Leave your CV at home: the business leaders who do things differently

When we assess the success or otherwise of a business we usually base our view on its profitability. We want to know, how much does it make? And are those profits set to rise and keep rising?

That should not be the only criterion. It’s vital, of course it is. But money is not always everything. Just as important, is how many jobs has the firm created? How much difference is it making to people’s lives and to the community or communities in which it is located?

This week, E2E, the business networking and mentoring organisation (24,000 members and growing), held a dinner to launch E2E Job Creation 100, tracking Britain’s 100 most successful small to medium enterprises based on the number of jobs they’ve created. It’s the fourth such track to be produced in association with The Independent, coming after the E2E Female 100, E2E Tech 100, and E2E International 100. “Dynamic” and “Profit” are next.

The Job Creation 100 ranking is drawn from private companies with annual revenues of more than £10m over the past two years and employee growth of at least 25 per cent. Top is RSK Group, the environmental, engineering and technical services provider with 4,041 new jobs. Next is Howden, the insurance group, with 3,264. Third is Kingdom Services, the North West-based maintenance company, having added 2,010 extra employees.

“In all,” said Shalini Khemka, the dynamic founder of E2E, “the 100 listed firms were responsible for adding 60,000 jobs nationwide. Not only is this a remarkable total but they achieved it, don’t forget, during a period of great business uncertainty; in an economy struggling under the burden of the Covid pandemic.”

To put that in context, when was the last time you heard of any new venture creating that many posts? Again, as well, these are actual jobs, real ones, not future projections of how many might be created but then don’t materialise.

While there was rightly cause for celebration – and the atmosphere was fizzing – there was plenty of shared frustration. That sense was multiplied by the knowledge that just along the corridor, in the House of Commons, were people who could do something to assist, who could make the lot of the folk gathered in the Cholmondeley Room in the neighbouring Lords so much easier – indeed could recognise the problems faced by all British enterprises and instigate change.

These were experienced, gifted business people, proven entrepreneurs, and they did not like the government’s apprenticeship scheme, not one bit. “Not fit for purpose”, “tax by another name”, were just two of the comments made. Lord Bilimoria, creator of Cobra Beer and former president of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), host for the evening and the main speaker, said, after listening to the complaints, that ministers would do well to think again.

Here were business chiefs anxious to take full advantage of the initiative and give deserving young recruits a great start in their working lives, teaching them new skills and setting them up for hopefully long, fulfilling careers, but they were stymied. Progress was slow, the system was convoluted and too expensive. A show of hands, called for by Bilimoria, testified to the unanimity of feeling.

Businesses were taking a flexible approach to recruitment, often going to the other end of the age spectrum, hiring those in their fifties and older. They made the point that as far as they’re concerned, diversity is not only about gender and race, but also concerns age. More should be done to encourage those who have taken early retirement or believe their working lives are over, to return. They’ve got so much to offer, in terms of experience and knowledge, which is simply going to waste.

Those dreaded initials AI featured in the conversations round the tables, but not necessarily in the way that might be expected. Those at the dinner said they did not see Artificial Intelligence as a substitute for humans, not in their operations anyway, but rather they regarded AI as potentially “enhancing” existing jobs, making them easier and more efficient.

Another source of difficulty, along with the apprenticeship scheme, was immigration. Companies were doing their level best to hire domestically but frequently, they have little choice than to look overseas. Here, they were coming up against red tape and the B-word. Brexit has made recruitment more tortuous.

Britain is sending out mixed messaging, saying it is very much “open for business” but then putting increasing obstacles in the path of businesses that want to recruit the best, which can mean heading abroad. To applause, Bilimoria, who is also Chancellor of Birmingham University, accused those Conservative MPs who that very day had declared their wish to slash the number of care workers, students and refugees allowed into the UK, of being “economically illiterate”.

Sitting among these successful wealth generators and hearing their positive stories – such as that of Gill Marchbank, chief executive of North East outsourcer ResQ, who no longer asks for CVs from those in deprived areas but prefers to go on instinct, from evidence of values – I found myself wishing Rishi Sunak and his colleagues would join us. They would learn so much from listening to those present; from those who really have created jobs and know how to achieve success.