Shirley Parsons Associates, 2015
Today, Shirley Parsons Associates celebrates its ten year anniversary in the health and safety sector. From her scientific background and her competitive and empathetic nature, Shirley Parsons explains how her – now renowned – company came to be.
Following degrees in chemistry and pollution & environmental control, I joined the London Borough of Hillingdon in the Environmental Health Department where I worked for 5 years.
I had no real idea of a career, I was a scientist and I knew I loved working with people. My frugal upbringing in Yorkshire had given me a good business head and a drive to succeed, but in what? The answer came after I joined a small consultancy with a view to becoming a partner.
However, the owner changed her mind and decided I was incapable of running a business. This was the kick I needed to start my own business, Sypol in 1979 with the determination to prove my old boss wrong.
At the same time, my partner Paul and I started an IT recruitment company called S-Com. We started with nothing more than a phone, notepad and pen. In those days there were no desktop computers, mobile phones, faxes or photocopiers – everything was done using landlines and post.
Some Yorkshire determination, hard work and drive kept us going. Without each other, the business would never have happened. Ten years on and two children later, although the IT recruitment company was flying, Sypol had shrunk back to just two people.
The first Christmas do at Shirley Parsons!
By chance I had met Lawrence Waterman a couple of years before and knew that he was running a small health and safety consultancy. I made contact with him again and to cut a long story short, we merged our two companies in 1990.
After the development of the successful COSHH helpline and during a curry after a directors’ meeting one evening, Karen Baxter reminded me that she had worked as a contractor doing some noise monitoring when she was a student.
A light bulb moment followed –the company could do recruitment for HS&E people!
So, in 1997, as part of Sypol a new recruitment division was set up. Experience of IT recruitment proved invaluable in getting this division off the ground, selling a new service to existing clients. In 1999, along came Liberty Risk who bought Sypol and in the year 2000 the company was bought back with Lawrence and Karen buying the consultancy and me buying the recruitment division, Sypol Recruit.
In early 2005, I made the poor decision to go in with a company called PPS , which subsequently went out of business leaving me with a decision: retire or start again. So, not wanting to give up, on 1 October 2005, Paul and I started Shirley Parsons Associates from a small cramped office at home.
We were joined quickly by four former colleagues, Gerry, Liam, Shona and Kerrie, and several others joined in the following years. This led to the growth of a loyal team who were genuinely interested in helping people to develop their careers.
The company’s philosophy was always to treat people as people, to meet them, discuss their career aspirations and work hard to help them. Placing HS&E graduates was one of the key success factors, staying in touch and subsequently working with them as clients.
Instead of relying on technology to find the right candidate, the meeting of both candidates and clients is paramount in order to make the right ‘people’ fit.
By understanding a client’s requirements and a candidate’s aspirations, successful matches are made. More and more these days, candidates skills such as business acumen, soft skills and communication strengths are important. Technical competencies are often taken as a given.
IOSH has played a big part in our work. I am a chartered member of IOSH and this technical expertise, together with my strong team has led to the success of Shirley Parsons Associates.
Our network of HSEQ professionals is second to none. In the last ten years, we have built our core competencies in recruitment – health, safety, environment and quality, executive search for senior level roles and a group of tried and tested interim and contract professionals.
There are now over 50 staff in three offices in Aylesbury, Reading and Boston USA. Shirley Parsons Associates is now the largest privately owned specialist health, safety and environmental recruitment company in the UK and probably the world!
In spite of all the advances in technology, people remain at the heart of the business because people do business with people.
The company’s mission to build long-term sustainable relationships has been at the heart of the business and there is a successful team to help you develop your career. This is something we feel proud to celebrate on 1st October 2015.
Shirley Parsons
