September 2008

Part-time bosses see firm grow

In the high-pressure world of recruitment, women beat all their business goals

It is hard enough building a £7.5m recruitment business from scratch, but life is even more complicated when the key people behind the business work part-time and have six children to look after.

Judith Thorpe and Karen Molloy set up their Aberdeen-based Thorpe Molloy Recruitment in 1997 and expect to crack the £10m turnover barrier next year. Not bad going for an enterprise that kicked off with a £10,000 overdraft, £12,000 in director loans, £5,000 from the Prince’s Scottish Youth Business Trust and £3,000 from Scottish Enterprise, which supports young entrepreneurs in Scotland.

Aberdeen is a centre for Europe’s oil and gas industry, and demands a highly skilled construction, engineering and professional services workforce, so the growth of the company in such a location is not really surprising. What has raised eyebrows is that these two English women have managed to succeed despite one of them stopping work to have a baby every other year.

In the high-pressure world of recruitment, such disruption could be hazardous for a small company’s relationship with its clients, who may well expect contact with their recruiter’s directors whenever they want it, seven days a week.

“It’s been hard work because some of our children are still at pre-school age,” says Molloy, 41, who has four children. “We try to come in every day but have to leave bang on 3pm for the school run, although we do a lot of networking at events in the evening.” The women also keep in touch with clients out of hours by mobile phone and e-mail.

They are about to launch a new service, designed to help parents get back to work, which feeds off their own experience of juggling family life with running their own business. “We have talked about this for ages but struggled to find the time to set up anything until now. We have been handing out business cards at playgroups and schools,” says Molloy. “The aim is to persuade more employers to look at the skills people have and realise they do not always need full-time hours to get a job done well.”

Thorpe Molloy Recruitment provides permanent and temporary staff to the accountancy, legal and banking, office and engineering sectors. It also handles human resources, which many women leave when they start a family but love to return to on a project-by-project basis, claims Molloy. The two business partners want to see more women entrepreneurs succeed, but understand how family issues can make them wary about running their own businesses. They themselves may have been overly cautious when starting out. In their first year they expected sales of £120,000 and a loss of £17,000 but the reality was £500,000 turnover and a £120,000 profit.

“We did not consider ourselves to be entrepreneurs and had been in Aberdeen only for a few years,” says Thorpe, 36, a mother of two. Today the company employs 31 people. Amanda McCulloch, who joined as a graduate nine years ago, is associate director and deputises whenever one of the founders is away on family matters.

Being determined to preserve their work-life balance means that Molloy and Thorpe have taken a careful approach to expansion and are meticulous when recruiting for their own company. The legal and banking division, launched in January, is run by a former solicitor.

“We want people who understand our culture and our way of working so we can retain them,” says Thorpe. “As a recruiter we know the importance of offering a good benefits package and, increasingly, it is flexible working that will attract the best people.”

One of the recruitment agency’s latest initiatives focuses on migrant workers who come to Aberdeen looking for jobs in the oil industry. Many arrive from eastern Europe — particularly Poland and Slovakia — as well as Finland and west Africa. “We were the first recruiter to target this market at a local employment fair, and we can place people in suitable jobs and offer advice on writing CVs, interview techniques and skills training,” says Thorpe.

The company is preparing to move to new premises. “We are at full capacity and firmly believe that if you have room to grow, you will grow. More space allows you to think differently and be more ideas-driven. We hope to launch an executive recruitment division in 2009.”

The partners belong to the Entrepreneurial Exchange, a Scottish networking group. Fewer than 20% of the members are women and John Anderson, its chief executive, says he admires what Thorpe and Molloy have achieved together.

“When any two entrepreneurs are working so closely together there can be tension,” he says. “But people do naturally focus on different skills to make the business work. There can be issues over who has the final say on business decisions but at least they each have someone to talk to who understands the challenges.”

The Entrepreneurial Exchange and HBOS Women, part of Bank of Scotland Corporate, are looking at ways they can work together to support women entrepreneurs. HBOS Women is dedicated to advancing the growth of female-owned and female-driven businesses by offering advice, support and networking. Membership is free to women throughout the UK and there are more than 2,000 names on its mailing list. Find out more at www.bankofscotland.co.uk/hboswomen.

Clare Logie, director of HBOS Women, says: “All entrepreneurs need luck and a good idea. Research has shown that female entrepreneurs are more risk-averse than men when it comes to raising finance. Advice and support from HBOS Women will boost their confidence in this area.”

Gareth Williams, a policy manager at the Scottish Council for Development and Industry, an independent business forum, is encouraged by the way Thorpe and Molloy have succeeded in breaking down barriers in Aberdeen’s male-dominated business community.

“When you see successful women attending events, they act as pioneers and this encourages other women who may be reluctant to run their own business,” Williams says.

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