These days, it is no longer enough to offer a great salary. Candidates are looking for roles that not only pay well but also a great team to work in, nice offices, achievable goals, a good set of values/ ethics and a strong company mission – these are all things that make up a company culture. Your company culture is basically the personality of your company and it’s what most prospective employees will be looking at (alongside the remuneration package) when deciding whether to join your agency or not. Company culture may not seem “business critical” but in reality, if your consultants are happy, your bottom line will be too.

So, what kind of things can you implement to create a company culture for your recruitment agency?

Teambuilding Exercises

One of the biggest issues amongst companies, especially within competitive industries such as recruitment, is there being very little social connection in the office. This can be especially prevalent if your office has banks of desks devoted to each team – your employees may often find that they mostly socialise with the people in their own team but don’t often branch out into the rest of the company. Teambuilding exercises, such as escape rooms or Go Ape™, can be absolutely brilliant in bringing all of your staff together and learning to work well alongside people who they may not usually interact much with on a day-to-day basis.

Charity Events

Research suggests that Millennials are over 60% more likely to join a company that exercises some form of charitable giving than those that don’t. This doesn’t have to be a wildly cumbersome task as fundraising can take place either on an inter-company level with themed outfit days or bake sales, or at a more extreme end of the scale with sponsored events like Tough Mudder ™. This is a win-win-win situation: great PR for your agency and therefore makes you a more desirable employee, gets your current employees involved and working together and you can also claim tax relief against your Corporation Tax for charitable donations.

Whole Company Lunch/ Dinner Events

Whilst most agencies will send their top billers out for lunch/ dinner extravaganzas on a regular basis, it is often the case that the rest of the company doesn’t tend to get a look in. Of course, lunch clubs are often used as incentives for consultants and therefore that prize element does need to be kept somewhat exclusive. However, you could organise a whole company event on a less frequent basis to keep everyone involved and engaged.

Ultimately, it doesn’t need to be budget breaking. Simply taking your team out for a few drinks on a Friday or surprising the office with sweet treats every so often can go a long way to boosting morale and helping to create that good company culture.