Chorley’s award-winning Fresh Perspective Resourcing to add an ethical touch to recruitment in Lancashire
Fresh Perspective Resourcing, a recruitment agency in Chorley, was founded in 2016 by sisters Laura and Emily Leyland with the aim of adding a touch of humanity to an industry that may have a bad reputation as being somewhat insensitive.
“My sister and I had both worked for agencies that wanted you to leave your morals at the door, so when the idea of starting our own business came up, we knew we wanted to try something different” , says the CEO. Laura. “We wanted to take care of the customers and apply a bit of common sense, positivity and ethics.
“We also wanted to take care of the candidates – they’re not just sharps, they’re people with dreams and families,” adds Laura. “Creating a place where people wanted to come to work and feel valued rather than having that Sunday scare was also important.”
Despite a “nervous” but financially positive first six months, Laura admits that moving from a busy office to working from home was a difficult transition to make at first.
“I left to start the business on my own before Emily joined me and I felt really alone,” says Laura, 38. “When I was able to pay myself for the first time, I was really happy, but I missed this human interaction”. although everything is going well with Fresh.”
Before long, however, the team began to grow.
Offering clients help with recruitment strategy, job descriptions, advertisements, headhunting, resume screening, screening, interview structures and even employee retention, Fresh was on the rise. Then Covid hit.
“Our recruitment committee was like Take Me Out with Paddy McGuinness with all the lights going out, so we were like ‘oh, no!'” says Laura, from Chorley. “It was incredibly frustrating, but we’re pretty good in a crisis, so it was just a case of ‘what can we do?’
“We couldn’t do recruiting so for three months we became digital marketers and I honestly think that was the best thing we could have done – it made us a much better company,” she adds. “We are on track for our best year yet.
“I’m so proud; it makes me very emotional to look back to a time when we were wondering how we were going to manage,” Laura continues. “We didn’t furlough anyone because we didn’t want to impact people’s mental health – feeling needed is important.”
Committed to taking care of its own, the award-winning Fresh hosts quarterly team-building exercises, regular charity and volunteering events, and weekly team yoga for its 10 employees. They also hope to expand the team after moving to new offices last November.
“I love this job because it’s about helping people take career and life-changing steps while helping businesses solve problems and grow,” says Laura. “Every vacancy is different, so it’s always interesting and challenging and I’m also delighted to see everyone succeeding here. Because without the people we have, Fresh wouldn’t be here.
