TOP TEAM: Now settled into their new office in Ferndown are the Purple HR team, from left, Managing Director Mandy Fitzmaurice, Recruitment Assistant Mariya Moyseeva, Operations Director Leanne Fitzmaurice, HR Adviser Beth Brown and Payroll and Compliance Assistant Agnieszka Cross
EXPANDING outsourced human resources specialist Purple HR has relocated to bigger headquarters to facilitate strategic business growth.
The family firm, which works nationally and globally, has moved to Cedar Park, off Cobham Road on Ferndown Industrial Estate – just yards from its previous serviced office premises.
This change not only enables Purple HR, founded in 2010, to grow service lines for retained and ad hoc clients but also provide employees with high-standard working environment.
The firm is sharing an office building with long-established accountancy and financial services firm Ward Goodman which reassessed its own accommodation requirements and freed up space.
Purple HR Operations Director Leanne Fitzmaurice said: “We had outgrown our previous premises and it was time to leave the serviced office environment to set up on our own.
“Cedar Park proved to be the perfect fit and our close working relationship with Ward Goodman – we advise each other’s clients when required – is set to be cemented further as we occupy the same building.”
Five-strong Purple HR’s new base includes offices, meeting rooms and a break-out area.
Leanne added: “We need to practice what we preach in terms of advising businesses to offer a good working environment to both attract and retain top talent.
“We care very much about the wellbeing and mental health of our team and actively encourage them to take their breaks – and the new area is ideal for this purpose.
“Crucially, my colleagues can now have downtime in the office away from their desks. We also wanted space where, if people visit us and we sometimes need to have sensitive conversations which need to be a little ‘softer’, an area with sofas is ideal.”
NEW OFFICE: Interior of Purple HR’s news premises at Cedar Park, off Cobham Road on Ferndown Industrial Estate. Operations Director Leanne Fitzmaurice with the team, from left, HR Advisor Beth Brown, Managing Director Mandy Fitzmaurice, Recruitment Assistant Mariya Moyseeva, Payroll and Compliance Assistant Agnieszka Cross and Peter Fitzmaurice who looks after the bookkeeping
The move enables Purple HR to continue to grow organically and will strengthen its training sector, with Leanne’s partner Simon, a firefighter at Bournemouth Airport, being added to the team to help cover fire training, emergency first aid and health and safety training.
Leanne said: “We are doing first aid and fire initially, then will expand to do more H&S training, expanding the first aid offering and, further down the line, more fire focused training
“We will also expand our popular three-day ‘passport to manage’ course, where people, both clients and external attendees, come and learn the basics of HR as a line manager, during 2024.
“This not only helps line managers to know what to do and what definitely not to do – but it gives them a bit of confidence so they can look after some of the basics, and also know precisely when they need to call on our services.”
Purple HR was founded in a bedroom by Managing Director Mandy Fitzmaurice 13 years ago after she spotted a gap in the market and continues to grow organically.
Highly experienced in corporate HR for large FTSE companies, she recognised that larger businesses had access to a much higher level of HR expertise which remained fairly unavailable to smaller businesses.
Purple HR was therefore founded to provide consultancy expertise to smaller firms, soon switched to a full HR service, both outsourced and pay-as-you-go, and rebranded from original name Change Partner HR Consultancy in 2014/15.
The established team includes HR Advisor Beth Brown, who started as an apprentice from Poole High School, Payroll and Compliance Assistant Agnieszka Cross and HR and Recruitment Assistant Mariya Moyseeva. The family firm theme continues with Leanne’s dad Peter doing the bookkeeping.
Unlike many small HR consultancies, Purple HR has HR admin specialists and is able to carry out intensive and time-consuming functions such as vetting, getting someone on board (and off-board), completing contracts, right-to-work checks, maintaining systems and employee handbooks.
Purple HR works with 50 retained clients and international clients, particularly those who are based elsewhere, such as in the USA or South Africa and have a UK presence, but their in-house HR teams are at their HQs in their home country.
The firm has also become a paperless operation in the past year. After previously having 15 filing cabinets full of employee files, all data is now stored electronically and easily shareable with clients.
Visit https://www.purplehr.co.uk/ for more details.
