In this episode, we talk to John Paul Caffery, CEO of RAMP Global, a platform dedicated to solving global resourcing and recruiting challenges. We learn how they approached balancing supply and demand in a global marketplace as well as look at what flexibility means in the world of changing workplace dynamics.
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Matthew Todd
My name is Matthew Todd, and welcome to Inside the ScaleUp. This is the podcast for founders and executives in tech, looking to make an impact and learn from their peers in the tech business. We lift the lid on tech businesses, interview leaders and following their journey from startup to scale up and beyond covering everything from developing product market fit, funding and fundraising models to value proposition structure and growth marketing.
We learn from that journey so that you can understand how they really work, the failures, the successes, the lessons along the way, so that you can take their learnings and apply them within your own startup or scale up and join the ever-growing list of high growth UK SaaS businesses.
Hey and welcome back to the podcast really pleased today to be joined by John Paul Caffrey from RAMP Global CEO and founder of RAMP Global. Great to have you on the podcast today.
John Paul Caffery
You too, Matthew. Thank you for inviting me.
Matthew Todd
No worries are looking forward to the conversation. There’s a few topics that we want to cover as well as find out about your journey with RAMP Global. But to kick things off, can you just give us a little bit of background about yourself and what it is that you do at RAMP Global?
John Paul Caffery
Yeah, absolutely. So, I have sort of worked within sort of the recruitment industry for sort of nearly 25 years now. So initially, or the first half of my sort of career very much with sort of agencies, so larger agencies, such as Michael Page and manpower. And then the second half of my career has very much still been within staffing and recruitment. But more on the technology side where ramp global is a platform built to serve that that market, but very much as with the Technology Emphasis.
Matthew Todd
Yeah. And with ramp global, then what was the motivation for kind of switching? You know, from more service based to more software platform baseball, what were the things that led to getting that off the ground?
John Paul Caffery
Yeah, really good question. So, I think fundamentally, sort of as a, what you would say, more traditional sort of consultants or agency in recruitment. I think I sort of observed and sort of felt the pain really of a number of the sort of challenges or the friction that is, is what you would say, more traditional recruitment.
I think really, the birth of our ramp global was around reducing the friction making it easier for both recruitment suppliers, recruitment agencies to interact and engage with employers. Yeah. And really taking out a lot of the administration, the headache, and just making it as I said, more frictionless. So. So really, that that took me and sort of the idea really to do that into building ramp, as a platform as a company that it is today.
Matthew Todd
I see. Do you have any examples of those kind of friction points that you saw in the market?
John Paul Caffery
Yeah. So, I think there’s a number really there’s I think initially, it’s the access to employers I sort of who to engage with. I think it’s the negotiation around commercials fees, who do you have those with? And how quickly can you get those completed, it’s then all-around onboarding and being set up as a supplier. So again, larger enterprises that can be quite onerous.
Then finally, just things around feedback and getting paid. So, I think there’s sort of a long, the sort of the end to end or the complete journey of recruitment, that recruitment lifecycle, the sort of pinch points and pain points along the journey, but it’s just trying to do as I said, remove those or make them much easier to work through.
Matthew Todd
That makes a lot of sense. There’s definitely a lot of process a lot of people typically involved if you consider that end to end recruitment lifecycle. So then, when deciding to try and look at a software platform, then developing the software platform to solve some of those friction points. What did you decide to launch with and who did you decide to launch with? Is that kind of early product and early customer base?
John Paul Caffery
Yeah, so I think, I think one of the I suppose one of the challenges with any sort of startup is, is you’re typically sort of bootstrapping if you like, or having to be pretty economical with how you invest and whilst obviously, setting up a technology business is means that you need a platform that is capable. Sometimes the reality is that you’re limited by budget. So certainly, v one if you lie because our platform created the connection, but certainly wasn’t. There was a lot of sort of human intervention, which is inevitable. I actually think that was really helpful.
And again, with other technology companies, you can sort of build something that you feel the customer or customers need. But the reality is in building that v1, it did enable a period of time to go out and research and get feedback from what we would say, as that would be our users. And therefore, before we invested huge amounts of time and money, that sort of more basic v1, enable us to get that feedback and then iterate for the next versions of the platform that we developed.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And something we see, quite often of what founders launch with as that initial product launch, we call it an initial product launch, not an MVP, because whilst it might be functional, as a product is probably not viable in terms of a marquee, it’s probably not serving their needs yet.
