Family Business spotlight: Prime Appointments
29 April 2024
Last week, Birketts’ Family Business Team joined Family Business United’s Family Business Road Trip across East Anglia. As well as meeting many of the region’s leading family-owned businesses, the Team hosted a series of Family Business Dinners bringing people from the sector together to hear from family business success stories.
In this article, we speak to Robyn Holmes, Managing Director at Prime Appointments.
When and how did your family business start?
Our story began in the pub in 1991 when landlady met customer. We were in a recession and a friendship developed alongside an ambitious idea. The pub is the catalyst for many ambitious ideas, but rarely do these become a reality!
Long-time landlady Margaret Lock and her husband David had managed pubs and restaurants for 15 years. Despite the briefest six-month spell working in a recruitment agency many years earlier, Margaret had two young children and didn’t envisage a career change was possible at the time.
I left school in Witham, Essex, at 16 and worked in the Midland Bank prior to a successful 10 years in the recruitment industry. As my friendship with Margaret grew, we realised that we both had the ambition and drive to start our own recruitment company.
Despite the recession, we persuaded another of the pub’s regular customers to loan us some money, and in 1992, Prime Appointments was born.
What is the biggest milestone for your business to date?
By 2016 we were beginning to run out of space in our Witham office which had served us well since opening in 1992. Our biggest step was to purchase, renovate and build a brand new, 4,000 square foot office at Austin House, Witham.
Despite no prior experience, we kept the project in the family and my husband Peter became project manager for the design and build.
During the ambitious 16-week project timeline we used local craftsmen and suppliers wherever possible to create a bespoke facility for the team. The modern design ensured that our staff have the best possible open plan working environment to allow fresh ideas to flourish and grow.
What piece of advice would you give to someone thinking about setting up their own family business?
You have to have self-belief and passion as well as a positive outlook. Without that it is hard to lead by example.
What are your top learnings from running your business?
Treat everyone how you expect to be treated yourself. Show empathy and kindness, and be open to new ideas and evolving with times.
It takes a great team to make a business successful so always be transparent with your team about the planned future for the business. For us at Prime we have an open-door policy and offer as much information as possible, on any given situation, as we want to be inclusive and ensure all staff feel they are part of our family and its core values.
Finally, look after your staff. We have always found that remaining competitive with our company benefits and understanding work life balance has been integral to our business’ success.
What are some of the biggest challenges that you have had to overcome in business?
COVID-19 was a huge challenge. As suppliers of essential temporary workers, the Prime Appointments temporary workforce became pivotal in supporting local care homes and factories. The Prime offices stayed open throughout and where our temps could not work, we handled their furlough pay alongside managing our own team’s welfare.
Inflation has also impacted us hugely in recent times. Many of our clients use our services to employ temporary staff at National Living Wage. With the National Living Wage rises and the age bracket dropping to 21 years old, the supply of temporary staff has become a lot more expensive. It has had a huge knock-on effect across the board.
What’s next for you and your business?
Over the last five years our family-owned roots have grown even stronger. Having started at Prime at 17 years old, my son Jack was appointed at Director of Prime Appointments in 2020. Joining us (after some work experience straight from university) in 2019, my daughter Katie makes up half of the Holmes’ second generation as Manager in our Office, Finance and IT divisions.
Therefore, the next steps will be Jack and Katie working more collaboratively together, with Katie transitioning into a Director role. I will step down as MD over the next two to three years and the company will transition to a second generation family business.
Services
The content of this article is for general information only. It is not, and should not be taken as, legal advice. If you require any further information in relation to this article please contact the author in the first instance. Law covered as at April 2024.