Why the word throughout lockdown has always been 'resilience'

Last year really was a challenge, for everyone. For some businesses, the pandemic meant redundancies and closures, for others like ours, it meant complete change.

Before the global pandemic hit, we were working on a huge contract that saw us recruiting for hundreds of cleaning roles up and down the country. Vacancies were opened up to us and other agencies at the same time, so it was a case of working quickly and smartly, to fill the position before the other agencies.   

We were successfully filling a huge majority of the roles and the contract was going well. When the global pandemic hit, there was an opportunity for recruitment agencies to help find staff for the Nightingale Hospital, everything from cleaners, hosts and porters (mortuary trained), to admin and schedulers. We were honoured to be included during the first lockdown, but it was a tricky contract to work on – we are incredibly grateful to all the key workers who agreed to work in such a volatile environment during such a difficult time.

Now that the UK finds itself in a 3rd national lockdown, we have again been invited to be a preferred supplier for the Nightingale Hospital. This time, we are one of just three suppliers to be invited back.

Being time critical, we set to work immediately. The client, GRI, was so pleased with the calibre of staff we recruited before, that we have drafted many of the same back in again. But needing more still, we are using our usual avenues to find candidates quickly, but thinking of new and innovative ways of recruiting. In a pandemic, procedures change – there are important briefings to factor in, PPE requirements, DBS checks etc and so communication has to be precise and clear.

The speed at which we need to register candidates and get them ready for work is very fast-moving. The sheer volume of candidates needed is phenomenal and goalposts change daily in a very volatile environment. Team members who weren’t recruiters have had to turn their hands to recruitment - the team effort is phenomenal. 

A sustainable business is one that is able to adapt and respond quickly to its environment, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. We never planned on having a recruitment business based so largely on cleaning roles, but essentially, it’s what we have temporarily become. 

Some of the best parts of working so closely in the fight against Coronavirus, have been knowing that we were one of the preferred suppliers because of our proven track record – our ability to adapt, respond quickly and find the right candidates is what makes us a reliable agency to work with. But also, because we have played a role in helping in the fight against Coronavirus as well as getting so many people who had lost their jobs, back into work.