A round up of 2023 from Iain McVicar, Managing Partner at our members Albert Goodman, plus predictions for the year ahead.
“The achievement of B Corp status has enabled us to get third party verification that we live by our purpose of “collaborate to achieve” and our wider values that enable us to be a force for good with our clients, our people and our communities. What was pleasing about this, was that we were able to achieve the standard without having to materially change what we did as a business. In 2024 we are looking to widen our impact by making the B Corp principles a conscious and purposeful part of what we do. We intend to do this by joining forces with other B Corps and increasing our client’s and people’s understanding of what it means to be a B Corp.
This will form part of the new year learning and development plan for our people in 2024 which is another of our key focus areas. We are already members of the 5% club and heavily invest in apprenticeships for our people, but we are also keen to ensure that those not on a trainee programme are also invested in and are developing along with our business. In order to deliver an excellent client experience, we need to ensure that our people have a future ready skill set and with the recruitment of a new learning and development resource from January, we are going to start to deliver on this.
Elsewhere, we opened our new Bristol office in the spring, and have since been recruiting brilliant people into the team and getting to know the Bristol business scene. It has been exciting to see the great work that goes on in the city. We were delighted to see Bristol City Women – whom we sponsor – get promoted to the Women’s Super League.
Our recruitment strategy has been successful in a very difficult market. Our launch of our Bristol office secured 8 new hires as well as a transfer of our existing people from our previous Westbury on Trym office. We have brought in 61 new people across different departments in all of our locations. We continue to live by our ‘grow our own strategy’ and our total of 61 included 28 new trainees starting their career with us.
Looking ahead to 2024, we are planning to continue growing organically as part of our key strategic aim of being an independent firm with a strong regional identity. Another big trainee intake will mean we will continue to provide great career paths for people.”
