Last September, longtime employee Rebecca Morris took over the reins at well-established Sheffield recruitment agency, Benchmark. Ten months in, unLTD’s Phil Turner headed down to speak to her about how the takeover’s gone, their recent rebrand, and the future of recruitment…
Hi Rebecca. Benchmark is such a recognisable agency in Sheffield, so can you start by telling us about the rebrand and why you decided on the relaunch?
I was always going to rebrand it as I wanted it to represent me and the new mark in Benchmark. Everyone knows the current branding in terms of the kiddie pics, and that’s great, but a few more corporate organisations have started to use that same branding and I just think it needed a change. The colours are more affiliated with me. They’re quite earthy, quite green, quite olive garden. The benchmark, as in the logo, has actually been etched into stone and symbolises direction.
Did you think about a complete change, including the name?
I thought about changing the name and I had some ideas. But when it came to it, I thought, actually, Benchmark is quite a good name. It’s a strong name, and it’s well known in Sheffield. A lot of that is down to Lou and Amy (former directors Louisa-Harrison Walker and Amy Tingle), as well as me. It’s been going for 16 years and it’s got a good reputation, so I didn’t really want to change it in the end.
What can people expect from Benchmark under your leadership – what’s different?
Well, in many ways it will remain very similar. Obviously, it’s slimmed down, in that it’s just me currently, although that might change soon. The service is just as good as it was, if not better, because I’m choosing the clients I want to work with. Working with businesses that I want to place people with. A big part of my job is selling the opportunity and ensuring that if somebody’s handing in their notice to go to a new job then I genuinely believe that it’s a great job.
You’ve been running the business on your own for around ten months. How have you found that and what concerns have you had?
I suppose, officially ten months, but actually the year before I was on my own with the occasional help from Lou, so it’s more like a year and 10 months that it’s kind of just been completely me. I thought it was going to be really lonely. I had times where I thought, is this going to be awful? But actually, I’ve been really happy and really enjoyed it. I think a big part of that is because I can control the process from start to finish.
My biggest takeaway of going from being employed to owning the business is that you have to be a bit braver. I’m naturally quite risk-averse and I don’t make choices very quickly. I’ve realised that where I might ordinarily say no, I sometimes have to push through a little bit further.
It is obviously a scary thought that there’s only me if something dramatic happened, but touch wood, so far, I’ve been pretty much fine. I mean, I had Covid, for example, and had to have a week off sick, but I could still keep things moving and I just told the clients what was happening, and everybody was brilliant. Nothing got dropped.
Do you think people’s attitudes have changed in terms of flexibility in the workplace?
I’ve worked a lot on that myself. Having worked in an agency environment for ten years, I was kind of programmed to be at my desk for 7 – 7.30am until sometimes 7pm. That was very common, and I burnt out multiple times. I absolutely pledged to myself that I wasn’t going to work burnout hours again. I’m now actually really good at saying no, putting my out of office on and remembering that I’m human.
"When I look back at how I was as a manager, I think I was probably pushing that whirlwind of 12-hour days without realising it, because it got the job done, but, actually, probably not to the best standard."
How do you feel the recruitment industry has changed over the last ten years?
I’d say the obvious change is that over the last two to three years it’s become incredibly candidate led. I think during the pandemic, lots of people’s priorities changed. A lot of people decided this employee is not right for me, or that job is not right for me, or that situation is not right for me and people became more selective about where they wanted to go, which is completely fair enough.
There were also a lot of redundancies and then there was a huge amount of demand for recruitment very quickly, but lots of people have made different life choices in that time. For example, people might have gone out on their own, or were perhaps edging towards retirement and decided, actually, I’m done. Because of that, we’ve ended up with a huge chunk of the candidate pool who aren’t there anymore. The big demand for candidates became extreme. I would have one candidate at a job with multiple offers, which had previously been rare. That’s eased a little bit, but there is still a shortage.
The biggest change that I’ve seen in 2023 is salaries. They have just grown exponentially because of the cost of living crisis. For an identical role that I placed in Nottingham last year on £22k, when they needed to recruit again this year, I placed it on £27k.
How do you see the future of recruitment in the face of various technologies that that could be seen to threaten the industry?
I think there will always be a chunk of people that don’t quite see the value in recruitment agencies, which is absolutely fair enough, but many do see the value that recruiters add. We’re that filter, so that your inboxes don’t get flooded with loads of candidates that aren’t suitable, but also that vetting process, speaking to and getting to know the candidates, meaning that you can go straight to interview and can hire much more quickly. I know some companies are using automation but I think that in any role where you require humans, there has got to be a human that is also dealing with that, which in this case is a recruiter, and I don’t think you can get that from a system or computers. I can’t say I’m particularly concerned about my industry.
You can have a look at Benchmark’s shiny new website here.