So that first version, as you say, Can is often most useful as a point of reference as a point of learning really, to enable you to start iterating and working out what works. Yeah, completely. feature wise, then and customer wise. How, how did that iteration process go? Because you’ve, you’ve been working on the platform about 12 years now. Is that right?
John Paul Caffery
Yes. Correct. Yeah, 2010?
Matthew Todd
So, imagine there’s been an awful lot of changes over the time. But how did those initial iterations go? And how does that compare to what you’ve ultimately got on the platform at the moment?
John Paul Caffery
Yeah, I mean, well, I think those iterations are continuous. There’s lots of reasons for that, which I can sort of explain. I think, the, we’re sort of a two sided platform. So we have suppliers, recruitment agencies coming in on one side, and then employers connecting them on the other. So I think first and foremost, there sort of needs, the way they use the platform, how they use the platform, are different. So therefore, it’s a single platform, but there’s sort of two, two sort of use cases for everything that we’re trying to do and connect. So I think a lot of that is exploration.
Fortunately, certainly for myself, and the, the other founders of the business, we came from recruitment backgrounds. So, we could see the benefit of technology, but also, we really understood or could work through feedback. Pretty decisively, because we had that sort of knowledge. And we have been there and done it. So that was definitely a benefit to us. I think those earlier versions were nonintegrated. And by that whereby we platform, currently, or now will integrate with other HR systems that organizations use, we just didn’t have that capability previously.
Also you need to get to a certain size and scale before integrations are practical or commercial for either party. So I think those earlier versions, as I said, proved out the end to end, but we’re not as technology driven as certainly they are today in the platform.
Matthew Todd
I see. And I think it’s always interesting to look at different types of marketplaces, platforms and businesses. And, you know, one thing I always like to find out is the marketplace. Obviously, there’s two sides to those two different types of parties supply and consumer.
How did you go about staffing up or, or kind of recruiting? You know, one side of that marketplace before the other typically, we see one side of that equation tends to get a lot more built up before the other, but how did you approach that?
John Paul Caffery
Yeah, I mean, and I think that’s the biggest challenge, certainly, that we’ve faced. And, and certainly, many other platforms will face and do face on a daily basis, I think. I think the fact is, yeah, in a two sided sort of marketplace, platform environment that we have the you sort of need to build one side and build up credibility, and obviously onboard them, if you like, into the platform, but to keep them sort of engaged and active, you ultimately need to build the other side.
So our platform is we have employers on one agencies on the other the agencies bring the jobs. So the vacancies for the employer, sorry, bring the jobs and vacancies for the agencies that fail and the agencies are there to supply the candidates to fill those jobs. So I think what we it took us time, what we realized really, the fuel for the platform is A jobs right is vacancy. So, the more vacancies, the more active agencies become.
So in the earlier days, we probably looked at it 5050. Yeah, onboarding agencies and employers, I think on reflection, really, the focus should have been on onboarding those employers more so on the flip of that, though, and this is the delicate balances is if an employer is investing their time to post their vacancies on the platform, they’re posting for a reason. And that reason is to fill those vacancies. So all of a sudden, if you haven’t balanced it out with the right agencies, etc., and the right locations for them to fulfill those vacancies.
Again, you’ve got an employer then sort of saying, this sort of didn’t work for me or I posted 10 vacancies on any field, too. So, is this the platform for me? So I think, I think that is reality, I think there’s, you’re always having to sort of try and balance the two sides, I don’t believe you can get that perfect, day one.
I think it takes years, I think the way that you work through that is, is it’s a simple word. And it’s called resilience, because you will get there, but it will take a lot longer than you initially anticipate as a business concept and idea. And certainly that’s the, that’s what we went through if you like.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, and I guess, with that kind of product, and many other types of products, as well as always going to be a tension between the employer levels, the job levels that you’ve got, and the agencies that are there.
So it’s never like you’ve got a perfect balance, I imagine there’s always going to be a managing of that supply and demand. And, you know, you’ll always have a situation where you’ve got too much of one not enough of the other and vice versa, I imagine.
John Paul Caffery
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, the analogy that I often use is our platform, if you think of our platform, it’s like a great supermarket, that’s just out of center loads of parking, and, and everyone wants to go there.
So, all of the customers come in there, the agencies, but if those shelves aren’t stocked with the goods in there, the job’s done. I mean, they’re not coming back.
