Wednesday - 19 November 2008
RecruiterAwards 

Bob the builder is a worthy winner

Published: 14 May 2008   

Bob Wicks has been a pioneer of education recruitment and is a deserved Recruiter Award winner. Julian May went to meet him after the Awards

Bob Wicks, chairman of the Verb Group, has as much vitality and passion for the recruitment industry as he had 38 years ago when he started his prestigious career.

'Uncle Bob', as they affectionately call him at the Verb Group's Luton head office, has picked up many accolades in his career in education recruitment but he is thrilled that his peers in the recruitment industry, along with senior HR professionals and academics, voted him the Gary Clark Individual Achievement Award winner.

"I am so pleased people think I am worthy. Thank you so much, I couldn't have done it without my team. This is special," says Wicks with genuine modesty.

But don't be fooled into thinking that Wicks is a pushover.

He has been influential in key changes to national education policy and by his own admission believes his 'baby', and the Verb Group's core brand, Select Education, was responsible for minimising disruption of children's education by sourcing supply teachers and teaching assistants quickly and efficiently.

"I really believe that we are responsible for helping to improve exam grades," he tells Recruiter.

"I am not a conventional chairman," he adds. "I don't conform to the normal perception of a chairman. I am a builder; I build companies."

Wicks might know exactly which direction he wants to take a business, but he doesn't micro-manage his staff. "The fatal mistake a lot of managers make is trying

to run the whole operation themselves. Investing in your staff is key. I hired a talented team who I trust and believe in to run my business. I would never patronise my staff by telling them how to do their job."

His recruitment career started in 1970 when he applied to a Manpower advert and was offered a regional recruitment co-ordinator post.

It wasn't long before Wicks set up his own industrial staffing agency, Mayday Associates, in 1973.

"It was a great year to set up a business," he joked. "The recession hit in January 1974, with the three-day week, the miners' strike and two general elections; I don't think I could have picked a better one." But that didn't deter Wicks. He sold the business in 1980 and joined Blue Arrow in 1985, becoming one of the founding directors of industrial and driver recruiter, Extra Staff.

He worked through the aggravated takeover of Blue Arrow by Manpower, which was later reversed, and in 1990 he started a company with three other directors called People Recruitment Plus Training, under the watchful eye of Wembley plc chairman Sir Brian Wolfson.

"Wembley plc overspent and had to sell all of the non-core businesses. Tony Bennet from Manpower bought it, but having been around that block before I decided to set up my own business," says Wicks.

His experience as chairman of governors at a secondary comprehensive in Harpenden, Herts, in the early 1990s was a catalyst for his interest in the education sector.

"Ken Baker had just transformed the way schools were funded by introducing local management of schools and grant-maintained schools, meaning the power of purchasing had shifted from local authorities to schools.

"I helped the school [in Harpenden] achieve Grant Maintained School status but it begged the question, 'How are we going to provide supply teachers when teachers are absent?'"

Wicks resigned from People Recruitment in 1993 and was about to start his own education recruitment business when he met Tony Martin, former chief executive and chairman of Select Appointments (and later Vedior, which bought Select in 1999), who was setting up a global group of niche businesses.

"Tony asked me if I would consider running the [Select's] education business and Select Education was born." The first office was opened in Edgware in February 1994, and after opening another four offices in that first year, the company made a loss of £100,000.

"That was the last time we made a loss in 14 years. We have grown the business to 36 offices with a turnover this year of £85m," says Wicks.

"We are running off a gross margin of 30% and a return on sales [ ROS] of between 14 and 15%. That is exceptionally good for a temp business which averages between 4-6% ROS."

Wicks, never one to sit on his laurels, set up Select Education Australasia seven years ago and now has four offices in Australia and three in New Zealand.

"The business is growing exponentially, like the UK."

Wicks also boasts an equitable return on shareholders' investment of 47%.

The Arete brand — "providing leaders in learning" — was launched soon afterwards recruiting headteachers, and business leaders into positions such as bursars.

And Wicks predicts that future schools will be run by business leaders, not headteachers.

"People think Arete is just about providing headteachers, but I don't believe headteachers should be running schools of the future. I believe teachers will be working alongside business leaders, freeing up teaching staff to do what they do best, teach. There also happens to be a grave shortage of headteachers," adds Wicks.

"If you have a school with a 2,000-pupil roll, you are talking about a multi-million pound business.

"Schools used to spend hours going down a list of teachers trying to find replacements. I said, 'I will give you what you want in an hour' and we were the first agency to provide a 24-hour service, seven days a week."

Add to that Specialagent.co.uk — a specialist education sector recruitment consultancy delivering non-teaching staff and business professionals, and Supreme

Education, and you realise that the Verb Group, which was created 18 months ago as an umbrella group for all Vedior's education staffing businesses, has a formidable stable of brands in the education sector.

Wicks believes that Select can also take some of the acclaim for the creation of teaching assistants, and a process for training them to be qualified teachers.

Select wrote the manual How To Be a Successful Teaching Assistant, which was considered by the government when introducing teaching assistants to classrooms, replacing an "army of well-meaning and dedicated mothers".

Wicks, who was chair of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation's education panel for nine years, is also heavily involved in the government think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, and is a strong supporter of the Campaign for Learning.

"It has to be understood that education is steeped in history and taboo," he says.

"When I started, a lot of people were looking at me like I was something the cat dragged in and didn't want to change the system. I was walking on egg-shells. We couldn't go in with a hard-sell attitude."

Wicks started Select Education with a staff ratio of 2:1 qualified teachers to business people, but changed the model to create a balance of industry knowledge and "business nous".

He is so committed to building successful companies that he put £1m of his own money into Verb Group's latest venture, Teachanywhere.com — which sources teachers to international English-speaking schools in 40 countries across the globe.

"This is our third full year and we are starting to reap the rewards. It is not easy to copy; you have got to be prepared to make the same level of investment."

Wicks says he is not averse to expanding Select Education globally. "We will expand Select Education, but in central Europe and even Australia the governments are not as relaxed as the UK about business opportunities in the public sector. We cannot get into state schools in Germany or Spain. But the service industries are evolving in emerging global economies, so there will be opportunities."

Why has Select been so successful? According to Wicks, it is its flexibility to adapt to a constantly and rapidly changing education system. "We are quality driven and we genuinely care about the kids, teachers and the schools. We invest heavily in training, with a training academy on site. We are consulting more with teachers. It is about less sell and more consult."

Wicks' motto — "The best anybody can ever do is catch us, but they can never overtake us" — appears to be serving him well. He says Select is £20m ahead of its nearest competitor in term of turnover and it has "always maintained that gap".

But he warns: "We cannot get complacent, though, and we constantly review the business."

And his advice to would-be recruiters? "Keep the business simple. Stick to what you know and don't deviate from it. If things don't go right, then go back to the beginning and start again, block building."

Uncle Bob has no plans to retire. "I firmly believe that the UK is one of the best providers of temp workers in the world," he says. "I love this industry and the day that stops is when I will call it a day."



Bob wicks' school of the future

• Do away with monolithic buildings
• Stop fragmenting children's education — keep pupils together from aged five to 16 or 18
• Create a learning zone or classroom and take advantage of virtual teaching
• Stop traumatising children — scrap exams and put more emphasis on assessment and vocational learning
• Scrap the National Curriculum and replace with three Rs, social graces and physical education
• Change learning methodology — teach children to learn how to learn

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