During the festive season, our thoughts turn gratefully to those who have made our success possible. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank every partner who trusted the deverellsmith group with their hiring and career needs throughout 2023.
It’s been a year of change and challenge, the sector experienced an uplift in redundancies over the last 12 months, however, opportunities were still prevalent for entrepreneur-led businesses with robust balance sheets.
The narrowing of job vacancies and market activity has encouraged talent (largely in leadership teams) to seek employment outside of the UK where the economic climate is considerably stronger. The investment and confidence in the Saudi Arabian market partcularly have opened numerous doors for homegrown talent to strengthen their experience on unparalleled projects.
As we embark on 2024, I believe ‘the buyer's market’ will remain solid somewhat sadly as a result of cost-cutting measures by organisations, redundancies and restructurings. However, this shift will enable businesses to be more strategic in how they hire and it has already led to the re-balance of wage inflation.
When I polled our network earlier this year, over 50% of hiring managers reported that most of their hiring is carried out during Spring, so we expect an increase in vacancies then. I’m hopeful that growth mode will switch on for many towards the end of the Financial Year.
AI has shaken up the sector, enabling businesses to streamline their customer service line and provoke higher rates of productivity across their workforce and technology stack. I’m optimistic that the market will reap the rewards of this digital transformation as it provides a valuable resource to relieve some of the pressures and stresses of workloads.
I challenge our entire network to ‘thrive into 2025’ as all of these changes will generate opportunities for well-capitalised businesses, that are looking to take advantage of hiring market conditions to deliver on their growth strategies, and business plans to provide exceptional outcomes for their customers.
We very much have a ‘glass half full’ perspective and as we gear up for 2024, we reflect on what else the deverellsmith group has achieved in 2023 and how we aided our network. I hope you find some of the below useful, and potentially stimulate a few ideas or prompt a conversation in the New Year.
I’m proud to share that in this year’s Best Companies rankings, deverellsmith was awarded:
⭐️ 4th on ‘London’s Best Companies to Work For’
⭐️ 11th on ‘The UK’s Best Small Companies to Work For’
⭐️ 13th on ‘The Best Recruitment Companies to Work For’
Our Recruitment Process Outsourcing function – Hintel - turned one this year and landed a number of significant partnerships, which support our partner’s business expansion across London, Spain and Dubai.
We made our second corporate acquisition of Daisy Chain which continues to strive for positive change in the flexible working movement, helping jobseekers match and connect with flexible employers to enhance their careers and work-life balance.
We released five data-driven research reports highlighting key trends and guiding our business partners on how to navigate the hiring landscape throughout the year.
We hosted the sixth and seventh editions of Banking on the Future in partnership with Bank of England, Related Argent, Sotheby’s, Realstar, Way of Life, British Land, Knight Frank Finance and Fuse which were both sold-out events!
We relaunched devcast, our podcast series, to showcase video content. The series now has over 20k downloads and a considerable amount of video views across all platforms.
deverellsmith partnered with Calthorpe Gardens and donated over 100 hours of volunteering time to provide greener, well-kept community space within London.
Two senior leaders within the business are now Level 5 qualified in Managing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion along with our Group Solutions Director who is now the chair for Women in Residential Property.
Our partnership with Ladies in Real Estate continued as we hosted the December 50/50 gender balance networking breakfast.
devgives, deverellsmith’s CSR programme, raised over £2500 for causes like Movember and London Youth.
We continued our partnership with Programme One, which aims to address the underrepresentation of Black talent within recruitment, and made our first hire through the initiative.
And finally, we planted 1,250 trees in our UK forest in a bid to become more climate-positive, offsetting 40 tonnes of carbon.
We look forward to supporting your business and teams in preparing for the future, hosting more podcasts and industry-leading events, and stimulating positive change. It is in this spirit that we say thank you and send best wishes for the holidays and New Year.
I wish you a well-deserved, restful break over the festive season, and I look forward to working with you to achieve continued success throughout 2024 and beyond.
Warmest wishes,
Andrew Deverell-Smith
CEO
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