- July 15, 2019
- Posted by: Jack Hardy
- Category: News & Annoucements
As part of the 10 Year Birthday celebrations our Marketing Manager Jack Hardy has been quizzing the directors about themselves and the company, so that they can share their experiences.
This blog focuses on Gary Parsons the Managing Director and the past, present and future of the company.
Hi Gary, can you introduce yourself please?
Hi, my name is Gary Parsons and I’m one of Talk Staff’s founders – we established the business in 2009, during the Great Recession. I lead strategic growth, on behalf of our board, whilst being careful in maintaining operational performance, my role as Managing Director sees me working across our office network, whilst collaborating on key projects with our amazing senior management team.
Outside of work – You’ll often find me relaxing with friends, improving my fitness at the gym (…still working on my six pack) or getting involved with different charities, including my recent efforts in raising money for Cancer Research UK by learning the Charleston within 8 weeks and raising over £1,500… Not to forget, the opportunity of dancing in front of family/friends at Derby’s famous Roundhouse.
What are your major accomplishments?
It’s true that entrepreneurs have a problem separating their personal lives with that of their business and with that it doesn’t come as a surprise that I struggle too. You’ll read below about our accomplishments of Talk Staff which I see as a huge team effort and often discount my involvement in because the teams’ accomplishments matter more to me.
However, I’m going to use the opportunity to say thank you to D2N2’s Growth Hub who have been there to support me at so many steps in our growth. Chris, and the team, have been very supportive and I was honoured to join the Growth Hub’s Project Board earlier this year to represent not only private sector businesses but to speak on behalf of our clients too. In the last month, I’ve been introduced to members of the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership’s (LEP) Advisory Board’s and I’m excited to see how this develops – with a focus on growth, people and skills, place and innovation. These Advisory Boards steer the future of our area, with an economic output worth more than £45billion and have a huge influence behind our Local Industrial Strategy.
Aside from this, I’m regularly asked to speak to groups of businesses and like-minded individuals about my passion, whether that be people or the wellbeing of those working at every level, and it’s an honour each and every time this happens – Thank you.
What are Talk Staff’s major accomplishments?
Above all, it’s been great to acknowledge that Talk Staff has been at the forefront of some important changes. Whether they have changed as a direct result of our intervention, or because of the way we have been working. I’ve already mentioned that it’s my passion, but this truly is what I do it for… to accomplish things for ourselves and others around us.
What else can I say? I could mention every award we have won or been shortlisted for… A particularly proud moment and one close to my heart; standing in front of so many amazing people in our local business community to receive an East Midlands Chamber of Commerce Award. Yes, I had a few tears in my eyes that night, after working so hard to keep pushing a tough agenda that I believe so passionately in too.
Our clients – Vaillant, Pirelli, DS Smith (the packaging brand behind so many products we see on supermarket shelves and protecting our gadgets posted through our doors). However, it’s unfair just to mention these brands without acknowledging the amazing people that put their trust in us, partnered with us and have become huge ambassadors of everything we do (a huge thank you to those reading this!)
Our people – Past, present and future… You know who you are (we miss you!)! I talk about how impressed I am every day, however, something that I need to get better about is shouting about it. Do you know how many AMAZING people are in your business? Soon you’ll get to hear about why every person counts at Talk Staff. From apprentices, to experienced and highly intelligent individuals, the growth that each person has gone through whilst we get better and better every day is down to them.
Where do you see Talk Staff going?
Firstly, I’d like to thank our fantastic Marketing Manager for posing this question to me… He knows that I’m going to find this extremely difficult to answer in a short concise way. He also knows that he will have to edit it to check I haven’t given away too many spoilers (That’s the deal isn’t it Jack?). Those of you that attended the gala dinner where we won our first major award will remember my, slightly too excited, announcement – that we planned to open our Nottingham Office in January 2018 and I can only blame the adrenaline in me at that precise moment but we got a huge applause, so was it that bad?
Celebrating 10 years is my proudest moment and biggest achievement (I’m allowed to change my mind). But what we have planned for the next 5 years is going to blow that out of the water!
Firstly, we’ve seen the huge amount of value that our clients take from the natural, ethical, fun and trusted relationships that we keep building on each and every day. Expect to see more of that and on a big scale <spoiler alert> we’ll be working in collaboration with some amazing people that we have grown to admire and call our friends.
We regularly point out that our name is Talk Staff for a reason and two-way conversations are important… In fact, it’s got us to where we are today. Our first #LetsTalk event was an amazing success and we were overwhelmed with the huge sense of community we developed within the space of a few hours – we were approached immediately after the event by several organisations to work with them in the future!
There’s more to come!
There will be more blogs to follow from both Gary and David about them, Talk Staff and the future! Follow our social media pages to make sure you don’t miss them!
Last Updated on 4 years by Gary Parsons
