Niche Recruitment

Posted by Niche Recruitment
20th June 2024

Home Front Case Study

• Case Study

THE COMPANY

Home Front Outdoor Play is a leading provider of quality, outdoor play equipment for the residential, educational, leisure, local authority and national housebuilder sectors. Individually designed and crafted from premium-grade timber, their play solutions are known for their quality and innovation.

Committed to supporting children’s cognitive and physical development from toddlers to teenagers, Home Front are a customer-centric company with a passion for creating play spaces that make a difference.

THE CHALLENGE

Acquiring Home Front in January 2020, Luke Jay (Managing Director) led the business through the pandemic, with residential sales booming.

With ambitious growth plans across the board, Luke enlisted the help of our team here at Niche Recruitment to find the right people to share in their vision and continue pushing the business forward.

Though, it wasn’t an easy decision to partner with a recruitment agency, with Luke explaining that:

‘My perception of recruitment agencies, previously, let’s say um… was less than favourable. My impression was they didn’t really care about the placements and had an interest in just churning sales. However, last year, I had run out of time and I found myself in need of some help.

THE SOLUTION

After an in-depth discovery session talking through pain points, challenges, goals, competitors, successes, culture and more, a tailored recruitment strategy was drawn up and the search began for the first hire via Niche Recruitment – a Digital Marketing Manager.

With our specialist Digital, Marketing & Creative recruiter Michelle leading the way, our networks and talent pools were exhausted and targeted headhunting got underway to find the perfect match for Home Front.

A CV provides only skills and experience, but utilising our two-way video interviewing service, a quality shortlist of applications was sent to the team for review. Showcasing cultural fit, ambitions and specific, relevant experience each candidate had, the process was streamlined and interviews arranged.

After second stage interviews and presentation task, Home Front appointed a Digital Marketing Manager.

‘I worked with Niche to recruit for one position, and granted my expectations were low because of my perception, but they genuinely blew me away and were completely different to what I thought the industry was.’

THE OUTCOME

Building a strong partnership with Luke, Michelle and Nick (Co-Founders & Directors) supported in a consultative capacity, offering guidance not only experts in their fields, but small business owners themselves.

Adapting the full recruitment service to offer the strategic elements needed to get Home Front where they wanted and needed to be, gave them the freedom to use our services in a way that suited them and their budget.

‘Numbers speak for themselves and we’ve increased our headcount from 4-13 – all with Niche’s help!

I would say the key thing that sets Niche apart from the rest is their ability and interest to intricately understand us as a business and not only in terms of structure, but also culture, by their ability to find candidates that will fit well within our team. This means a great deal to have an external agency take the time to understand us.’

NICHE FLEX

Our approach has always been driven by service, being flexible and adapting as needed to support businesses of all shapes and sizes to suit their specific goals, requirements and budgets.

Through our partnership with Home Front, our ‘Niche approach’ was formalised and our new service launched in June 2024 – Niche Flex: Your Recruitment Toolkit.

You can find out more about Niche Flex here.

From start-ups to SMEs, retail brands to multi-nationals, our specialist team can support at any stage of the recruitment journey.

Do you have a clear recruitment strategy to help you achieve your growth goals?

Get in touch today to book a discovery call with our team!