billers, so I can say, hey, my top biller did £1.8 million this year. I'd rather say I've got 10 people that do half a mil each, right? Yeah. I think people buy into that more, people respect it more. And listen, we're not sticking the mud or anything like that. We have a lot of fun within our business, crikey, you know, it's a lively culture. But I think that there is a line and there's— when you create that and you realize that's where you want to go to, naturally it builds an equality within the business and that you will find that role models will come forward that have a different voice to what you've had previously. When you have that happen, you naturally receive more ideas and you evolve.

Yeah, I was going to say, I feel like if I'm an employee of yours and sort of there's that sort of undertone of like there's a top-biller that they do feel they're a bit toxic or they aren't quite aligned with the rest of the culture, what Andy's trying to communicate, change, and I can see that. And then Andy the leader takes the decision to go, you know what, yeah, we need to get rid of these people. When as an employee, if I then see that course, that's going to encourage more of the right people, right? And get those people through, which is really interesting.

I mean, those people that kind of moved on from the business, they're not inherently bad people, right? But there's a frustration of theirs, or something's happened in their personal life, or something's meaning that they are then causing disaffection in the business, and quite often subconsciously. Sometimes it's very, very overt, and then you deal with that differently, of course. Of course, but for us it's made such a huge difference, you know, that some of the role models we've got in the business at the moment are just incredible people.

Why did you go to female role models? Why has that been important, or why has that had an impact, do you think?

Because it's not been done by design, but since we've had a large amount of female senior managers, ADs, it's definitely balanced the culture because the conversation driven by those people, the voice isn't always— and listen, I love talking about football, well maybe not at the moment, I'm a Bolton fan, right? But, you know, it's not just about football or the club or whatever, it's completely balanced and there's always somebody to look up to who's probably a little bit like them, you know, and my— the directors that we have in place that run the recruitment population, Kev in the US and Matt in the UK, the UK, really, really different types of people, and that's really useful as well to get those ideas from. I mean, it's difficult sometimes when you're hiring because they have very different opinions, but I think having that variety of thought absolutely brings new ideas to the table because if you become quite often, I believe, the sum of your surroundings, right? You were indoctrinated by it or whatever, you know, you put part of that culture. And I think if everybody you bring through is the same, it's going to be a carbon copy of you, and it kind of goes against what I said earlier on in the interview about sort of copying what people do and becoming the same success. I think that's a framework, but I think within that you need different thoughts, you need different views on the world. And again, a recruitment leader I look up to an awful lot said this a couple years ago, and it's really simple but blew my mind. He said, if you change And quite often, you know, you've been writing an RFI or something, you've looked over it with the same eyes and again and again and again, you can't see the obvious mistakes, right? Because it's the same eyes. So as a business, if we bring different eyes into it, and for me, a lot of that actually has been about me expanding my mind outside of the organisation instead of being head down and networking with other recruitment leaders, you get different viewpoints. Now, worst case scenario, and this is absolute worst case scenario, and you get affirmation that you're on the right path and you're probably doing the right things.

Yeah.

Best case scenario, you learn there is something else that you can add to what you're doing or change or evolve. So it's win-win. Yeah. And that's, that's, for me, that's an external thing and an internal thing too.

That's really interesting. So yeah, so again, if giving people in your business an opportunity to look up and see a real diverse mix of people who are role models. Yeah, that's gonna— yeah, that's so interesting.

