As professional recruitment specialists for the East of England, Pure is celebrating an exceptional year, delivering on the company’s purpose of contributing to the region’s growth and making a difference to people’s lives.

In its last financial year, Pure has supported 2,340 candidates across the Eastern region to find their next professional role. Its expert consultants based at offices in Cambridge, Norwich, Ipswich and Chelmsford have supported candidates at all stages of their career to find roles in accountancy, human resources, technology, marketing and digital and office support. Through Pure Executive, Pure’s specialist Executive division, 28 board appointments have also been made, identifying exceptional leaders for our region’s businesses.

Lynn Walters, Executive Director at Pure, said: “By helping businesses to recruit top talent we are supporting organisational growth. We also go beyond recruitment and help businesses and candidates to further flourish through career development programmes, employee engagement initiatives and strategic partnerships with key regional influencers. This year we’ve continued to extend the number of events and programmes we provide to support businesses with talent recruitment, development, retention and succession planning.”

New initiatives launched this year include the Board Ready Talent Scheme, delivered in partnership with Cranfield Business School, with 11 exceptional delegates joining the first programme. The unique scheme supports businesses in the Eastern region to develop their executive pipelines and retain their future leaders. It is the first ‘board ready’ scheme created specifically to support SMEs and growing businesses in our region. Pure has also received great feedback on its new HR Energy events, run in collaboration with Mills & Reeve. As with the Board Ready Talent Scheme, these events were created based on an identified need. There was no local provision totally dedicated to the development of HR professionals, providing them with a forum to share experiences, socialise and gain insights from industry experts.

Pure initiatives have continued to go from strength to strength including Best Employers Eastern Region. With more organisations than ever participating in 2018, over 130 businesses in the region are being supported to explore their employee engagement levels and create workplaces which are stimulating, motivating and bring out the best in their people. Founded in partnership with eras ltd, and sponsored by Archant and Birketts, this year’s Best Employers Eastern Region event in October will also feature new best employer accreditations and awards. This provides opportunities for organisations to enhance their employer brand, retain and attract top talent, and for Pure to highlight businesses that are developing, supporting, and engaging their people to achieve success and growth.

As well as supporting and recognising the region’s ‘Best Employers’, Pure has also won its own accolades in recognition of its continued commitment to putting its people at the heart of its own business. This year it has been presented with the prestigious Investors in People ‘Gold’ Award and the All-Star Winners Award for Intranet Strategy at the global Jostle Awards.

Gill Buchanan, Pure COO, added: “We are driven by our commitment to deliver against our company values of teamwork, quality, innovation, reward, support and delivering the best results. These are at the heart of everything we do, helping us to create a great place to work in which our staff are happy, supported, rewarded and motivated to go the extra mile for our customers. Our values are also the key to the continued growth of Pure and our ability to work as a team to contribute to the growth of the region. As well as providing recruitment expertise we are committed to working closely with businesses in our region to understand what is important to them and to identify ways in which we can develop and deliver quality initiatives to help them achieve success. All of our initiatives are designed to support local businesses as well as candidates. For example, the Women’s Leadership Programme supports organisations in the East of England to achieve the business benefits of gender equality while our Pure Executive Director Clubs, run with Grant Thornton, bring business leaders together, providing opportunities to discuss topical issues likely to impact on businesses and the regional economy.” 

In the last 12 months, Pure has helped over 200 people to progress their careers and develop their skills through its Women’s Leadership Programme run with People & Performance, its Finance Leadership Programme run with Grant Thornton, and its Future FD Clubs with Deloitte. Pure has also celebrated developing and rewarding its own talented employees over the last twelve months, including promoting 10 people across its offices, recruiting three graduate trainees and sponsoring three of its own employees to participate in the executive training through the new Board Ready Training Scheme.

As a socially responsible business, Pure works as a team to actively support the charities in our region which are also making a difference to peoples lives. £148,000 has been raised for charities since Pure was founded, with charities benefitting this year including Stars, Papworth Trust, and Suffolk Mind. It has also delivered additional resources by volunteering with charities including Kids Inspire, Anglia Care Trust and Inspire Suffolk.