Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Modern-day minstrel’s paid to sing firm’s praises
IN a nod to the Celtic kings of Britain and Ireland, a Bristol business has recruited its very own corporate bard.
Huboo Technologies Limited, an e-commerce fulfilment company, has appointed musician Jake Wright from Keynsham to tell stories of the company and its staff ’s achievements in song, as well as produce medieval content for its social media channels.
The role, advertised as a threemonth position with a basic salary of £20-25,000 pro-rata, was created with musicians who are struggling to find work due to the coronavirus pandemic in mind.
After two competitive rounds of auditions, Jake had the ears of Huboo’s founders Martin Bysh and Paul Dodd with a song about one of the company’s clients, engineering seals provider Totally Seals.
Guitarist Jake’s winning ditty fused together the medieval style of traditional folk song Greensleeves with British singer Seal’s Grammy Awardwinning single Kiss From A Rose in a nod to the company’s product.
Reacting to his appointment, Jake said: “It’s certainly a new feeling, I’ll say that much. I’m a little blown away by it. I don’t know anyone else who has been a bard.
“I’ve had nothing but positive messages from people who I’ve told so far that I’ve got the job. My mum was very impressed, let me put it that way!
“It’s a massive relief to be back in a musical role. The music industry over the past year has just crumbled.
“It’s nice to know that there are some companies out there who are looking at more creative roles and opening up some more options for musicians who are out of work at the moment.”
Jake, who would normally play around 150 gigs a year, was due to embark on a 28-date tour of the UK with his band last year. The first national lockdown forced them to postpone the tour 10 days before the opening show.
With the pandemic preventing the staging of live entertainment events, he has had to perform manual labour instead for a friend’s company to make ends meet.
“I’ve been working for a friend of mine who runs a pallet and timber reclamation company, so breaking apart pallets for £60-a-day for the past year as opposed to playing shows to thousands of people every weekend.
“It’s been an interesting year but thankfully I’m back in a musical role where my creative juices can flow again.”
Jake will certainly be striking a positive note about his new employer’s recent fortunes. From starting its operations with two secure storage rooms at a Safestore in Bath, Huboo is set to take on its fourth warehouse in the Emersons Green area.
Mr Bysh, Huboo’s chief executive, said: “We’ve been quite lucky in that we are in a sector that has flourished during this period.
“It’s still been a struggle. Every time there’s a lockdown we lose 20 per cent of staff, which is a massive staffing problem for a business built on people.
“And then with Brexit there were major problems. There were couriers refusing to take stuff to Europe.
“So it’s been an incredibly difficult year but it’s a year in which people need e-commerce. So though it’s been tough, we’ve grown as a business.
“Twenty months ago we had two people in a Safestore in Bath. Now we’ve hired 230 people in Bristol, we have three warehouses around the Emersons Green area and we’re just taking on a fourth warehouse which will come online in a week. We’ll be hiring probably another 200-300 people in the Bristol area.
“Jake is going to have lots of good stuff to sing about for however long we can convince him to stay with us.”
When asked if he thought if other companies may follow Huboo’s lead in employing their own minstrel mascot, Mr Bysh said: “A battle of the corporate bards would be fantastic. I’d love to see it.
“Most companies of any given size have a significant marketing budget. And they’re all going to think of clever ways to market and create content.”