A lot of it's about letting go, it's giving people a voice because let's have it right, in any industry you can put somebody in a role and call them a manager or a leader. If you're not allowing them to manage or lead, they're not, they're just— they're your voice in this little echo chamber, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think the traditional method and something that's worked really well for us in the last few years actually is changing our thinking on things is traditional recruitment thing. It's meritocracy is a really, really cool thing, but there's a dark side to it. If you're not doing well, you don't enjoy the fact that somebody who's been with you less time does better than you, right? So there's always two sides to that coin. But with meritocracy, you earn it, you get it, you earn it, you get it, right? But there are sometimes some people that have got super potential in an area, but something's just holding them back. And if you go, well, just wait until you do this and then we'll give you this responsibility they're never going to get that, but they could be really good if you give them responsibility anyway. And one of the things again that we probably changed in the last few years was letting go. Me again, it's part of me getting rid of that perfectionist side a little bit and going, you know what, you're not quite there yet, you're probably not ready for this, go for it, because the mistakes you'll make now will absolutely be overcome by the good and the extra stuff that you'll bring to it post when you get to to that point you'd have gotten to anyway. And for us as a business, there's a couple of people where I've known they've wanted something and you just, not doing the sales figures or not doing something else that's quite getting there. And we've gone, do you know what? Let's do it. Let's take a punt. I'm trusting in you. I think you'll pay me back. Whereas the normal equation is, you earn it, we give you, and then we get there. Sometimes that doesn't work, and the problem with that kind of stuff is it becomes very subjective and it can cause issues because people say, what about me, as well, right? But I think if you do it based on the right behaviours, I think it goes down really well, and you'll— it's risks you'll take and it won't all pay off, but you'll win more than you'll lose, and that way I think you can expedite growth.

So what I want to talk to you about, Andy, because what I see from you online and the sort of I've had a couple of interactions with different recruiters from your business, and I think it's sort of— I saw on your LinkedIn profile you put, 'I work for my people.' Yeah, I don't normally hear that, right?

Yeah.

But so I guess it's what you're talking about here is like, what's been your sort of business leader journey? Like, it seems like you've been on a bit of a journey there. You've become more vulnerable, you've had to let go, as you're just talking about. But yeah, what have you recognized in hindsight? Or I know this is an ongoing process, right? But What have you had to get better at, or what sort of key things have you gone through or changed as a leader that you think has had an impact on the business?

I think lots. I mean, it's an ongoing, like you say, it's evolving. It's a journey rather than a destination, you know, all those cheesy sort of metaphors. I think there's been a number that may be concentrated in your mind because that's the stage you're at at that point, right? So I mean, I did a similar sort of podcast a couple of years ago. I would probably give a different answer to the one I do now because I'm in a different place, right? I think for me, again, as you evolve, I've always really genuinely, genuinely, genuinely meant well for anybody who works with me, be it from when I had my first trainee, Ross, who's a director of that business now, through to the people who I work with now, who some of them are thousands of miles away and only see me 3 or 4 times a year. And genuinely, I will never ask anybody to run through a brick wall that I wouldn't run through first. But I think that sometimes, maybe in the early days, that wasn't clear. And you're pushing people and they don't get, they don't necessarily get that you will do that for them. When you're not billing, it's very difficult to show them because you have to do other things. And I think for me, style of engagement and style of communication you know, we've all read the book, but my chimp still comes out quite regularly, you know, and I have to put him back in his box, you know, being a relatively emotive person. But I think it's trying to learn from those experiences when there's decisions to be made and not just jumping to what makes you feel a certain way is crucially important. And I think that, again, a very good friend of mine, a sales trainer called Trevor Pinder, says don't ever stray too far from your genius. I think I went through a couple of years where I think I was a relatively ineffective leader, and I didn't feel like it at the time because I've done a lot to try and look after people, and I felt like I've maybe not had the same loyalty in return. You know, people forget the 99 things you do for them that's great and always remember the one way you made them feel crap, right? We all know that. And that pissed me off because I did a lot of stuff to sort of go out of my way to help people. But it's the way of things. And I think I was afraid for a couple of years, to be honest with you, a few years ago, of giving too much of myself.

Wow.

Because I thought if I do that, I'll end up in the same position again. And I slowly but surely just learned that I'm not really enjoying this. I'm not being me. What I do need to do is I need to learn. I was always trying to do the right thing. And I think it's learning to make sure that everybody understands that. And that's down to you. It's not their fault. It's down to you to communicate with them properly. And actually, you should, again, that whole straying away from your genius, I think you've got to be really, again, really overused word, you've got to be authentic. And I think that once I returned to being authentic again, again, it's probably coincided with 4 years ago, us really finding ourselves as a business again. And I mean, from a technical perspective, in terms of things that you learn, leadership-wise. Wow, you know, there's ongoing stuff you can, you can never learn too much.