So you, you definitely have to work through that. And as I said, a lot of that you learn over time, and also, when you’re starting something from scratch, and certainly that’s your brand, as well as anything else. And it takes time for people to understand not just your commercial model, but actually who you are, do you not?
I mean, and actually, why should we be engaging with you, and that’s on both sides. So. So there’s lots of great examples of companies that have done that sort of very successfully. But lots that won’t have and sort of because it does require a lot of hard work and consideration.
Matthew Todd
Kind of interested to learn more about the relationship between RAMP and the employers and the agencies, because I imagine that again, takes a bit of careful management as well, I know from having been on both sides of recruitments. In the past before that, agencies can often be extremely protective over their client base in a bordering aggressive in some cases, how do you manage to keep your agencies engaged with the platform, but also, you’re treating the platform in the right way? Not trying to poach clients and those kinds of things?
John Paul Caffery
Yeah, it’s another excellent question. I think traditional agencies absolutely want to that will they would own the relationship, right, the relationship with both the candidate and the client, so the employer that they are placing with so. So, introducing a platform that is to facilitate and reduce the friction is great. However, there is a different sort of mindset that we need to or thought process that we need to promote with those agencies to think slightly differently from the norm. That is not easy if you’ve worked in the industry for many years. And this is the way that we do it.
So I think I think one of the areas that we tried to support and addresses is we have we are a technology platform, but we have a an account management or a supplier management team. And those, that team is specifically there to onboard and engage those suppliers in a in a timely, detailed and professional way. So they understand the benefits that the platform can provide. Certainly, since introducing that team that makes that onboarding process and the confidence that those agencies have that they’re in the right hands. and much better, I think there’s then the next level is transparency, right? So we benefit as a platform, because we are at what you would term a neutral vendor. So we don’t do the supply ourselves, we’re not trying to be everything to everyone we don’t, we don’t feel vacancies directly through the platform, as in ourselves, we are simply there to connect. So, we are seen as neutral, etc. So, so I think that’s important.
And as part of that, sort of support for the agencies, it’s, it then comes down to transparency and clarity around terms, who are the clients, how many other suppliers are working on a vacancy, at what stage is that vacancy? And we absolutely believe in, the more information and the more transparent we are to suppliers coming into the platform. And the more they see around a job, the better, the better they engage, the more confident they are other sort of similar platforms, every each one has their nuances, but certainly there’s lots of global platforms now.
Some of them take a different approach, which is they don’t disclose, for example, the client name or the terms until the agencies sort of had to commit, but sort of fundamentally, I, I don’t see that necessarily as scalable, or, or most transparent, because you run the risk of, of suppliers engaging without knowing that the full facts so that, again, has taken time.
The final part is, is if you were around for reasonable time, like we are, there is a lot of cross fertilization suppliers that are now supplying into multiple accounts, there’s a brand awareness, there’s an understanding of what we’re there to do, and we’re there to feed them if you like, with jobs, and therefore revenue, not take stuff away. But you’re not going to do that on day one.
But certainly, as you evolve, and you perform and the agencies performed through the platform, that that becomes become certainly more easier.
Matthew Todd
I can see how having that transparent approach and having dedicated people in the business to make sure that those suppliers as agencies do, understand and receive value from it can certainly help with that. And as you say, promote the right way of, of thinking, which might be different to how they’ve worked before.
But especially with changing working habits and everything else and more globalization, I can see how that is still a very attractive option to them. And on that global element, then obviously, it’s in the name. But did you start off with your global workforce management in mind? Or did you start small and then expand?
John Paul Caffery
No, we didn’t, we didn’t. So we our real focus initially, and certainly for the first five, six years of our life as a business was UK focused. And we changed that approach or strategy in sort of the last three to four years. And that’s really paid dividends for us. And I think a couple of reasons for that. In starting out, you’ve got to start and be realistic with a the resources you have both people and financial. And be you sort of really need to understand, is there a model that’s a viable? Have you sort of undertaken the learnings to iterate and evolve, and to do that sort of global scale, that level of figuring out is just at a, an intensity, that would be really difficult to control. If I’m honest, if we had tried to take that approach, we probably wouldn’t be here today.
However, when you just focus as we did, in sort of one country, the UK is clearly a mature recruitment market and a large economy from a global point of view. It’s it, you’re sort of limited in in the value that you can provide. And what we quickly realized is a lot of the larger enterprises who used a platform such as a Macquarie and AIG, a Siemens, they are looking for a global solution because they’re a global business.
