And just like that, we are 1! And what a year it has been. From Alex sitting in the delivery room of the hospital waiting for the imminent arrival of his first (and last) son making final edits to our website, through to present day, in the process of moving into our second larger office!
To say it’s been a whirlwind 12 months is the understatement of the year, and what have we learnt?
Be clear in your vision and the business you want to create
From the outset, we had a clear understanding of what we wanted: to create a fun, inclusive and mature working environment, where people genuinely want to come in, and with a very clear service offering in one of the most competitive labour markets in the world.
Fortunately for us as founders, we had the benefit of hindsight, having worked for some great firms, and some where we saw room for improvement. This helped us to quickly work out what we didn’t want, but also helped us shape what we wanted to be known for – “Experts in our field, with an outstanding attention to detail and an exemplary customer led focus”.
Live and breathe values you believe in!
One of the first projects we embarked on was to create a core set of values (see our blog entry here) we could relate to (and understand) that each member of Dataworks would buy into.
From running 10k for charity through to early finishes on Fridays, as well as regular wellbeing check ins with our team, I am happy to say that our commitment to everyone’s Wellbeing (including our own) is well under way. With more ideas and plans in the pipeline, this value will continue to be one of the most important areas of focus as we grow!
We also wanted to provide a service that we are proud of and it’s encouraging to say that 50% of our new business has come from clients recommending us. Out of the 15 reviews received so far, each one left us the full 5 stars on Google! (Thank you!!)
There is no escaping the fact we are a start-up, with limited resources, and with no internal training team to take care of everyone’s onboarding and development. Whilst some people may look at this as a negative, we saw this as a huge positive. This meant we could instil our very own 121 training and best practices into each person that joins us. And over time we will continue to adapt and change as we grow. We raise the bar every day.
Challenges?
Hitting this 1-year milestone is a great opportunity for us to celebrate what we’ve achieved but also reflect on what got us here, what didn’t go as planned, and what the future looks like.
We started Dataworks with a clear plan in place, yet, as I am sure other founders will relate to, there were some general question marks on what the wider strategy looked like! This led to a few weeks of trial and error before fully nailing down our business plan. We looked at which territories we should focus on, how wide or narrow our niche would be, and where we would add value to every candidate and client alike!
The one point we always referred back to when deciding on markets, roles, and USP’s, was that they have to make commercial sense:
- How will we value and price up our various service offerings?
- What services do we offer our clients, and will they actually add value?
- How will we decide what projects to take on and which ones we should walk away from?
Without revealing all our trade secrets, we go into our 2nd year with answers to all the above and now fully focus on the fun part, matching the best data profiles with the most ambitious companies!
Another challenge we faced this second part of the year has been growing Dataworks and hiring new consultants to embark on our adventure. We’ve made a couple excellent hires and come out confident about what works at Dataworks and what we want – but are we limiting our growth by being too picky and only hiring profiles that fit “our” mould? One thing is for sure, we aren’t ready to lower our standards for the sake of growing. With the ambition to double in size in the next months, hiring has become our priority and it’s been an excellent exercise in reassessing our positioning and USPs compared to larger more established agencies: we can offer a more flexible environment, where employee’s growth and career evolution are not just buzz words, but the only way Dataworks will grow and thrive in the next years.
What’s next?
By achieving our target of hiring a handful of new superstar recruiters by end of summer, we will get to a place where we will structure the life of the company even more and aim to continuously increase the quality of our L&D, the fun of our incentives, and of course the financial rewards that can be achieved. Whilst our team is young, we’re already discussing details to reward employees at every level at Dataworks and recognize that it’s not going to be a “one fits all” formula to manage every employees’ career. We will remain flexible in our approach and open to consultants inputs.
Many firms focus on headcount growth as key metric for measuring performance, and whilst that is a factor to consider, our objective is to get the business to a size and position that enables every member of our team to spend more time travelling, meeting our clients and candidates, and investing time into themselves! Who knows, in time the next trip overseas could be to visit a new international office!
No matter what, we will remain committed to providing a great service, transparent, flexible… and keeping life at Dataworks HQ fun but productive.
A big thank you to our top recruiters that joined the Dataworks journey early on, and of course thanks to our clients and candidates for trusting us with your projects. Check out our recap video here!
On to the next 12 months!