I think that's really interesting, Andy, because I think that's something as a leader or as a business owner you've got to be— because I feel like what you're saying there is that you've had to get, you had to get really comfortable with giving without the expectation of getting something in return, or like, or it, or being in a place of giving to sort of in the back of your mind go, I hope that they do actually take this and they appreciate my loyalty? Because if you don't— because clearly when you were doing that and you're thinking, well, if I give and then I— and then they don't give back or whatever, it can affect that, can't it?

It can, yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's hard to do.

Yeah, I mean, you think about all relationships in your life that, you know, it should be quid pro quo, but quite often it's not, you know. The French have a saying in the relationship, there's the kisser and the kissed. You know, and somebody always has, ultimately has that power. But I think for me, it's about continuing to try and show people that you are, you're doing this for them as much as you and creating that environment. There's a couple of leaders underneath me who've been technically fabulous and they kind of, I can see in them what I used to be like as well. And it's really, really It's not easy for me to work with them, but I can work with them on it because I've been through that journey myself. Help them with those things. It's something I'm very passionate about. And listen, I'll still make mistakes as a leader now, but I think quite often I'm trying to— with our business, it's really, really— it's not autocratic anymore, nowhere near. And I think it's allowing those people to feel like that they have an impact on the business means that they will have an impact on the business, which means, I suppose, that then on a personal level, my emotions of what I feel, I think, is what we've done, right? Yeah. I'm really proud of what we've done and what we continue to do.

So as we come to the end here, Andy, I just wanted to just have a bit of a focus on— we've spoken a lot about growth and these things, but obviously to create sustainable growth, you've had to keep hold of some of your best people. Which typically can be really difficult and something that you're worried about talking about. They're giving a lot and whatever. So like, what do you think have been— I know we've spoken about culture and these things, it's no doubt will contribute to it, but what do you think have been some of the things that you've done as a business that has really impacted the retention of your staff, do you think?

I think we've won quite a lot of awards in the last couple of years for sort of best recruitment company to work for. We were number one on the Sunday Times best companies as a recruitment business, and a lot of it, a lot of people sort of take to that. I was talking to a friend of mine who's a recruitment leader last week, and he's very cynical about all that kind of stuff. My response is that, again, that's something you get as a spin-off from what you're doing to help you with that retention, all the rest of it. If you do those things just for the sake of having a gong on your wall, people see through that pretty quickly. And I think that, again, it's probably about 4 years ago, I think we just decided to go balls out and go, let's do what we think is right rather than what the rest of the world is doing. It doesn't mean that individually we're doing anything that's absolutely unique, but I think it's doing what feels right. So, I mean, take the— there's this whole thing about mental health is super important, right? And I'm a big, big advocate of working with mental health as much as physical health. And the two are intertwined, of course, as well. But like, you know, Mental Health World Day or whatever, people put loads of shit on LinkedIn, then forget about it, you know. Stuff like that, that we talk about and deal with and support every single day and every single week of the year, that's really, really important. And I think for me, a lot of it, what we've created is an environment where it's there, it's real, it's true. It's not just for the cameras, so to speak. We employ a psychologist, Hannah, who's an amazing lady, who comes in and does group sessions on mindfulness and resilience, but also we pay for individual sessions, and you know, it's £100-odd a pop, right? And there are numerous people that we pay for on a weekly basis, for people that are struggling with a variety of different things. Now, I bet we're not the only recruitment business out there that does that, but our staff knows we mean it, You know, we—

