‘I ordered staff back in five days a week and don’t regret it’
Simon Swan, the CEO of recruitment agency marketplace Hiring Hub, on how hybrid undermined the business’s “edge” and what he’s done to get it back.
A tech disruptor in an industry that “died overnight”, the transition to home working was the least of the challenges faced by Hiring Hub in the early days of the pandemic – in fact, it was “really easy”, says CEO Simon Swan.
As staff seamlessly upped sticks from the recruiter marketplace’s office in Manchester’s Northern Quarter to homes around the city and beyond, the business was entering what Swan described as a cash preservation extended runway mode.
With activity on the marketplace plummeting by almost 70% in about four weeks, the management all took pay cuts, the salespeople went on furlough and the tech team moved to a four-day week.