Goodbye 2019, Hello 2020!

Phew! Its been a whirlwind year, which has been both challenging and hugely rewarding for so many different reasons.

When I reflect on the ups and downs we’ve experienced – both personally and professionally – the key thing that has resonated most strongly for me, is the importance of having a really engaged and capable team alongside.

It has highlighted the true value of employing high-calibre staff. Ours have demonstrated how much they care about our business and clients and they have helped us to move the business forwards too.  We are incredibly proud of our colleagues in Team Amica!

Anyone who knows me and my fellow Director David Grech well, will be aware that we have had to deal with some significant personal challenges over recent months, my daughter was significantly ill for a few months and David has also battled illness and had also spent some time in the hospital.

These have reinforced our conviction to support our employees should they face similar situations.

And we encourage other businesses to create the sort of work culture that not only supports their staff, but engenders real engagement and underpins their commitment to the business.

When it comes to the crunch, it is clear that people no longer choose to work for a company simply for the best salary they can command, great working conditions which foster a happy office or factory environment are equally important.

Whilst there has been much uncertainty for businesses during 2019, with many firms putting project spending on ice, while they awaited the outcome of the General Election and further clarity over Brexit, many firms have at least been able to create a better working conditions to support work-life balance policies.

It has been a year when it has been realised that loyal employees can help to drive performance, and firms which fail to “do the right thing” risk losing star workers.

We are immensely proud to have secured a wide range of new clients during 2019 and we are helping them to make the very best of their most important resource – their people.

New clients have encouraged us to diversify our range of services.  In doing so, we have extended the reach of our services across the country in order to fulfil new contracts in the London area and East Yorkshire, which are supported by our London and Hull offices).

The growth of our client base has encouraged us to offer services which have boosted the growth of our business. We are approaching 2020, with confident mood and ready to help existing and new clients to succeed, through the use of our staff development, talent resourcing and data research expertise.

We are already running a number of Management Academies and talent development programmes, as well as utilising our skills in the fields of psychometric testing and  running candidate/employee assessment centres, to a much greater degree.

In today’s increasingly competitive marketplace, employers are keen to invest in recruitment expertise. We have already seen a rise in those using our selection centre and psychometric testing expertise to find the best person for a job, or more accurately pinpoint staff for potential promotion, which can also often save them money compared with using traditional recruitment practices.

Over the past few months, Amica HR Services has also found itself supporting clients with the people aspects when they are undertaking acquisition and merger moves.  We believe this trend will continue in the current economic climate.

We are delighted that our partnership arrangements with a number of long-standing clients have flourished as they have expanded, despite facing some tough market challenges.

Amica believes that 2020 will continue to be challenging for companies, but it will also throw-up fresh opportunities for those confident enough to grasp them, and they will only be able to do that if they have solid employment practices in place.

We want to thank our clients and wider network for their continued support.  It is great working with such a wide mix of clients and we are looking forward to introducing them to new projects we have in mind to support them in the coming year.