To start, can you tell us a bit about 300 North?

300 North is a caring, people focused recruiter specialising in the UK Facilities Management (FM) sector. Though based in Yorkshire and the North East, we deliver permanent, temporary and interim recruitment solutions to the whole of the UK Facilities Management, Mechanical & Electrical and Construction sectors. We pride ourselves on making customers happy by doing a quality job and believe we could not provide this service without looking after each other as a team.

To this end, we signed the in support of our staff 3 years ago, and since then have developed our commitment by having a fully qualified Mental Health First Aider in our team. At 300 North we believe that operational excellence is closely tied to the health and wellness of our staff. We are committed to promoting healthy lifestyles and positive work-life balance through our office environment and company culture. I believe this comes from the top down, and so as CEO I aim to live healthily and find time to spend with friends and family, which has been particularly important over the last year.

How have you involved staff in planning and developing your approach to remote working?

When it became apparent that we would be working from home, we immediately consulted with our team to understand everyone’s individual circumstances and needs to be able to do so. We put a plan in place for how we would continue to meet the needs of the business and keep in touch throughout the crisis. We have always been set up to work from home as our team did occasionally want to, but obviously not to the degree that we have had to over the past 14 months. Therefore, we ensured everyone had their home working areas assessed individually and if new equipment was needed then we filled that gap to ensure as comfortable a working environment as possible.

We stayed in constant contact over Teams or Zoom with all staff members, including those who were furloughed so there was never a disconnect between them and the business, what was happening within our market, with our clients, our candidates and overall within the team. In addition to weekly catch-ups with furloughed team members, we created a number of online social gatherings and challenges to keep our fitness, mental health and overall wellness in check and also to help maintain the team rapport and competitive spirit!

How have you and your staff have been working together over the past year?

The last year has been really tough for teams across the UK and like many employers we had to place some of our staff on furlough initially. During this time it was really important to us to keep the team together and involved with the business and also socially, especially since we were now working remotely, and many members of our team were busy juggling homeschooling or caring for others whilst coping with the pandemic.

This is why we have taken part in various charity and team wellness events over the last year. We completed a 10K run organised by Facilities Management provider ParetoFM, dressed in blue for Smart Works Leeds, created our own step challenge, baked tasty goodies for National Baking Week, conquered Pen-y-gent, had a socially distanced picnic and many more gatherings together over zoom! We’ve always come together when we can to make sure we all still felt connected and to boost our wellbeing.

How have you considered the needs of specific groups such as parents and carers, and people with disabilities or health concerns?

We have always worked hard to be an inclusive and flexible employer, even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Having a deep appreciation of our teams’ family situation and responsibilities at an individual level and trying to ensure we help to facilitate a good work-life balance and positive mental health is so important. Running my own business with young children during the pandemic was in itself a challenge but also gave us an immediate appreciation of the responsibilities people faced being either parents or carers and an empathy towards those individual challenges.

We have possibly bucked the trend for a while in having a high proportion of women in our business. Our team is made up of working mothers and fathers as well as people who care for elderly relatives so we have always been flexible regarding the working day to accommodate those needs and responsibilities. Our team are free to manage their hours and location and we work closely together to ensure we have the face-to-face time needed for meetings to take the business forward.

Has it been difficult to balance concern for staff wellbeing and individual preferences with meeting business needs?

The wellbeing of our team has always been of paramount importance and even more so throughout the pandemic given the challenges we faced collectively and individually. As mentioned in response to previous questions, our wellbeing approach always comes from consultation and collaboration with our team and we have implemented changes based on suggestions and following agreement by everyone. We operate an open policy where all staff feel that they can talk to their line managers.

As much as we love to support our clients and candidates in the best way we can, we couldn’t do any of that without supporting each other. We’ve set many goals for ourselves over the years for charity, for helping the local community, for mental health, and for building us into a stronger team. We believe staff wellbeing drives our excellent customer satisfaction, and therefore I felt fortunate to able to support them and provide the flexibility they needed, knowing that this would result in business needs being met.

How has the pandemic affected your team?

I am pleased to say we have emerged a resilient, cohesive and motivated team. Through patience and giving the team time to adjust, people have managed to find effective hybrid working solutions, now moving between home, office, or an alternative location that meets their needs both physically and mentally, allowing them space and time to see loved ones and also fit in the self-care that so many of us were possibly missing prior to the pandemic. The plan that we have come out with has been very much a joint decision, created through communication, consultation and collaboration.

300 North are the Facilities Management recruitment specialists providing permanent, temporary and interim solutions to the UK Facilities Management, Mechanical & Electrical and Construction sectors. Get in touch to find out how we can help you with your recruitment needs by visiting our website home page or calling us on 0113 336 5161.