So, limiting them to a platform that serves in one country where they might actually be an organization that covers 80 100 120 countries. Is isn’t as valuable and as needed for them. So it’s us expanding globally, has meant that we can support these organizations. But for example, it might be, you know, what we really need your platform in the US or Genoa, in Central East, in Europe, there’s specific projects. And it’s the means that we can add value where they need it. We’re not restricted, nor is the client. So that sort of global peace really has kicked in over the last three to four years. And that’s really where we’ve seen an acceleration in both usage and activities. Which comes back to that you need both sides of the platform operating at reasonable scale to take the business forward.
Matthew Todd
Sounds like you’ve taken very clients lead approach to that globalization rather than, Hey, it works over here. Why don’t we go and try and apply it over here? You know, everywhere else that speaks English, like I’ve seen, you know, other people attempt in the past, if you do it client led the new, you’ve already got one half of that equation solved, I guess.
John Paul Caffery
Yeah, definitely. I think the, the other factor here is, is the same organization, a global organization will operate very, very differently, or can operate in very, very differently by country by region, right? That could be way of working their culture, the type of skills they hire, how they actually recruit people, the technologies, they use, the demands, the budgets, there’s so many different nuances. And actually working with what we found is working with organizations where we can prove value.
That sort of proof of concept, that soft landing, and then expand out is has been a far more effective version than trying to solve problems where we actually don’t know what they are, or when it’s a completely different team. So, we can sort of go at a pace that is comfortable for the customer, but also enables us to make sure that we’re ready to serve their needs.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, I see, I think that’s a good approach, especially when you’re selling into some pretty sizable organizations is try and get in there perhaps with a smaller problem to solve or smaller piece of that overall picture and prove yourself first.
John Paul Caffery
Exactly, exactly. The larger the organization, even though small problems in the grand scheme of things are quite big problems in terms of big numbers, etc. But yeah, that’s absolutely our approach. And, and we will be Yeah, we’ll continue with that as well.
Matthew Todd
Yeah. Interesting. From an operations perspective, then, as you’ve grown from that initial inception point, then how has that changed from your own kind of staffing? How does that fit together?
John Paul Caffery
A lot of figuring out is the short answer the, as you scale, you sort of start to think more about what you need, or actually what you don’t have, I think there’s things that conceptually you feel is a an issue, or something to resolve, but maybe it isn’t. And likewise, stuff actually can come at you that you think you need to resolve now. So one of just an example there is, is working with global organizations, we’ve got two offices, we’ve got one in the UK, in London, we’ve got one in pop right into the vacuum, but ultimately, they’re European operations, but we serve our customers globally.
So, in the last and region in a packing neuron, so therefore, setting our team up and our operations to ensure that we offer the same level of service for customers and suppliers outside of the region, where we’re physically based is one area that we resolve and have to resolve. I think also, it’s, it’s trying to work out what the platform can be doing more so therefore, what our technology and product team can be doing to automate and self-serve many elements, rather than just adding on customer success and account managers. So, there’s always a balance there, etc.
So I think operationally, we are continually reviewing our people in terms of our needs to bring people in. And some of that is internal discussions, because we need to work that out. And then when they come in, some of it, like how we’ve expanded globally is client driven. So if we win a big project that all of a sudden it might require a slightly different skill, or know someone dedicated particularly in finance just for that account because of the size of it. So, we would have to sort of react to that within a reasonable timeframe.
But operationally, we we’ve certainly got a team now, but sort of funds and numbers enable us to hire when you’re a startup. Certainly in the early stages, the desire and actually, the sense and the practice, the practicality of having people, everyone says, Yeah, you should be having that person or that team. Yeah, the reality checks in of you don’t want to over hire. And likewise, you need those funds and to deploy those resources. Sometimes it is. Well, yeah, you have to manage through that.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, absolutely. It can be perhaps easy to look at a scaled business that you are now on, look at the different roles there. But as you start to build up your from that startup, there’s, there’s what you want and what you can have, and getting that traction and everything else, you know, sometimes two different things. So what were your early hires, then what were they like?
