On the road again
This week I have been on the road. At the start of the week, I was in our London office meeting our new Managing Director for Germany, Poland and Switzerland, Christian Umbs. Christian joined us around 11 weeks ago from Robert Half and brings a ton of experience in the industry and in the region to lead us in the next stage of our profitable growth journey. Christian took the opportunity to meet with colleagues in the UK; Rhona flew to London from Scotland to meet with him and Robin the next day. I feel pretty certain we will be hearing some inspiring stories of work won together and new projects started over the coming months that all began when these 3 colleagues met in London.
Wednesday saw a bright and early start as Mel, our Chief People Officer and I headed to Leeds on the train to spend the day with Natalie Dobson and her super smart team of recruiters. Natalie has been recruiting and on boarding her team with Nathan Quinn to build back to full strength in Leeds and Nottingham. They have done a great job, and the first half of the year saw them achieve close to target GP and well ahead of contribution (profitability). This is a great achievement from such a newly formed team.
We took the opportunity to refresh ourselves with the team around the 5 key takeaways from our strategy and discussed how this is being achieved. Thanks for the great questions and for really jumping in and doing your part to bring our strategy to life, team Leeds and Nottingham.
The team spent time with Mel in a workshop helping to understand each other’s strengths and how they prefer to work. As a newly formed team this is invaluable work to do; it really does help people appreciate the power of the whole team. The team then headed for some escape room fun. I have never done this but can appreciate the fun they had solving the puzzles to unlock the rooms and escape to freedom.
In the evening, Mel and I rejoined the team for pizza and a lot of laughter. It made for such an enjoyable day and I really feel I know a lot more about this great new team.
It’s been a revelation this week, really awakening for me once again that hybrid working really is the way to go. There is absolutely nothing quite like being with colleagues in person, other times working quietly away at home is really productive too. The combination of both makes work and life so much more enjoyable.
As we come towards another weekend, please do take time to rest and relax. After all, if we keep going at 100 miles an hour continuously without a change of pace something eventually is going to break. Keep safe and well.