AI Issue 4 2017

70 Acquisition International - April 2017 Love Success, winner of the Prominent Women in Business award, is the leading specialist recruitment agency in London, providing a comprehensive range of candidate and client services for businesses and individuals all over the UK. We spoke to the firm’s co-owners, Jane Atherton and Julia Vassie, about the secret to their incredible success, including formal recognition from the Prime Minister. aunched in 2010, Love Success was wholly funded by Jane and Julia with no backers involved. Today, they are an award-winning agency and formally recognised by the Prime Minister with a personal congratulatory letter for the Fortuna 50 Index, which features the fastest growing female-led businesses, and Love Success came in the top 25. They are in the Who’s Who of Britain’s Business Elite, and are on target to turn over £8 million in 2017. Jane explains: “We are 90% female in terms of our workforce, and 40% are part-time including mothers, carers and even dancers and actors. We have beautiful offices with the best view in London overlooking the Thames, the London Eye and Big Ben, which we use as our office clock! Julia and I have worked together for over 20 years. We are regularly referred to as the “Ant and Dec of recruitment.” We have a very safe client base, billing in excess of 200 clients a week. Julia adds that the business mix is made up of 75% temporary/contingent staff with 25% being permanent introductions, and that Love Success mainly supply PA/EA, Office Support, Compliance, Marketing and HR staff to their clients. Salaries start at £20,000 and go up as high as £175,000. She adds that the firm has many consultants who are renowned recruitment specialists. Company: Love Success Name: Jane Atherton & Julia Vassie Email: [email protected] Web: lovesuccess.co.uk Address: Love Success Plc 1 Lancaster Place, London WC2E 7ED UK Phone: +44 (0) 20 7870 7177 People at the Heart of Recruitment L 1703AI100 Following this excellent introduction, we asked Jane and Julia to offer their thoughts on the extent to which an ever-increasing number of women are joining boardrooms across the country every year. Jane adds that they would like the figure to be higher, but says that, “recruitment in the commercial arena is generally female-led due to the nature of the jobs we fulfil, such as PAs and EAs, which tend to attract more females. Whereas in financial services and IT recruitment, the jobs tend to be filled by a higher percentage of males.” Bucking the trend Julia adds that in terms of women in the boardroom, it goes back to the old adage that a woman starts a family, so they are not seen as leaders in business. In this regard, Julia feels that something definitely needs to change and explains that she started her first business when her daughter was 9 months old and believes that “anybody who has the will and the get up and go can do the same, but unfortunately the opportunities and acceptance of working mothers is still not as widely recognised as it should be in the UK. I am an advocate for encouraging all, whether female or male, to obtain greater achievements in promotion to manager and director level positions.” Bringing the balance in to recruitment As many businesses in the UK are seeing the benefit of having a more balanced workforce, Julia adds that converse to this, there is a UK-wide trend for recently launched firms to take on self- employed contractors – reaping terrible results for the contractor. A recently launched delivery firm that was investigated by an undercover journalist in February this year uncovered that the firm was promising £15 an hour. However, when the undercover journalist went to work for them, his findings showed that the contractor’s pay worked out to be just under the minimum wage because the firm doesn’t pay for holidays, breaks or sickness. “There have been several companies that have launched in the UK offering ‘flexible working/ self employed’ positions, when in reality they are not paying their staff or their taxes. I believe that anybody who sets up a company in the UK and takes on staff should pay their workers a standard rate of pay, and they should be looked after when