The new year has kicked off with a bang.
We’ve been back at the 9-5 for less than two weeks and we already have a new pool table in the Manchester office, three additions to the team, and probably a few dry January / new year’s resolutions broken.
Amidst all the activity though, there’s still time to look back on the successes, challenges, and joys of 2022. Let’s break it down.
Team Growth
Speaking of new hires, we had three new starters last year in the form of Andriana, Jo, and Marcus, and they have certainly made their mark as part of the team already.
This comes on the heels of our 12 additions in 2021 and, looking ahead, we have even more openings as we continue to grow strategically and build our presence in our selected markets even further.
Team Longevity
Not only are we adding new faces all the time, but we’re also celebrating some of the old faces sticking around for so long. 2022 saw us recognise our first 10 year MERJE anniversaries, with Andy, Ellie, Neil and Paul all clocking up a decade as part of the team.
We’re incredibly lucky to have these folks on board, and hugely appreciate their loyalty and continued commitment to the business. Their longstanding dedication has been critical to our evolution and stability over the years.
These superb milestones closely followed MERJE’s 10th birthday in 2021, which saw the whole team get together in May 2022 at Rudding Park to commemorate the achievement and how far the business has come.
Organisational Developments
The growth and developments of 2022 also paved the way for a few structural changes.
We launched a new division in the form of Business Change & Transformation, a discipline that we’ve worked within for a while; begun our journey into the European market, with Jimmy delivering some brilliant results for a Financial Services client in Germany; and promoted Tom Cook to the prestigious position of our first Consultant solely dedicated to the Analytics space.
A wealth of other well-deserved promotions were awarded too:
Ellie Sykes to Director, Credit Risk & Analytics
Andrew Varty to Director, Finance & Audit
Adam Jones to Principal Consultant, Actuarial
Connor Partridge to Principal Consultant, Front-Line Talent
Jake Kelly to Senior Consultant, Compliance
David Herman to Senior Consultant, Credit Risk & Analytics
Mandy Bancroft to Consultant, Front-Line Talent
Lucy Waddock to Senior Researcher, Front-Line Talent
The Commercials
We’re proud to say that last year we partnered with over 240 businesses to support their hiring needs. We found 720 individuals exciting new permanent and contract roles, resulting in an average accepted salary of £63,498.
49% of the companies we worked with last year hired two or more individuals thanks to our expert recruitment solutions, and over half were businesses that we had similar successes with in the two years prior; a 55% repeat business rate and a testament to our focus on long-term relationships and longevity of collaboration.
We shone a spotlight on our Executive Talent solution throughout the year, and we’re please to say that we successfully delivered some exceptional senior requirements, with 1 in 5 placements being Head of / C-suite level. Examples include:
Head of Financial Crime / MLRO, Financial Services, £225,000
Chief Legal, Compliance & Risk Officer, Pensions Provider, £205,000
Group Head of Compliance, Specialist Insurance Provider, £190,000
Risk & Compliance Director, Real Estate Fund Management, £160,000
Finance Director, FinTech, £158,000
Head of Credit Risk, Specialist Mortgages Provider, £140,000
Head of Fraud Strategy, Cards Provider, £130,000
All this has resulted in us hitting 102% of our business-wide financial target for the year, which was an ambitious one when we set it in January!
Good Business
These days though, it’s not all about financial targets and commercial growth. Not for us anyway! We’re growing in more ways than one and that means building on our social responsibility efforts and commitments.
We've continued striving to promote and support diversity and inclusion within our clients' businesses as well as our own, as we set out in our MERJE Together pledge.
We've shared numerous insightful articles about fostering inclusive workplaces for all, and we're pleased to report that, of our 2022 placements, 54% were female candidates and 30% were individuals from underrepresented groups.
Our purpose-driven ESG approach also led us to strike up a few new partnerships in 2022:
We’re supporting the local charity with improving Greater Manchester’s green spaces by making regular donations, planting trees for every review we receive throughout 2023, and getting stuck in at tree-planting events.
Good Business Charter accredited
The GBC is an accreditation which encourages and recognises responsible business practices and publicly acknowledges the UK organisations that take pride in following them. By becoming GBC accredited, we’re demonstrating our commitment to being an all-round socially, ethically, and environmentally responsible business.
Disability Confident Committed
Disability Confident is a government scheme designed to encourage employers to improve how they attract, recruit, retain and train disabled people and those with health conditions. Being Disability Confident Committed sends out a clear message that we’re passionate about upholding workplace equality.
Read more here.
As well as this, we’ve continued to support a variety of charitable organisations over the past 12 months.
Beth, Jo, and Tom slept on the streets of Leeds with Boycott your Bed, resulting in us raising over £1,000 for Action for Children
Our 5-a-side football team took the Regional and National champions titles in Business Fives’ charity football tournaments, winning some sparkling trophies and fantastic donations totalling £3,850 for Duchenne UK.
The team made a raft of generous donations to Wood Street Mission’s Christmas Toy Appeal, thanks to DF Capital inviting us to get involved.
Out and about
If that’s not enough action for you, 2022 saw the return of in-person events, with everyone being able to meet up, socialise and network more freely.
We had the pleasure of attending the British Bank Awards in May and took the opportunity to catch up with clients and industry peers whilst celebrating the best of British banking.
Meanwhile, Pritesh hosted several highly successful networking events with senior leaders in the Financial Crime industry. These laid-back evenings saw the likes of MLROs, DMLROs and Heads of Financial Crime get together in London and discuss all things Fin Crime over a few post-work drinks.
And we can’t forget to mention the many fantastic socials that took place throughout the year, from individual team incentives to our business-wide Summer and Christmas parties. We do love celebrating success and these events, meals, drinks, activity days, etc. seem to do the trick!
Quite the year!
It’s safe to say that 2022 was another strong one for our business, and we’re incredibly grateful to all our clients, candidates, and employees for their partnerships, commitment, and hard work over the past 12 months.
We’re very much looking forward to seeing what 2023 has in store. We have a feeling it’s going to be good!