“If you want to be a great place to work and you want people to come to work with you… Then really being able to demonstrate that you care about social value as a strategy in your DNA. That really matters to people.”
Our special guest in this episode, Amabel Grant, shared her insights on how to become a great place to work by delivering on social value goals. I am really excited to share this episode with our listeners as Amabel shares insights on the following areas:
How to become a great place to work, and how doing so will positively impact your clients and employees.
Focus on social value - what it really means and how to balance it with commerciality.
The growing importance of ESG in procurement
Important core focuses when scaling your business.
Amabel is the CEO of Bloom Procurement Services which is the leading public sector fully managed marketplace for professional services.
Episode Outline and Highlights
[01:40] Top tips for developing a positive working culture and employee experience.
[03:40] Amabel shares their trademark behaviors and how they chose them.
[07:28] The working culture’s direct impact on business.
[09:15] How Bloom consistently embeds the trademark behaviors within their team.
[12:55] Fostering a consistent work culture for startups.
[19:15] Amabel discusses what the private sector can learn from the public sector.
[22:01] Discussion on Social Value and how it aligns with commerciality.
[24:26] How businesses are being assessed under ESG (Environmental Social Governance) credentials.
[28:58] Core focuses when scaling a business.
How to Foster a Positive Working Culture and Employee Experience
To kick off our discussion, Amabel and I talked about Bloom’s very recent inclusion in the Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2023 list. The list recognizes organizations with the highest employee engagement, well-being, and satisfaction levels. Amabel shared how fostering a positive working environment impacted their business - which for example increased their employee retention from 60% to 88%! Amabel also gave her insights on how happy employees result in happy customers, and how it can increase sales by up to 20%.
What are Amabel’s top tips for developing a positive working culture and employee experience? Here are the takeaways:
Decide on the culture you want to embed in your business.
Have a clear sense of what defines the organizations culture.
You need to lead and persuade the organization to adopt and choose that culture by themselves.
Hire employees that share an interest in the same model.
Always consider employee happiness.
Amabel also revealed their trademark behaviors and how they engaged the entire business to decide on these collaboratively.
Discussion on Social Values and What the Private Sector Can Learn from the Public Sector
One thing that stands out in Amabel’s career is how she has worked in both the public and private sectors. This experience allows her to give credible insights into what the private sector can learn from the public sector.
“I guess in terms of what a private sector can learn from the public sector is about that sense of purpose and sense of achievement because you are making other people’s lives better in some way,” is how Amabel puts it. She shared the concept of Ikigai, which focuses on your passion, what you are good at, and what the world needs. This then leads to our discussion on Social Values - what it means and what it means for your business. We also covered how Social Values can be balanced with commerciality and how they are helping out their clients to deliver on their social value goals and initiatives.
Core Fundamentals When Scaling Your Tech Business
Having worked with fast-growing startups, I was also interested in getting Amabel’s insight on what business leaders should focus on scaling a business in the current environment. This is truly relevant given the ever-changing markets with recent trends and breakthroughs, especially in the space of tech and artificial intelligence. Amabel discussed two focus areas:
Not scaling linearly but understanding how to leverage automation.
Aligning your marketing strategy with scaling.
About Amabel Grant
Amabel is the CEO of Bloom Procurement Services which is the leading public sector fully managed marketplace for professional services.. She has a background working in both the public and private sectors, which provides her with a unique perspective on business practices and the importance of social values.
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Rebecca is the Founder and Director of The Lucent Group. She has extensive talent acquisition and executive search experience supporting digital and technology businesses through complex changes and fast-paced scale-up periods. She works with businesses advising on C-level, technical and commercial appointments, workforce planning, strategic talent management, recruitment processes, and associated technology and employer brand development. She has led and built successful teams, led numerous C-level, VP, Director, and Head-of searches, and designed and implemented outsourced recruitment solutions. In 2019 she helped a FinTech client secure a place in LinkedIn’s Top 25 Start-ups in the UK. Rebecca is a member of the REC (MREC), a qualified career coach, Certified Interviewer (CI), and has professional qualifications in FinTech, HR, Leadership, Digital Marketing, Diversity, Unconscious Bias, and Talent Management.
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