This is a guest post from Richard Wylde director at DallasWylde, as part of our Recruiting Weekly Series. Richard shares his thoughts on growing your business and adapting to change.
Covid-19 crept up on us quickly. It was no doubt the same for you as it was for us at DallasWylde.
In case you’re not aware of DallasWylde, we’re a recruitment business working in new-build construction, typically placing permanent candidates with housebuilders across the UK in roles throughout their businesses.
We’ve been established for just over a year, and things have been going from strength to strength, that was until March this year. Just a week before Covid-19 took hold in the UK, we had little idea what effect the pandemic would have on people’s lives, families and business. Even looking to the likes of Italy, Spain and beyond, it seemed incomprehensible that the effects would be so far-reaching.
As lockdown took hold, we started to get calls from our clients either cancelling or putting recruitment on hold. I’m sure it’s a familiar story. Within 72 hours, all of our clients had downed tools and suspended recruitment.
Like most recruiters and business owners, we took a few days to process what was happening and decide on our next steps.
Current Challenges create New Opportunities
Our first step was to consolidate our position. We were incredibly grateful for the support that both our suppliers and the Government put in place which we knew would relieve some of the immediate pressure.
I’ve been in a similar position before workwise (not a global pandemic, but when I was in between recruitment roles). It meant now was the ideal time to look back and draw on this experience, and then to put positive actions into place. Key learnings which I have used again this time and would urge you to do the same include:
- Keeping focus and create a purpose during these difficult times
- Having a daily routine and structure to ensure you achieve something every day
- Surrounding yourself with positive people
I was determined that Hannah (my life and business partner, and co-director at DW) and I would come out of this process and not look back with regret. We wanted to take the business forward and know we had achieved something positive.
Growing DallasWylde
You may have been in the same situation as us and used the first few weeks of lockdown to explore ways in which you could take your recruitment business forward. For DallasWylde, we had time to map out new ideas while ‘business as usual’ was on hold. We always had long-term plans for the business, including setting up a management consultancy for outplacement support. This would allow us to combine our leadership skills and coaching experience with knowledge of the recruitment sector. It’s something our clients in the new build sector would certainly benefit from.
However, one other longer-term plan which suddenly became fast-tracked was to explore setting up a temp or contracting division within DallasWylde. Something which felt a long way off was unexpectedly right in front of us. Until lockdown hit and the new-build sector effectively stopped, we did not have the time to focus on developing the offering. It made sense, though, as the next logical step for our recruitment business. It would help our housebuilding clients in the short-term, especially with the economic challenges we are no doubt facing. And of course, there’s the opportunity for it to create additional revenue.
Hello to DallasWylde Temporary Recruitment
All of our clients in the new build sector use temporary and contract workers across their businesses, from office to site workers. It made sense for us to support this.
To launch DallasWylde Temps we needed to get to grips with the regulations surrounding recruitment in this area. It’s more complex compared to perm recruitment. Over the years, Hannah and I have built up a wide-reaching network of industry experts both in recruitment and the housebuilding sector. We leant on them for support when it came to creating systems and processes to make temps happen.
Compliance is key, so it was top of our list to make sure we were more than just dotting I’s and crossing T’s when it came to the industry and government guidelines for temporary workers. We’re comfortable that all the specifics are in place. The next step is adding an experienced temp recruiter to the DW team. Watch this space!
The Corona-crisis has been tough for recruiters. Some sectors have been hit harder than others, but resilience is key. I can say with confidence that DallasWylde has used the time productively. We’re excited to launch our temp division and continue supporting our clients in the new-build sector. Hopefully, our sector will start moving again soon, when it does we’re well placed to support them.
Author, Richard Wylde – Director at DallasWylde
Richard was formerly a Sales and Marketing Director with 20+ years of driving revenue growth for renowned worldwide organisations in housebuilding, manufacturing and construction. Richard has significant account management and business development expertise across multiple markets.
Developing, retaining and nurturing accounts for renowned Fortune 100 / FTSE 100 service and supply corporations including Kingfisher, Wickes, Amazon, Grafton Group, SGBN & TP Group honed Richard’s expertise. He has a substantial background in securing and delivering sales which deliver ROI in the multi-millions and net profit benefits, using KPI / CRM-based service delivery with change, project and supplier management.
