‘Ensure Everyone Is Looking At Things Differently’: How Flexible Recruitment Shapes A Diverse Team At Permanent TSB
Without even realising it, hiring managers can often fall prey to unconscious bias. We gravitate towards the people we can relate to, we admire the skill sets we desire and we connect with those who express the same interests, thoughts and viewpoints.
While it’s a great way to make friends, it’s not a great way to build a diverse workforce or foster a creative and positively challenging environment.
It’s an issue Lorna Farrell avoids by looking to flexible recruitment to build out her marketing team at Permanent TSB.
As Head of Marketing for the bank, Lorna is responsible for driving customer growth and implementing new strategy – and in the ever-changing world of marketing, that success can only be driven by a team that is diverse of thought, skill and experience.
“We really look for a diverse set of skills and a diverse set of people,” says Lorna on the Alternatives podcast, Live Your Best Life. “It’s not about a role, it’s about building out skill sets and how someone can add value. It’s about the overall team and ensuring that everyone is looking at things quite differently.”
Thinking time
Having a flexible working culture is vital to ensuring the happiness and productivity of a creative team says Lorna. It’s something that benefits not only the employee, but the wider team.
“It gives people a sense of being able to go away and get a bit of thinking time. That gives people a bit of headspace. Overall their productivity is up, their stress levels are down and they’re able to permeate that throughout the team. It brings the whole team along,” says Lorna.
Hiring through Alternatives provides Lorna with incredible assurances as a hiring manager. She praises their in-depth understanding of the team and the culture of Permanent TSB.
“They’ve placed a lot of members of the team. They really understand the dynamics of the team, the skills that we need and our styles of working.”
Alternatives has also helped Lorna scale her team at crucial milestones, for project-specific timeframes.
“Sometimes you need extra resources for a project. It’s great that someone can come in, upskill your team and leave something really positive behind.”
Lorna is a guest on Episode 3 of Live Your Best Life, a podcast by Alternatives that takes a deep-dive into the world of flexible working.
