H&E North chats to Craig Barclay, Owner of Box Leisure Recruitment, on how he founded the UK’s most trusted holiday resort hotel and travel recruiter.
Hi Craig! Tell us how it all started!
I started my career when I was 17, working for a well-known holiday group within the UK. I worked in leisure and hospitality on holiday parks and hotels for seven years.
I worked my way up from being a red coat-type entertainer to being a manager of departments on the parks. During this time, I gained such a valuable insight into the leisuire industry business – a valuable experience that will stay with me forever. After that I moved to Manchester and worked for major recruitment companies for around 14 years. Starting as a consultant in generalist recruitment then working my way up to regional management. Again, a very valuable experience that has set me on the path I am on today with Box Leisure. I partnered with investors to start with and put both of my careers together and started Box Leisure Recruitment, a recruitment agency specifically for leisure resorts.
And how have you expanded since?
We have had ups and downs over the pandemic and of course it has been a difficult time for us as a business. However, we kept the lines of communication wide open and offered advice and support to our clients and candidates. It has been a hard time for the industry but like the rest of the leisure sector we are back to business. If anything recent events have made us realise we could make this business excel. We now have a team of nine people, and we’re still looking to expand the team immediately due to levels of business now and expected business going forwards.
What is it that really sets Box Leisure Recruitment apart from other agencies?
All of the people on my team have worked on the front line of the leisure industry, either on holiday resorts or in the hotels that we work with. One of the team has been a
chef, one of the guys has been a general manager and people manager in leisure. We have talented operations managers that have worked for leading cruise ship and hotel groups, and of course, I worked in leisure. We all understand the industry right from the ground up and have that first-hand experience of what we’re recruiting for. Also, between myself and our key account manager we have over 50 years’ experience in recruitment at all levels, matching carefully both skills culture and needs of our clients. To combine our recruitment experience with our leisure expertise this gives us a combined experience of 107 years in the industries we cover. We now pride ourselves on a bespoke leisure recruitment service.
How are you coping with the current recruitment crisis in the industry right now?
We’ve been fortunate because we’ve had some very good longstanding relationships with candidates over the last four years. We’re honest and transparent, people don’t
just come to us for a job, they come to us to manage their careers. Because of our experience, we speak the same language as them. We’ll be honest with our clients as well, we can’t fill every job and we will tell them that, but we will always try to find the right person to fit the vacancy. The relationships we’ve built and the way we’ve worked with people has really worked in our favour when it comes to continuing business.
What is it that makes your clients keep using your service?
In a nutshell we do what we say we do – give a quality recruitment service the UK leisure industry. We pride ourselves in not only finding a candidate for a job but also offering a bespoke service to our clients and candidates. Also, many of the people we’ve placed in management positions have come to us with new roles they need filling because we’ve done such a good job with them in the past. For example, if we’ve placed a general manager, they might be looking for a food and beverage manager, or a grounds maintenance person. It’s also because we’ve kept in contact with people. We don’t just place a candidate and then leave them; we keep in contact with them. Sometimes, we go and see them, and travel from one end of the country to the other if we have to. The quality, long-term relationships that we’ve build have brought us both repeat and new business. That’s probably the reason why we’ve enjoyed successful business relationships with 87% of the UK holiday leisure industry and we are also enjoying successful relationships with many well-known groups within the hotel market.
What’s coming up for Box Leisure Recruitment?
We’re excited to be working with some of the quality names in leisure. We have two new key contracts that are going to start in 2022, which are going to be very significant
undertakings for us. We’ll need an extra five members of staff to support us with that. As for everything else, all I can say is: watch this space.
To find out more about Box Leisure Recruitment’s services, visit
Boxleisurerecruitment.co.uk
