Chorley’s award-winning Fresh Perspective Resourcing out to add a dash of ethics to recruitment in Lancashire

Fresh Perspective Resourcing, a recruitment agency in Chorley, was founded in 2016 by sisters Laura and Emily Leyland out of a desire to add a dash of humanity to an industry which can get a bad rep as being somewhat callous.

"Me and my sister had both worked for agencies who wanted you to leave your morals at the door so, when the idea of having a bash at starting our own business came up, we knew we wanted to try something different," says Managing Director Laura. "We wanted to look after customers and apply some common sense, positivity, and ethics.

“We also wanted to look after candidates - they're not just pound signs, they're people with dreams and families,” adds Laura. “Creating a place where people wanted to come to work and felt valued as opposed to having that Sunday dread was important, too."

Despite a ‘nerve-wracking’ but financially positive first six months, Laura admits that going from a bustling office to working from home was a hard transition to make at first.

"I left to start the business on my own before Emily joined me and I felt really lonely," says Laura, 38. "When I was able to pay myself for the first time, I was really happy, but I missed that human interaction despite things going well with Fresh."

Before long, however, the team started to grow.

Offering clients help with recruitment strategy, job descriptions, ads, head-hunting, filtering CVs, screening, interview structures, and even facilitating employee retention, Fresh was on the up. Then Covid hit.

“Our recruitment board was like Take Me Out with Paddy McGuinness with all the lights just going out, so we were just like 'oh, no!'" says Laura, from Chorley. “It was incredibly frustrating, but we're quite good in a crisis, so it was just a case of 'what can we do?'

"We couldn't do recruitment so, for three months, we became digital marketers and I genuinely think it was the best thing we could've done - it's made us a much better business,” she adds. “We’re on track for our best year yet.

"I'm so proud; it makes me really emotional to look back to a time when we were wondering how we’d manage,” continues Laura. “We didn't furlough anyone because we didn't want to impact people's mental health - feeling needed is important."

Committed to looking after their own, the award-winning Fresh holds quarterly team-building exercises, regular charity and volunteering events, and weekly team yoga for their 10 employees. They're also hoping to grow the team after moving into new offices last November.

"I love the job because it's all about helping people make career steps and change their lives whilst also helping businesses fix problems and grow," Laura says. "Every vacancy is different, so it's always interesting and challenging and I get a real kick from seeing everyone here succeed, too. Because without the people we've got, Fresh wouldn't be here.

"They're amazing."