Specialist search firm Charlton Morris are officially introducing a four-day week for all employees beginning in November. After a six-month trial to understand the effects of the shorter week, where employees retain consistent hours and pay, from November the firm is one of the first in the UK recruitment space to officially implement the benefit for all current and future employees as part of their wider package.
Charlton Morris Associate Director of People, Rebecca Cook, said:
“The past 18 months has given us time to reflect on how we can become the company we want to be. Alongside our newly refreshed vision ‘to change the way the world sees recruitment, through offering our people and our customers the best possible experience,’ we are adjusting our focus to what keeps our people motivated. By encouraging a healthy work/life balance with the security of the same career opportunities.”
When exploring the reality of implementing the four-day week, Charlton Morris reached out to their staggering 270,000+ LinkedIn Audience to see how industry professionals responded to the suggestion. The results showed an overwhelming 83% in support of the decision. With The Wall Street Journal highlighting the most productive workday as a Thursday, “at Charlton Morris, we’re building search firms that offer so much more than ‘just’ recruitment” said CEO Andy Shatwell.
As a gold standard ‘Investor’s in People’ company and ‘Times Best Companies’ award winners three years running, Charlton Morris are already proven industry leaders in the specialist search space and are making strides to ensure this runs true in every aspect of the business. Priding themselves on “demonstrating the power of content to aid Business Development through major business collaborations”, Charlton Morris created their ‘Principal Consultant’ programme which focusses on giving colleagues the best possible experience. With options to pursue team management or build your own premium independent network, consultants utilise content-specific websites, webinars, and a podcast series to showcase their insight as industry experts.
This strategy sees relevant candidates and clients spending longer engaging with the brand and taking jobs off the sites of the trustworthy firm as a result. These incentives remove the usual ‘quick win’ philosophy behind pursuing a career in the field and allows Charlton Morris’ team to become reliable, invaluable industry insiders in their niche, high income fields.
Charlton Morris are a search firm with three divisions, CM Medical, CM Life Science and CM Industrial. Since being founded in 2013 in Leeds they are now expanding into Manchester and London, looking to recruit anyone with experience in the UK. They’ve placed in more than 60 countries on 6 continents with 80% of work outside the UK. Over 75% of the work they do is retained and their USP is not just that their consultants specialise in individual markets, but that they contribute and actively participate in those markets. This has a huge impact in differentiating them from competitors. Their motto ‘searching together to find the future’ extends from colleagues to candidates and their careers, clients and their businesses and everyone they collaborate with. They turned over £9.2M between 2019/20, placing over 470 candidates, and today have a headcount of 93 and counting at their Leeds headquarters with additional consultants based all over the UK.
