The Challenge
Established in 1967, Velcourt was founded by farmers, for farmers and is an employee-owned business. Managing over 90,000 hectares in the UK and overseas, Velcourt has picked almost 3,000 tonnes of top fruit, planted 990 hectares of sugar beet, and grown 273,000 tonnes of combinable crops. Not only that, they also expertly manage dairy and livestock including over 7,000 dairy cattle, almost 10,000 sheep and 1,020 beef cattle. On the arable side, they manage 48000ha of cropped land covering combinable crops, roots, fresh produce, and top fruit. They manage AD feedstock production and growing programmes and also have extensive CSS schemes. As well as this, they provide agronomic services on over 39,000ha across the UK, through a team of passionate independent agronomists.
The Approach
Nick came into the office to give us a full job brief. By doing this, we got a great understanding of Velcourts’ culture, people and values which you can’t always get out of a teams call. We then worked to get a shortlist together, of which a handful came to the first-stage interview. These interviews were held in the MorePeople office, and we facilitated a full day of interviews. We saw all candidates in one day, to keep the process running smoothly. Candidates were then taken through to a second presentation stage. We had some informal conversations after to clarify and further questions from both Velcourt and the candidates before presenting an offer that was happily accepted.
Sarah Comments: I’m always excited to work on a retained project, as it gives me the time and scope to do the best job possible. When we were working this role retained, we had the opportunity to fully explore the business, requirements with Nick, to ensure the process went as smoothly as possible. Nick was always incredibly open, so we were able to elliviate any potential issues before they arose. It turned into a successful placement with multiple parties involved!
"I just wanted to say how impressed I have been with your team throughout this process. We were on a tight timescale but they manged the process from both ends with a perfect balance of pressure, emotional intelligence, and highly effective communication. All parties knew where we were and what was required of us at every stage of the process, with no time wasting and delivered in a professional and concise way, which is exactly how we like to do business.
We are delighted with the result and have an excellent future member of the senior management team, the service was exactly as you said it would be!"
Nick Shorter, Managing Director, Velcourt
