In 1999, Simon Bielby and Mark Straw established Abbey Personnel in response to a perceived lack of ethically driven worker solutions in the market place. Over the years they have built a reputation for offering high quality bespoke recruitment solutions to a wide range of clients within the food production, manufacturing and Logistics industries. From short-term cover to providing on site services for high volume contracts, Abbey Personnel pride themselves on offering ethical flexible worker solutions on either a temporary or permanent basis.
The Challenge
Working on large scale projects and seasonal work means there is often a high-volume demand for staff over a fixed period. As a result, the capacity to scale up and down operationally is crucial. Therefore, having a guaranteed cash flow to pay a large number of workers at potentially short notice is important.
From the beginning, Simon and Mark decided that a recruitment specific finance option was the best way forward for them. However, after years of receiving good service from their original provider, Abbey started experiencing a lack of support and they became very inflexible.
“We felt like a burden to the provider and were met with restrictions that we had never experienced with the supplier before.”
By Simon Bielby, Operations Director Abbey Personnel
Confined by the restrictions placed on them by their original finance provider and disappointed by their lack of flexibility, Abbey Personnel decided to look for an alternative to the financial model they were currently using. The team turned to a factoring company which they believed could meet all their financial needs whilst reducing their costs. However, it soon became apparent that using the traditional factoring model was damaging their growth potential. The 90% factoring solution meant that 10% was always held back – meaning essential funds to help grow the business were not available. Another negative impact with the factoring solution was the lack of back office support received. Not having a recruitment specific solution resulted in the team spending valuable time on admin tasks and organising payroll rather than focusing on business development. What’s more, concentration limits were holding them back and further restricting their growth potential.
“Factoring works for some, but it didn’t work for us. We felt restricted by essential funds being held back and burdened by the extra admin work.”
By Simon Bielby, Operations Director Abbey Personnel
Simon and Mark found themselves restricted by time and money to grow the business. They needed a flexible recruitment solution which would guarantee their workers got paid without the worry of managing admin tasks. In addition, having access to their funds originally held back was critical in order to invest in their future growth plans.
This is where Simplicity came in.
What We Did
The Solution
Simplicity work specifically with recruitment businesses and were able to offer Abbey Personnel a 100% flexible finance solution that took care of paying all their workers each week, whilst allowing them access to their profit at the same time and all without concentration limits.
This gave Simon and Mark the freedom to get on with the business of growing the company knowing that they had the right support in place and could confidently take on contracts of any size, without the worry of restrictions.
What’s more, the comprehensive back office support provided by the experienced payroll and credit control teams at Simplicity meant that they could step away from managing admin and focus precious time on performing billable tasks.
“Simplicity are experienced and understand the recruitment industry. We’re in very safe hands.”
By Simon Bielby, Operations Director Abbey Personnel
Another benefit of having Simplicity as a growth partner was that GEMS recruitment technology was included at no extra cost.
“GEMS is a fantastic addition to the business.”
By Simon Bielby, Operations Director Abbey Personnel
Not only did it reduce errors and make the company more efficient, Mark and Simon could see the immediate economic benefit of having all their information in one place.
“We could instantly see a reduction in our overheads from not having to pay for a CRM and a separate payroll system and because the technology is cloud based, we don’t even have to pay for a server anymore.”
Not only did Abbey Personnel manage to reduce their costs and become more efficient through GEMS, the time saved through not having to do their own back office meant they could focus on growing the business with the funds they were able to access through the 100% finance solution.
“Simplicity could offer us exactly what we were looking for, which was an all in one recruitment specific solution.”
By Simon Bielby, Operations Director Abbey Personnel
Simplicity could offer us exactly what we were looking for, which was an all in one recruitment specific solution.
By Simon Bielby, Operations Director Abbey Personnel
The Results
The future
Mark, Simon and the team can continue to deliver high quality bespoke recruitment solutions to their clients knowing that Simplicity can support them all the way – from finance and back office to technology.
“We would recommend Simplicity to anyone looking for an expert provider in the recruitment sector.”
By Simon Bielby, Operations Director Abbey Personnel