it's the intention that matters, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, you know, we've got a mental health app that we give to everybody, but there's also the whole thing, you know, we started doing longer lunches for the gym and for all that kind of stuff, and people go, do I have to work sort of half an hour later tonight because I've gone? No, no, no, just take it, use it. For me, it's not completely altruistic. I think you'll come back in the afternoon, both up anyway, and do a better job. If you have to sit at your desk for an extra 30 minutes just because you've gone to lunch for a longer period of time, it's bullshit. You may as well go off to work.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think it's just— we are run by recruiters who very recently, or somewhat recently in my experience, because I'm older, have been in the position of the people who work for us, right? And I think it's remembering how you felt, what you thought. You know, when you're a kid and you say to your mum and dad, when I'm a parent, I'm not going to be like you, I hate you, mum and dad. And then you become a parent, you go, oh my God, I'm my dad. Dad, right? Because what they were doing was the right thing to do. The key is to try it, is that communication, so they know you're doing it for the right reasons. And that comes from mental health, from physical health, and rewarding people from these little things that we do, you know, all of our social stuff. We have a social committee. I give them a budget, they do it. So it's not what Andy and the directors want to do. Our charity committee is decided for and run by the individuals so that, you know, this isn't a wishy-washy community, you know, cooperative community or anything, but it's having people know that their decisions and how they feel will have a direct effect on their environment. And that's really, really important.

And they've been empowered to do that. It's not anti-educating.

Yeah. And it is listening to changes. And then, you know, when I first started in recruitment, it was all about the money, right? It's big fat knots in your tie and that kind of stuff. Now, people cherish more than anything else, time. Time, you know, it's been a bit, it's the most important commodity we have. So, you know, give you an example, every single month we run an incentive for teams, so they all get it or none of them get it, the earlier finishes the following month. So we're clocking off at 1 o'clock today, as we're doing every Friday this month, because the teams hit all the targets in June, because some of them, and most of them, would probably prefer that over X amount of £100 bonus, which they get anyway in the commission. And it's listening and learning to what is becoming more important to them because generation by generation, although a lot of them will feel the way you felt when you were doing the job, what means to them, what matters to them is different, you know, we've addressed the diversity and equality thing an awful lot recently and had a good look at ourselves as far as that's concerned as well, because it's an important topic to the people that work for us and we kind of thought we were doing well enough by having a D&I policy and saying we don't employ dickheads and we don't let bullying happen. But as the CEO of the business, I looked at myself and when was the last time, Andy, you actually looked at your equality policy properly? And it was probably because I was filling out a tender, right? So that's not good enough. Yeah. So, you know, you're learning, and that's because the recent events that happen in the world are affecting the guys that work for us, some of them directly actually. And we've got a we've got an actual direct tangible, 2 direct tangible responses that we're doing in response to that because honestly, and I mean this, we are, if you cut one of us, we all bleed and we're a team, you know, and that's the way we work and it's important that, not, look, listen, not everybody will agree with every decision we make as a business, right?

Of course.

That's never going to happen, but you've got to listen and you've got to learn and you've got to be open-minded and you've got to realize sometimes that what was always right isn't so right now.

Yeah, no, I love that, Andy. Um, look, but before, before we finish, I just wanted to focus on one part of what you just said. It's something that I've always encouraged and spoken about and been passionate about with this podcast, with the mental health piece. Um, because, because I think it's, it's what we were saying. I'm sure— have you— do you know Rhonda D'Ambrosio?

No, but, um, I saw a link to the podcast you did with her this morning, actually.

Yeah, so So, and so why I wanted to just hone in on that, Andy, is because I think one of the most difficult things that I hear from leaders when it comes to mental health is like how they start cultivating their culture to talk about it or impose things like that, you, the things that you've done. Like, how did you start that? Because obviously I'm sure you didn't have those things in place before. Clearly you listened, clearly you obviously communicated with people, and this is something that's important. Clearly the intention's got to be right, but how did you start implementing this in your business? Because I think that worries a lot of people. They don't know where to start. They don't want to sort of get people to feel awkward or difficult. I don't know. How did you go about sort of implementing this? So I think people can get a lot of value from that.

