Midlands specialist recruiter achieves highest accreditation by Best Companies

Recognised as the UK standard in workplace development, Best Companies highlights organisations which achieve high employee engagement, awarding three-star accreditation to organisations with a Best Companies Index (BCI) score of 738 or higher. This year, SF Recruitment received its highest ever score of 794.1 following the launch of new brand values and a social responsibility policy.

The leading specialist Midlands recruiter re-evaluated its employee engagement in 2018, establishing a new brand identity to resonate with its 100 staff. As part of its strategy, SF Recruitment invested significantly in employee recognition initiatives, including improved experience-based rewards, communication, wellbeing programmes and technology.

Saira Demmer, CEO at SF Recruitment, said: “We are thrilled to have received three-star accreditation once more, and to be recognised by our employees as a great place to work. Over the last 18 months, we have made significant investments to ensure our team are engaged and motivated and we are ecstatic to have received our best ever BCI rating.”

Other investments SF Recruitment has made include increasing its training provision, in areas such as social media, how to identify and help with mental health, client relationship management and insights, which allow the team to understand individuals’ personality types. In addition, the company launched a Managers Forum, where team leaders share ideas from all levels of the business and pitch to the senior leadership team for consideration.

Saira Demmer continued: “As a forward-thinking business, we know our employees must come first. Recruitment is a high-performance industry and so the wellbeing of the team is our number one priority. The changes we have made have been incredibly effective and well-received, as shown through our accreditation and employee feedback. As well as seeing improvements in staff retention, business performance remains ahead of the market further indicating the impact happy employees can have on customer satisfaction.”

Jonathan Austin, Founder and CEO of Best Companies, said: “Best Companies has been acknowledging excellence in the workplace since 2006 when we launched our Michelin style accreditation standard. We are proud to work with organisations like SF Recruitment who focus on their people and as such have been rewarded with an engaged workforce who tell us that they’re a best company to work for.” 

SF Recruitment is the leading specialist recruiter in the Midlands, with offices in Nottingham, Birmingham and Leicester. Its extensive expertise stretches a number of sectors, including executive; finance and accountancy; technology; office support; engineering; HR, sales and marketing; procurement; and supply chain.

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SF Recruitment is the leading recruitment specialist in the Midlands, placing candidates across the entire professional services landscape.

Over the past 20 years, they have recruited around 40,000 people and connected to 12,000 businesses in the region.

This extensive network means they have far reaching influence, engaging in daily conversations about their recent rebrand and transformation into being more sustainable.

They want to be known for being green by name, and green by nature, ensuring the environment is high on their agenda. To show this they have pledged to ditch all single-use plastic, turning to a more sustainable material - bamboo.

This natural resource, widely used within SF’s branding, represents the values a recruiter needs to be successful, but also its ethical outlook for them. Bamboo is strong,flexible and the fastest growing plant in the world - and environmentally beneficial.

SF have ditched purchasing plastic corporate gifts in their thousands. Bamboo is being used for everything ranging from paper brochures and stationary to an array of corporate gifts. The material is also biodegradable but also renewable, growing back in weeks.

Single-use plastic within the office has also been banned, including water bottles, cutlery and packaging, and already the amount of waste produced has reduced dramatically.

Other plans including using milkmen, and they are currently in talks with The Waterways Trust for a canal clean-up campaign.

It is thought this move is an industry first for a recruitment agency. Every week they speak to hundreds of business decision makers, and they are hoping to inspire and influence others to be more actively environmentally aware.

Sustainability has dramatically improved performance because SF has been able to use it as a conversational topic when speaking to clients, especially when presenting a bamboo gift. PR and social content highlights their new environmental direction, and the use of bamboo means they are at the forefront of people’s minds, and clients actively wanting to take an interest in something so unusual yet pioneering.