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Success Stories
EIC Survive 2024 EIC Survive&&Thrive Thrive 2024
JulyJuly 2024 2024
Story type
Reflex Marine Ltd Reaping the rewards from prioritising its people Sandra Antonovic
Reflex Marine has surpassed expectations, achieving record growth despite a significant reduction in its sales team from six members to just one. Recognising the importance of aligning its culture with staff needs and feedback, the company has implemented substantial improvements to its recruitment, retention, and onboarding processes, successfully navigating significant resource-related challenges. With ambitious revenue targets set at £10 million for 2025, the firm is thriving like never before. The challenge - Founded in 1992, Reflex Marine Ltd specialises in designing and developing offshore personnel and cargo transfer solutions. Emphasising safety, convenience, equipment durability, and cost efficiency, the company and its 25 employees have successfully maintained a renowned industry reputation for more than three decades. Indeed, the key to Reflex’s sustained excellence lies in the dedication and expertise of its employees. Being a specialist in transfer solutions, Covid-19 has undoubtedly been the greatest obstacle that the firm has faced in recent years. However, in more recent times, it has been the lingering affects of the pandemic that have continued to post challenges across various departments. Specifically, Reflex points to the challenge of attracting and retaining talent as one that has been particularly significant in recent times. The pandemic has dramatically transformed employment cultures, making flexible and home-based working more common worldwide. Additionally, job hopping has increased, with a 2023 report revealing that over 41% of people who started their current job in 2022 were already actively seeking new roles. It is this specific challenge that Reflex had been grappling with at length. Indeed, with the retention of key talent having become increasingly difficult, the firm recognised that it needed to find a way to adapt and continually succeed. The solution - While this challenge didn’t directly impact Reflex Marine’s revenue, it has been a significant source of frustration for the firm. Having always offered competitive salaries, benefits, career development opportunities and personal growth avenues, the firm was finding itself faced with wasted training
Benefits ▸ Flexible working options and employee engagement surveys in order to retain staff. ▸ £7m in revenues in 2023.
Key findings
COO
How is Reflex Marine Ltd thriving?
#people & competency (main category) #culture
costs and inter-team instability due to a rapidly changing workforce. With so many internal fires arising from the continual overhaul of its staffing base, the firm’s ability to grow and excel became limited. This was particularly evident in 2022, when the firm’s sales resource team abruptly shrank from six to just one. Interestingly, however, despite this loss in headcount, the firm’s sales actually grew by 40% during this period, surpassing the £6 million milestone that had long remained elusive to Reflex. This was a lightbulb moment for Reflex. It became clear that the focus shouldn’t be on constantly attracting and retaining the same mix of staff which had been such a struggle and led to inconsistent workflows. Instead, the emphasis needed to shift to market analysts and backing those teams focused on operational support. To address these issues and support the staff who were delivering results, the firm implemented several strategies. These included flexible working options and more regular, constructive feedback sessions with managers. Additionally, anonymous bi-monthly employee engagement surveys were introduced, covering topics from company catering to role fulfilment, travel options, and training satisfaction. To better support new staff, the company also revamped its onboarding process to be more effective and straightforward, ensuring that within 72 hours, new hires clearly understand their role within the company. A major part of this initiative focused on emphasising cultural fit for each department during the hiring process, moving away from criteria solely based on academic qualifications or experience, which had proven problematic in the past. Through these strategic changes, the company engaged many of its longer-term employees, ensuring their voices were heard in shaping this major pivot in HR and hiring strategy. And resultantly, this shift has paid off significantly. In 2023, the firm’s revenues reached £7.2 million – yet another substantial annual increase despite the firm having struggled to hit the £5 million milestone for several years prior to Covid.
For industry ▸ Come with a lot of questions and be open minded to feedback. See critical feedback as an opportunity to continue the conversation, not closing the conversation. ▸ The biggest value every company has is its people. For government ▸ More conversations or an open platform to discuss about developing more businesses in the UK with the intention to export.
Reflex Marine Ltd at a glance: Key products and services: global experts in crew transfer equipment for offshore industries, 30 years’ experience in the design, develop, manufacture, market safety transfer and equipment accessories. Main industries served: ▸ Oil and gas – 88% ▸ Offshore renewable energy – 12% Headquarters: Truro, UK Year established: 1992 Number of employees: 252 Revenue: £7m Revenue from exports: 90%
Despite still only having one individual operating in a sales role internally, the firm has now set ambitious targets to reach £10m in revenue come 2025. Through several simple yet vital changes, the firm has inspired and galvanised a loyal workforce, ensuring their needs are met so they can excel and drive Reflex’s expertise forward for many more years.