Yeah. Honestly, I don't know. I don't remember us deciding one day, this is a problem, we need to challenge it. But I think The thing with mental health is that there's a big umbrella term, and we all have mental health in the same way as we all have physical health, and it's not consistent, you know, and I think because everybody is dealing with their own stuff in their life all the time, I think, again, I don't remember something happening and I was going, right, we've got to deal with this, but it's evolved with the— and what I learned is that a lot of the time it's the little things. So I've got a couple of guys who work in our head office, so I see them every day, who have challenges with certain aspects of mental health. And this is just a tiny little thing, but it's an example of what works. So if they're having— one of those days, as they call it, and they're struggling with it, we have an agreement. They just kind of give me a, like, a bit of a wink, or, you know, like a tip of the hat. It's one of those days. Because the anxiety for them is actually telling you that they're not feeling all right. So you go through a process to learn what helps them feel less anxious in the first place. So it's just a bit of a, you know, I've got somebody where they just sent me a WhatsApp and just say, it's one of those days, I'll be working from home today. And we've generated that culture where that's cool, that's what happens, because that's the way that makes them feel less anxious about these things.

Yeah, so just quickly on that, Andy, because I think this is the part that's quite challenging. How did you encourage these? Because I think one of the things that's hard is getting your people to talk about this. So how did you— I guess this comes from you being vulnerable and you sort of being the leader that you are, but how did you get these people to open up to the point where they where you've decided that actually, yeah, this is what works for me, this is what really helped, but they've got to talk to you about it first. That can be difficult for leaders to get people to open up about it.

It's a good question. I think a lot of it is building an environment so that the people that can help those that are vulnerable— and we're all vulnerable, right? But everybody's got that person to go to, call them a manager, stakeholder, director, your pal, whatever. I think it's creating an environment, first of all, where there's trust and where you know that that trust won't be compromised. And again, that sounds like a really wishy-washy answer, but I think that's the most important thing. But you don't do that purely for the purpose of mental health. You do that for the well-being of people generally and the good of the company. I think once you create that kind of environment, I think people find it easy to entrust anyway. I mean, it's interesting because people still come to me. We've got HR department and people got their own managers, and some people do still come to me. You know, you just have connections with some people or you don't. and some people come to me and talk about it, and I'll say, look, you're not the only person to feel like this. I can't name names because that's also not fair. I think that's the really interesting paradox with talking about stuff is you can't talk about other people because it's not fair on them, but you have to know that it's okay to be able to talk. And I think inherently in the business now, people know that they might not know who, is struggling today or generally or what have you, but they just kind of know it's okay because they can trust, they'll trust that their person above them will do the, it's knowing somebody will do the right thing with the information, that's the right thing by you and the business, not just the right thing by the business, and that's the important thing. Our HR manager is incredible at it and he's so empathetic, but he's also balanced as well, you know, and I think I think it's important that the message is consistent. As I said, it's not just on Mental Health Week we put a load of jargon on LinkedIn and pretty pictures and then never mean it. I think it's having sessions with external help consistently. You know, we've had a number of different sort of experts or, you know, subject matter people coming to talk to us about stuff because quite often what one person says will resonate with a number of people, but what somebody else delivers differently will resonate with others. I think it's making sure that you consistently push that. And when you do that and you spend your own money on it as a business and you spend time on it and it's not time out of their day, they're doing it in core hours, they're doing it in the middle of the day, they know that you mean it then.

Yeah, the attention again, isn't it?

Yeah, and it's consistency of approach. And I think it's probably— we still make mistakes, but I think it's them probably seeing in what we do that we are mindful in the decisions that we make.

And it's just quickly, Andy, like, how open have you— because I've spoken to a lot of people about this, and so when we talk about moving the needle and making change, typically the answer is it's got to start from the top. So clearly you've got an HR person that has the capability of being empathetic, being in other people's shoes and these things, but I think you as a business leader, how open have you been with your staff or other non-Brown? Because I think this is part of the challenge as well is like, okay, well, everyone's telling me it needs to start from the top. Does that mean that I have to stand in front of everyone and tell them all my struggles? Like, where do I go? Where do I draw the line? Like, how open have you been as a leader with your staff around yourself, your journey?

