Building a winning working culture is intrinsic if you want to find the right people for your firm. Head of Learning and Development at Samuel Knight International, Steven Musham, discusses the culture journey.
As a global recruitment agency, we know firsthand how important finding the right talent for your company is. We are also well aware of how difficult this can be. Attracting individuals in this skill-short climate is extremely difficult – which is why it is crucial that companies have strong hiring strategies in place and a workplace culture that stands out.
Here at Samuel Knight, we have aggressively grown our headcount over the last few years and have learned a thing or two about creating an all-star team and culture that resonates our values and vision.
Identify your culture
First, it is important to know what your culture is before you start looking for candidates. This will help you identify the individuals that will bring innovation, gel with the rest of the team and stay with you while you grow. At Samuel Knight, although we are all very different, we all share a few common traits. For example, we are passionate about what we do, motivated to do our best and have an entrepreneurial flair about us. This stands out when we communicate with candidates and approach potential clients, which, of course, gives us a distinctive and winning edge.
We have also nurtured a culture of continual learning and progression. We encourage our team members to strive for more and offer plenty of opportunities for growth.
For example, Dan Kerr, who joined the company back in 2014, started as a consultant; however, after showing determination and passion, he quickly progressed to senior consultant level within a year. He is now the Managing Director of Samuel Knight.
Work environment
To allow people to flourish and build a winning workplace culture, it is important to have a work environment that is creative, inspiring and a place where employees are proud to be a part of. We will be opening our brand new office space in Newcastle come early 2020, this will be to facilitate our growth plans and extensive hiring strategy. We now have offices in Newcastle, London, Bristol, Chicago, and the Middle East, with more locations in the pipeline.
Building a winning workplace culture: Have creative hiring strategies
To ensure that you are attracting the best people, and winning the war for talent, you must have a strong employer brand and creative hiring strategies. Invest in your marketing and understand your internal and external audiences. It is vital to engage applicants right from the start create a connection during the recruitment process and communicate all benefits early.
We are hiring
Since our inception, we have always had the vision of growth and international expansion, and over the years, this dream certainly has manifested into reality. Our US operations are firmly on track, with our first office opening in Chicago this year a strategic location designed to support our service lines and grow the business. Our CEO & Founder, Steven Rawlingson, started SKI with the vision of building a business we as a team can all be proud of in 50 years time. We hire on SKI DNA traits, our business is built on the people we hire that is the foundation for longterm success.