John Paul Caffery
So we were quite fortunate, I mean, there was sort of three co-founders and our I was sort of one of those, and we all had slightly different skills. So one of the guys was very much more tech and product, the other was sort of marketing and brand and I was more on the commercial side. So, I think, I think having a blend of three co-founders that had a mix of skills, that were able to essentially invest their time without necessarily taking cash out of the business was helpful.
So I think I think that was, I then think in the additional hires, what you’d say the more employee red LED hires. And we needed just to think about the skills and, and one of the areas that we needed to, to look at is ensuring those individual or sorry, those initial hires, or early hires were had transferable skills, so that I could do a bit of credit control, if they needed to, they could onboard a supplier, they could help with any client, an employer query.
So we didn’t have necessarily the silos and the focus in one area. So that’s sort of how we how we well, that is how we managed it. And I think that was, again, the right choice. pressurized and intense. But that that is what we had to do. And I’m sure lots of other businesses at that stage in time would have to do as well.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s really interesting and interesting to hear you talk about kind of silos is one and avoiding early on creating some people that can only operate in a silo, because I see some founders perhaps where they haven’t got that balance of skills that that you and your co-founders have. think, oh, I need to hire a marketing director or sales director.
I think the problem is, you look at that on an orchestra and you think, oh, yeah, I haven’t got someone senior at that level that matches the skills that I haven’t got. But thing is if you try and employ someone at that level, than they used to working with and work best when they’ve got a team underneath them, and you’re not at the scale to have that.
John Paul Caffery
I think absolutely on that. The other element of that is, and certainly sort of being in and around founders of businesses that have been super successful, a number that haven’t been successful and failed. I think one of the things that needs to be taken into consideration is, is bringing in skills is one thing at a medium or a senior level. But to me founders, and certainly the people running the business, if you like day to day, me to do a lot about figuring out themselves because the silver bullet isn’t for example, bringing the marketing director in that the founder sort of needs to understand what those needs are not just for the individual, but what is the plan? What are the objectives?
Because you could you run the risk, and I’ve seen it many times, that lots of money is invested in individuals that highly capable and are experts in their role, but they’ve just got a lack of direction and a sense of what it is that they are there to achieve. And, and all of a sudden, then the blame comes in have. We thought they were going to achieve all of these things they didn’t and were then delayed.
So, I think founders sometimes need to look at bringing people in is the right thing, but it’s at the right time. It’s with the right thought that needs to happen.
John Paul Caffery
It’s really important that the business plan is individual to the business.
Matthew Todd
They can as you say, hire someone then that’s going to do all of that strategic thinking for them. They’ve got to work that out for themselves. Live a lot of that themselves as well. One thing as well that we mentioned when we were talking before they, the interview, the recording today is that the importance of kind of owning your own business plan, I think relates to the point that we were just talking about, we see a lot of founders make mistakes, copying what they think other people are doing, regardless of how true that may or may not be, as well as regardless to how appropriate for their current situation is. And I think you said that you shouldn’t try and mirror a business plan that you don’t own. So I’d like if you could kind of talk to that a little bit, if you could.
John Paul Caffery
Yeah, I think there’s, I suppose there’s two parts. I think it’s really important that the business plan is individual to the business, I think the business plan also has to have the right blend of the commercial, the product, the tech, ultimately, the stuff that will build the business, but really also have a core element around the finances and numbers.
Again, from experience. It’s the vision and the excitement, and the aspiration of disrupting a market and doing all of these great things. It’s, in many instances, that’s real. And that’s the, the inspiration that enables entrepreneurs to do what they do. But there is sometimes a disconnect on the reality of the numbers and actually, what’s needed to realize that and, and, and I think the risk there is, is you’ve got a business plan, but it’s not underpinned necessarily by depth and knowledge of numbers. And, and therefore, without that the foundations are potentially very weak, I think looking at or mimetic sort of copying or mimicking, or sort of taking ideas, and then just introducing them and plugging them in where they probably don’t plug in, is definitely a no, no.
However, I do think external feedback, whether it be via advisors, there’s lots of blogs, obviously, podcasts like this expose, but there’s lots of external information that business owners can feed off to, to elevate and evolve their own thinking. So I don’t think that’s necessarily by competitor, I just think it’s understanding how the market is moving. And just factoring that in I mean, certainly in more recent or not recent, the last year, there’s a lot of discussion around obviously, the macro-economic impacts on businesses, there’s a lot of discussion around SaaS based businesses as an example around ensuring that there’s a pathway through to profitability, what’s the linear runway that should now be prudent to plug game?
