South Atlantic mission

03 March 2010

The Challenge
When Tim Bond from specialist construction staffing recruiter Upfront & Personnel (U&P) got a call just before Christmas about a new placement, his initial reaction was to laugh out loud. Not the ungrateful response you would at first think. The position was for a sales advisor for a newly-refurbished development, with little supervision, to start in mid-January (less than four weeks away at the time), for an eight-week contract - in the Falkland Islands. The Falkland Island Company (FIC) had bought the Upland Goose Hotel in Stanley, which came to worldwide prominence sheltering some of the civilian population during the 1982 conflict, and was renovating it back to 10 stylish homes with all the mod-cons. A sales person was needed to market the unique dwellings.

“My business partner and I giggled about it when we were first given the brief,” Bond admitted. “We hadn’t even heard of the Falkland Island Company before. We certainly had experience in recruiting around the world but the Falklands was not somewhere you’d immediately think of as an obvious location.”

So how did FIC come across U&P and think they would be able to fill this challenging brief? John Foster, managing director of Falkland Island Holdings and FIC, told Recruiter: “I discovered U&P through word of mouth; I mentioned our sales position to a mutual business acquaintance and they spoke very highly of Tim Bond and U&P. In fact, it was the only agency we contacted.”

Bond said FIC was not really clear on the precise job description and U&P helped Foster refine exactly what the role would entail. Foster explained that despite having 90 employees on the South Atlantic islands, the best solution would be to recruit someone externally who had the experience of selling refurbed property to what was a finite audience of around 3,000 inhabitants. “We decided we needed someone with experience of dealing with a show house environment, as there are no estate agents on the islands and rarely any new-build or newly-renovated properties,” he said.

The Solution
Despite the initial shock at the type of assignment, one person stuck out from the beginning of the process. Patricia Langley had been registered with U&P for more than five years and Jenny Bond, mother and business partner to Tim, suggested she might fit the bill, knowing as she did about Langley’s love of travel. “We had two or three others who were also suitable, but Patricia stood out,” said Tim Bond. And when U&P contacted Langley, despite having a three-week holiday to Sri Lanka booked and paid for, her response was a resounding yes. Coincidentally, the Falkland Islands were on her ’places to go’ list, so forfeiting her holiday costs were more than worthwhile.

A New Year’s Eve phone conversation with Foster firmed up the job details and three CVs were sent in the first week of January. Interviews needed to be arranged quickly but the weather gods intervened and with heavy snowfall across the UK, Langley was snowed in. So Foster interviewed her over the phone. “John was so impressed with her CV and experience that he didn’t need to see anyone else - or even to meet up with her. He offered Patricia the job there and then,” said Bond.

U&P’s role didn’t end there, of course. “Sending one of our temps half way round the world is a big responsibility,” Bond explained. “We researched the company and the location, as neither were known to us before. Patricia is ’in our care’, so we had to make sure she’d be safe.” Prophetic words, maybe, with the rumblings from Argentina surrounding the oil exploration. However, Foster believes any incidents are unlikely. “There’s very little risk of Argentina doing anything reckless,” he told Recruiter.

The next stage was to get Langley out to the South Atlantic. Langley told Recruiter it was an epic journey through the snow to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire from her Surrey home on 20 January, finally arriving in the Falklands at 9pm on 21 January. And so far, all parties are happy with the success of the project. “I was pleased and surprised at how quickly U&P found Patricia,” said Foster. And from her new base in the Falklands, Langley said: “Tim and Jenny have been fantastic as always. They keep in touch and ensure that I am well looked after.”

Lessons learned:

Build relationships
“Keep in touch with your temps and take an interest in them. Without an intimate knowledge of people and their qualities, U&P would have taken a lot longer in finding the right person”

A lucky challenge
Sometimes luck plays a huge part in an assignment. This particular challenge fell into our lap as we had a person with the right experience on our books who just happened to have the location on her list of places to visit”

Word of mouth
“Talk about your hard-tofill placements. The person you are talking to might just know of that special candidate”

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