Season 7 | Ep22 - Laura Clark on her vision for growing OA Group, an agency founded by her mother that she recently purchased!

The RAG Podcast - Recruitment Agency Growth Podcast

In this week's episode, I was joined by Laura Clark, CEO of OA Group, who shares her journey of joining the family business and eventually taking over as CEO.

She discusses the challenges and rewards of working with her mother and the lessons she learned from her entrepreneurial upbringing.

Laura also talks about the growth and operations of OA Group, her early career in recruitment, and the negotiation process of buying out her mother's stake in the business.

This episode highlights the importance of hard work, independence, and the drive to improve in the recruitment industry.

Key takeaways

• Working with family in a business can be genuinely rewarding, but only with clear boundaries and communication.
• Growing up with an entrepreneurial parent can instil a strong work ethic and independence from a young age.
• Success in recruitment requires a genuine passion for the industry and a willingness to go the extra mile for clients and candidates.
• Taking over a family business involves careful negotiation and planning, with the support of external advisors and a clear vision for the future. Working with family can lead to better conversations and different perspectives.
• Creating a meaningful and sustainable business means focusing on growth, training, and offering employee opportunities.
• Balancing growth and fairness is essential for building a good business.
• Being open-minded and embracing change usually leads to innovation and success.
• Building a safe environment for feedback and ideas is crucial for business growth.
• Gender equality should focus on removing limitations and treating everyone as equals.
• Prioritising and being agile are vital in managing work and family life.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the RAG podcast

00:58 Laura's journey and joining the family business

03:18 Overview of OA Group

05:15 Laura's early career and working with her mother

08:06 Growing up with an entrepreneurial parent

09:04 Laura's interest in business and entrepreneurship

10:34 Joining Osborne Appointments

16:11 Early days of recruiting and the types of jobs

19:19 Balancing work and motherhood

25:45 Progressing in her career and becoming a manager

29:25 Realising her entrepreneurial ambitions

31:19 Negotiating the deal to take over the business

37:48 Taking ownership of the business

43:34 Working with family and post-acquisition vision

45:01 Creating a meaningful and sustainable business

46:20 Balancing growth and fairness

46:50 Key principles for a viable business

47:48 Embracing change and being open-minded

49:18 Seeking outside opinions and ideas

50:14 Creating a safe environment for feedback and innovation

53:02 The importance of in-person interaction in recruitment

58:12 Gender equality and avoiding self-limitations

01:02:48 Juggling work and family life

01:07:45 The importance of prioritising and being agile

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say, last year was tricky for the recruitment sector globally. Many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamlining where possible.

However, accessing lower-cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance. But anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in.

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now, helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams.

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time-consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction.

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4-stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end-to-end recruiting, coordination and account management.

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.

It’s a simple process: You pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days. You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis, depending on your needs. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically, your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark, giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic, but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no-brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures.

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment, so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com