I think being on top of that, and just thinking about that enables you to plan more effectively. So, so yeah, there are stuff that you could take from competitors, but from me, looking externally, or getting an external view and lens on your businesses is something that is definitely valuable together, as I said, with, with an in depth understanding of the numbers as well.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. I think those two things combined are gonna give you the best chances of success and the best outcome. I think the worst thing you can do is keep all of that internal, but then try and copy, you know, like a product lead growth strategy, we see so many people trying to do but they don’t realize that you’re not Dropbox, you haven’t got, you know, an oversize valuation, hundreds of millions in funding to pull off what is a numbers game and hope to find that path to profitability? You’re not at that stage. So, it’s not the right thing to do.
John Paul Caffery
I also think there’s a there’s how can I put it? When you’re looking at competitor analysis, there’s always a level of vanity, there’s a level of PR and marketing in one level that you can absorb so what you don’t do or what these what you would find it very difficult, if not impossible to do is really understand what the challenges are they face and so you could analyze a commercial model and then a company’s really focusing on that’s the best model. You could then replicate that.
Actually, what you don’t know is that commercial model is completely broken for so many reasons. So, I think, competitor analysis or trying to, as I said, copy them or look at them and aspire to them. What you’ll never do because you’re not in the business, you’re in that particular business yourself is understand really the true challenges they face. So, so again, it’s just to bear that in mind as well.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s a really, really good point you do No inside their business, what for the financials alike and what their pressures are, what their challenges are that they’re trying to solve internally as well. You’re only getting a very polished perspective without the information. I think that’s really interesting.
Thank you for, for sharing your thoughts on that. One thing kind of changing topic slightly going back to the kind of recruitment side of things and you know, yourself being obviously a platform for recruitment, but also being a global business yourself as well, it’s, you know, over the past few years, we are obviously seeing a lot of different changes, many force, many accelerated because of different global situations, and changes in working patterns, behaviors, you know, there are a lot more people talking about flexible working, hybrid work, all these kinds of terms are bandied around now, and I think many people take them to mean different things.
But I’d like to kind of hear your perspective in terms of what you observed, you know, with your own clients, but also what your own perspective is on, on the changes when working as well.
John Paul Caffery
One size doesn’t fit all.
John Paul Caffery
There’s a number of sort of elements and aspects to this, I think one. One is that there’s, it’s a bit of a cliche, but one size doesn’t fit all. So first of all, the there’s lots of changing working patterns, styles, and initiatives, and a lot of them are really, for the good of the business, I think, in organizations, first of all, everyone is different. So their needs are different around what they need, from a flexibility or a working environment. So I think organizations of whatever size, trying to make, or making blanket decisions, because they want to make a big announcement and show that they’re an employer of choice. And, and, and be proactive, and, and we’re going to do stuff now, sort of from a PR point of view, gray, it gets it done, we’ve made this big decision and statement.
But individually, that could or couldn’t work. And I think organizations need spend much more time engaging individually with their businesses, sorry, their business units, the individuals within those teams to understand what really worked for them. The challenge with that, of course, the larger the organization, the more time consuming that is. And you’re not going to get then be able to implement that suit everyone. But I think trying to make blanket decisions can be as disruptive as our own business, we have two offices, which are mentioned earlier on this is that we’ve got one in in sort of accurate, and one in London, the environments are different, right.
So, our team in Slovakia are very keen. And they want to be in the office five days a week, right, they don’t want to have the flexible pattern, because they’re used to that that’s obviously a cultural piece as well in in countries such as the valkia. Now, that’s a learning for me, that’s a learning for my senior leadership team. And we’re sort of grateful that we didn’t implement this, you have to be at home on these days, so on and so forth. our London office is very different. So even in a relatively small business with 25 people, we have to adapt to adapt. And we’ve done that adapting through having those one on one conversation. So I think that’s, I think the other element is there’s a lot of the use of the word flexibility is now very common.
But in life flexibility is quite uncommon, as in people struggle with flexibility, and you make the decision, you do what you feel, and some people will, will relate and be able to work without other people, or other workers actually like structure, they want to be in a more rigorous environment that they know that what is happening, right and that again, is very individual right? When we’re younger, we don’t wake up and decide whether we want to go to school or not all we don’t play for a team, a sports team and we’ll we might get there at halftime or we might not turn up or we will be there. So, in many elements of our life, in fact, a lot of elements of our life. We’re not afforded flexibility. So trying to bring this in at maths so personally can be quite disruptive for individuals.
