Hoop Recruitment: A Welsh pandemic success story
IT’S not all doom and gloom in the employment market, Hoop Recruitment, a Welsh-owned recruitment company has bucked the trend during the pandemic and will end 2020 with more employees, a record turnover and a rebrand to drive their growth plans.
The business, which specialises in temporary and permanent placements in the nursing, education, social care, social work, human resources and accountancy and finance sectors successfully navigated the first wave of the pandemic by focusing on one thing, their employees.
“It became clear in early March that the country was heading for an economic impact that we’ve not seen in our lifetime, Hywel and I asked ourselves one question: What do we need to do to safeguard the employment of our people? Without our people, we have no business,” said Paul Lewis, co- founder of Hoop.
Hoop quickly shifted focus to areas of the business that could support clients that needed key workers, specifically nursing, social care and social work. Hoop worked closely with local health boards and trusts to ensure rigorous health and safety measures were followed.
The business also moved to full agile working one week before the lockdown which ensured a consistent service for clients during this vital time. Having over 50 years’ experience providing temporary workers to these sectors, Hoop listened to their clients, innovated, and delivered.
“Hoop kept in regular contact with services to understand the impact Covid-19 was having on them and ensuring we were up to date for the safety of their services and our candidates,” said Rhian Smith, head of client services at Hoop.
“We identified the need to restrict transmission opportunities where possible, placing nurses into one service rather than several. We operated in accordance with all guidance that was sent via local health boards and updated clients with changes/trends that we were noticing.”
In addition to shifting the focus of the business, Hoop also set up several project teams to roll out business improvements and created a bespoke internal learning and development training package. The training suite gives the team the skills they need in the job, but also importantly life skills.
“Culture is everything to us – we listen to our team every day. We used lockdown to engage our team to drive internal projects which will allow us to thrive and achieve our goal of becoming the independent agency of choice in Wales,” added Hywel Roberts, co-founder of Hoop.
Hoop has worked hard to change people’s perception of the recruitment industry and the rebrand has been four years in the making.
Four years after launching in 2016, the company has successfully found permanent employment for over 600 people in South Wales and currently support employers in South Wales with over 7000 hours per week. Five divisions have been successfully launched
“We know who we are, and we want to play a vital role in the Welsh economy, long-term relationships are built on trust and honesty. We put people first. Always. We wanted the branding to reflect this,” explained Paul.
The rebrand included the launch of a new website with the end-user at the heart of every decision during the design.
All live temporary and permanent jobs can be viewed along with information about the business, it’s ethos and it’s work with the community.
As for the future, Hoop plans to open more locations, continue with it’s agile and flexible working policy, be a key partner to businesses and invest in every area of the business to firmly establish itself as the agency of choice in Wales.
Hoop currently employs 21 people and intends to double this number within the next three years.
“Our people are Hoop. They’re good people who genuinely care and we can’t wait to offer the opportunity to more recruitment professionals to join our established team,” added Hywel.
One thing is certain, the employees wellbeing and welfare will always be put first at Hoop.