I think if you decide the way forward to start this is me standing up and addressing everybody and saying, you know, I've struggled to get out of bed this morning, blah, blah, blah, for the sake of starting that process, I don't think that's authentic. And I don't— I think people will see through it. I think if you create the culture where you can go and sit down as the CEO of the business, you can go and sit down with the trainee or the business administrator as well as the FD or a recruiter or whatever, and you can have the same sort of conversations and you can be open about your life to a point, wherever you're comfortable with, you know, I think again that creates that environment. I think it's important that they see, you know, they'll see us as business leaders backing it, as I said before, with our with our money, which most people are cynical about for recruitment businesses, you know, all that they're keeping all the money themselves and sitting in these ivory towers or whatever. So I think my wife wished was true, but it's not for us. But, you know, I don't know, I don't— for me, I think if that feels right, then yeah, do it. If it doesn't and it's not you, I don't think that's the right way to start it, because the whole point of this is being allowed to be yourself and to feel a certain way. So being forced to do something that you think is right for everybody else that isn't right for you is probably the wrong starting point. So I think personally, I'm no expert, buddy, at all, but for me, I think it's about that authenticity again. I mean, for me, I don't— I'm happy to tell people about certain parts of my life, absolutely. I wouldn't want to tell everybody every single worry because I also have a duty of care to not pass every single worry on to everybody else, otherwise they'll be on eggshells around me. And I think because my responsibility as a business leader is different to others, but that doesn't mean that I can't tell people when I'm upset or when I'm— I mean, I'm pretty easy to read anyway. In fact, I think my challenges and my weaknesses have probably been I've been too open and maybe too easy to read. And I said it's that, you know, putting the chimp back in thing about maintaining a level head. You know, it's being that swan, isn't it? But I think that there is a very, very— again, I'm no mental health expert, but again, having listened to a lot of the experts on this subject, I think it is a very fine balance, and it's showing vulnerability, but it's also not panicking people as well, and it's showing them support, but it's also not, you know, again, being honest, it's not allowing them to to make such a big deal of something that you can make it worse by over-egging it with them as well. And again, it's finding that balance. It's supporting people and giving them what they need, but it's not allowing them to maybe be self-destructive at the same time. Because I've also sometimes been too lenient, and then actually what you do, allow somebody so much breath that they cause harm to themselves in that way. And again, that's a learning curve, and it's knowing when to stand up. And it's— I don't know, it's an interesting subject, which is why, you know, you'll you'll be able to do full talks with people about this who have got a lot more to say about the subject than me, you know.

So look, Andy, you've been in the industry for a while. This is obviously a very unique circumstance that we find ourselves in, but how do you see this sort of landlay in the next 6 to 12 months in the recruitment industry? What do you think is going to stay, stick around? What sort of do you think are going to be maybe some of the biggest changes that you're keeping an eye on or interested see how it pans out. What's going through sort of your head if you're looking at the next 6 to 12 months?

Yeah, I think, I mean, I think one of the big things everybody's talking about— Christ, there's a million polls about it on LinkedIn— is what sort of the working environment logistics is going to look like. And that's for us internally as recruitment businesses, and it's also a challenge for our clients as well. And I think that is going to be the topic for a while, along with obviously how how the economy recovers. And I think that's really, really interesting. And I think, like, you know, we've experimented recently. We've taken on 2 remote consultants that we've never done before, 2 lads who are cracking fellas who are up in Philadelphia. You know, we haven't got an office up in Philly, but we've sort of decided that in this sort of new world, we're gonna trial stuff and we're gonna see what works for us. And for me, I think I think the working remotely, working from home thing is absolutely here to stay. Some people were further along the curve than we are now, some people were a long way behind it, and I think, you know, I talked to my leadership internally about this and I don't have the exact long-term answer just yet because I don't think we are in what the consistent new future is going to be yet. Yeah, but I think what's really important to me is that we try, we try stuff now. We've got 3 different working patterns now, which is completely elective. People choose exactly what it is they want to do— work from home, work from the office, or do a 3-2 mix.