So I think organizations will figure it out. There isn’t one right or wrong answer. Every business is different. And because they’re at a different stage size, scale location. And I think it’s just those all those companies trying to figure out what’s best for their people, and ignoring maybe some of the noise or everyone’s doing this, so we should follow. So that would be my view.
Matthew Todd
No, I think that’s a really good, honest perspective. And, you know, I can see how, you know, the rise of, you know, everyone’s got superfast internet connections. Now, we’ve got great collaboration tools, you know, we’re talking a one right now is a good example of that. Right. But I think, just because that he says, you know, that opens up a, as, you know, a world of talents available to any, any business. So you can make a case for saying, Well, if we want the best talent, then we shouldn’t be restricted by geography.
But I think there’s got to be that the way that a business comes together, there’s always got to be the interaction of what skills do you have? What are your capabilities, but also, what environment are you working in as well? And if you’re all in a different environment, in different parts of the world, different cultures different times as all at the same time, it can work, but I think you can’t ignore the fact that environment has to play a part surely.
John Paul Caffery
Yeah, absolutely. I don’t think you can. And as I said, every business, every sort of sector, I suppose has a different dynamic and a different requirement. It’s, it’s sort of too early, and I think it’ll probably be within two to three years, the data will start to come out around. A lot of the initiatives are there to support the existing sort of workers or people within an organization and also to attract people. Why What will start to come out, and it’ll be quite intriguing to see the data is around retention, right?
So where you’ve got a maybe a disconnected team in terms of a face, face to face disconnection, but as you say, you can there’s technology tools to enable a level of interaction is, is, is that churn or the retention or the attrition of workers German? Will that increase? Will it stay the same?
Because, because that will then start to really prove out to me what, what, what level and type of flexibilities working for companies, but I think we’re, as I said, we’re some time off from getting that. But once we do start to see that data, it will be quite interesting to see how, how organizations and companies react to that.
Matthew Todd
Absolutely. I think it’s interesting to hear you say that it’s really too early to tell whether that data is there yet in terms of retention, because I know a lot of people are talking about retention and using that as a way to say, Oh, we have to be completely flexible, hybrid remote, whatever it may be. Because otherwise, we’re not going to be a keeper people.
But I’ve also heard people the other side of the equation saying, well, actually, we end up with a disconnected workforce when we do that, and they just see themselves as working down and to do list and therefore can do that to do list for a different company and just kind of pay them more. So. Yeah, there’s people on both sides.
So, it’ll be interesting to see how that that data does come out. Yeah, what’s next for the business? We’re recording this early 2023. But how do you see the year panning out for you?
John Paul Caffery
Busy, as always, we’ve got so we’ve, we’ve recently closed and internal round of funding to really sort of ramp up our sort of software and product development activity driven a lot by our sort of client customer needs. So I think that this year is, is to continue our expansion of in all respect, so global coverage, so increase our country coverage, to increase the number of new employers that we are utilizing the platform and benefiting from it increase and the breadth of our sort of supplier ecosystem, again, for those employers to benefit.
Then sort of more sort of operational is to look at, again, how do we develop the team and ensure that we’ve got we’re able to deliver the level and quality of service that we always want to do for our customers. So, it’s sort of more of the same from last year but with additional growth that we forecast and expect and hopefully gets us into to a quite an exciting place as we get to the year end in 23.
Matthew Todd
Fantastic. Some great ambitions but It sounds like you’ve got a pretty solid strategy that you’re looking to, to execute. So yeah, I wish you the best of luck for that another and I’m sure you’ll need it.
But yeah, thank you for sharing some of that that growth journey with our audience I think they’ll find it really interesting to hear those early startup challenges that you face knowing that if they are early on in their journey, that they’re not unusual that there is a path through it.
Thank you for sharing some of those lessons you learned along the way as well as your general perspective on recruitment, which I think they will find interesting as well.
John Paul Caffery
Yeah, thank you, Matthew. It’s certainly been a pleasure. Thank you.
Matthew Todd
Thank you for joining me on this episode of Inside the scaler. Remember for the show notes and in-depth resources from today’s guest. You can find these on the website insidethescaleup.com. You can also leave feedback on today’s episode, as well as suggest guests and companies you’d like to hear from. Thank you for listening.