Nicci Russell, CEO, Waterwise
As third sector leaders of purpose-driven organisations, we all understand the challenges of wearing many hats! Strategic thinker, financial manager, skilled fundraiser, and compassionate leader, all while navigating a complex landscape of funding fluctuations, regulatory changes, and ever-increasing demand for services. And the single most important factor in being able to do our jobs effectively is of course the strength of the team we build around us.
At Waterwise, we pride ourselves on being people-focused; it is the first and most important of our organisational values, and we live and breathe it every day. The wellbeing of the team is my highest priority; followed closely by our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion both within our own organisation and across the water sector. As a small part of that commitment, we’ve transformed our recruitment practices in recent years, using a debiased recruitment platform and focusing on skills-based questions for application and interview stages.
Earlier this year, I met Maya Bhose, Founder of The Well Placed – in fact I’d first heard of Maya’s charity on the ACEVO Community. The Well Placed sounded ideal for us at Waterwise! A placement scheme for experienced professionals looking to make a career move into the charity sector, Maya describes The Well Placed as ‘a collaborative effort that champions the idea that experience has value at any age’, and one that empowers skilled individuals, ‘providing them with a stepping stone to apply their business acumen, leadership capabilities and strategic thinking to the vital work of the charity sector’. Maya was really inspiring and compelling and so committed that she’d invested her own money into the charity.
I started thinking about it – what if we could tap into this rich pool of seasoned professionals, who bring a wealth of commercial experience and a passionate desire to make a difference, as a way to strengthen the Waterwise team? I loved the idea of supporting marketing and creative professionals who had worked in the private sector, into temporary posts in the charity sector to get their foot in the door. Maya said some of the senior professionals on her books had been getting to the last stage of interviews for charity jobs, but not getting the roles, due to a lack of charity experience. I described The Well Placed’s approach to my team but couldn’t bring it to life as Maya did! I added it to an internal document called ‘creative ways of filling staff gaps’ and left it with colleagues, hoping that a Waterwise staff gap and Maya’s two annual cohorts would align. Waterwise is the campaigning voice for water efficiency, with a small team of just 14 employees, operating UK-wide. Although attracting talent isn’t usually a challenge for us, diversity is – despite our efforts, we are not representative in terms of gender, race or ethnicity. And we are always looking for creative ways to address this.
When a maternity cover post opened up in July, we approached The Well Placed to see if they could help us fill it. We were looking for a projects assistant and Maya assured us there would be definite interest from her pool of candidates. After drawing up a job description, Maya supported us throughout the recruitment process, advertising the placement, screening applications, managing the logistics of interviews and supporting us during the interview process. We used a scoring system aligned with the job description at both shortlisting and interview stage and were impressed with the quality of candidates coming through the scheme – and the successful candidate, Niccolò, joined us in July. Laura, the line manager for this post, described the interviews themselves as a fantastic experience – ‘hearing the passion to give back, as well as the widely varied experiences and perspectives of the candidates was brilliant and eye-opening’.
Working with Niccolò has been a huge success. His creative skills, in addition to project management skills, have been invaluable – and are skills we wouldn’t have had access to within this role had we recruited traditionally. Niccolò presented to our Board this week and they thought he was brilliant – as do we!
For us, The Well Placed scheme is more than just a recruitment tool; it’s an investment in the future of the charity and voluntary sector – and one that empowered us to recruit with a different perspective. Maya does all the work and the matchmaking and we get a brilliant, committed person to fill a gap. The placements are 6 months but lots of Maya’s placements elsewhere have turned into longer contracts, so it does also allow charities and people to try each other on for size.
We all know that diversity of thought and experience benefits our workforce – enhancing problem-solving, innovation, and overall effectiveness – and I definitely recommend The Well Placed. There are so many more opportunities now to support young people to achieve their potential; but experienced professionals deemed as ‘over-qualified’ can also find it difficult to secure a fulfilling role. By welcoming experienced professionals from other fields, we can help break down misconceptions about what the third sector can achieve and create a more dynamic and professional landscape. It’s an opportunity to build a more resilient and impactful sector.
The line management support and experience has also been a great development tool, just as Maya said it would be!
I definitely recommend having a chat with Maya!