A 3-2 mix, or is that 3 days office, 2 days home?

Yeah, yeah. Most of us, including me, are doing the 3-2 mix, which I never thought I would do because I was like, get me away from the kids and get me to work. But I now cherish that 20 minutes at lunch where I can see the kids, or, you know, I finish and I don't have the hour commute home and stuff like that. But I wouldn't want to be here all the time. But again, It's not assuming that everybody wants the same thing as me.

Yeah.

And that's really important. But I think for me, I think the reason why we're trying lots of different tracks with this at the moment, and a lot of my recruitment mates think I'm daft, like, get everybody back in, you know, it's all about the environment, the culture in the office, which it is. That's a big, big part. You talk to any of my guys, why are you still in the business? The people.

The people. Yeah.

The environment. And, but I think for me, it's going to happen, right? And I would rather we find our little voice in this world and our way of doing it that suits us before you're dragged along by the coattails because, well, if you don't have any working from home, everyone's going to leave you and work from Joe Bloggs up the road who are doing it this way. I'd rather us find out what works for us by our own volition than because, again, it's like the mental health thing, it's like the BLM thing, it's, oh, we've got to say something because we've got to be seen to. Do you know what I mean? I don't want us to have freedom for our guys to work in different places and flexibility because we feel like we have to give it to them. That's bullshit.

That's a great way to look at it, I think.

There's diminishing returns on that. I think you've got to do it, and for me, I'd rather find out early and make the mistakes now and find out so we're into our pattern. And then also, I think you're probably in a better place to be able to help your clients and candidates with it because they'll face the same struggles as well because you're going through the same journey. But I think that's going to be a very, very important topic I think for us, for the industries we recruit for, if we're smart, as I think we have been so far, and work hard, I think there's no reason why we can't come through this pretty well. But the fear at the moment is, is there a bit of a dead cat bounce with regards to hiring? You know, was there 2 or 3 months' worth of pent-up hiring and spending that's being done all of a sudden in June and July, and then it slows down when the furlough scheme ends and things like that? So there are a million different variables at the moment that I think are going to affect us going forwards. A second spike, you know, I'm sure everybody worth their salt is now making sure that they are a lot sort of more tightly put together in case that happens or for when it happens. And again, we don't know what sanctions will be imposed on the way we work at that point in time anyway. So I think it's just making sure that you are aware of that and in any which way it goes, you have a plan or probably 5 plans, right?

Yeah, no, I love that. I think it's a great way to view— actually, yeah, let's use this time to experiment, let's use this time to listen to our people, what works, what doesn't. I think that's great. Um, final question: if Andy could, uh, communicate to recruiters, recruitment business owners, the recruitment people, they'd listen to your advice, they'd implement it, what would Andy say to the people?

I've probably spent an hour talking about that. I don't— do you know what? One piece of advice I always struggle with this because again, as I said before, I think it depends what's in your mind at that moment in time. You could ask me tomorrow and I'd say something completely different. I think one of the biggest things that's changed me, I think, in the last few years is being open to outside influence. And being aware that, you know, your competition out there are not the bunch of dickheads you thought they were, you know, and people will share, and there are kindred spirits, and whether that's from official networking groups, of which I'm a member of a couple, or whether it's just reaching out to people, what I've seen in COVID times is recruiters come together as a body, probably, being honest, because they've been forced to, because we're in the same sea, even though we're in different size boats. But I think for me, I would like to see the recruitment industry carry that on more and support each other more, because that way I think that a lot of the tainting on our industry will slowly become to disappear. There's other reasons as well, but I think that the biggest reason for it is that competition. I mean, don't get me wrong, I still want Oscar to beat every business out there, right? But I'll have a chat with people and my door's open to anybody to talk about that. And I help lots of people with businesses when they come to me for God knows why. But I also— there's really cool people I can call on as well. And for me, that is so super important. And you can do that as a— from a trainee recruiter up to a business owner.

Andy, I love that. It's been a pleasure.

Okay, thanks.