What a great end to the week for week one of C2S Leadership Month – Culture and Engagement.
Jenny Hawrot, Partner at Willans LLP interviewed her long-term client Andy Hunt, owner of Holiday Architects. Jenny helped Andy create a remote first working environment for his people, changing the culture in travel agencies, and creating an award-winning ‘Best Place to Work’.
Holiday Architects were hard hit by the pandemic and have now bounced back with higher profits, better efficiencies, and new ways of working. Andy puts this down to the engagement from his team and the change in his leadership, believing that leaders today need to be social engineers and work hard to find ways to keep their teams connected and engaged. A large part of Andy’s working week is taken up by preparing for their ‘off site monthly’ and finding ways to keep the team engaged, replacing the traditional office working environment, with finding new and inspiring ways of engaging the team. Working with a remote first policy means they only catch up with colleagues once a month, so building the relationships between his people is key to their success, happiness, and support for each other.
Andy shared with us some new thinking, new ideas and loves to challenge business, pushing the boundaries and finding new ways to do things better – what the recording of this event to hear more from Andy.
WATCH THE RECORDING OF TODAY’S EVENT HERE: https://vimeo.com/806832878
About Holiday Architects
Andrew Hunt, Managing Director of award-winning Holiday Architects. Starting the business from his bedroom Andy has built a top team from strong values, trust, and honesty and despite the pandemic has bounced back with many of his long-serving employees working with him to get through the last few years in lockdown, when the travel industry was very hard hit.
Some days were bleak during the pandemic, but they have bounced back in style and are looking at growth this year and continuing to retain their talent despite a competitive marketplace for good people. So, how does he do it! What has Andy learnt and why were they awarded ‘Best Place to work’ in 2018 by the Gloucestershire Business Awards.
https://holidayarchitects.co.uk/
About Andrew
After an expat childhood and holding a newly-minted history degree that he had no idea what to do with, Andy fell into the travel industry by accident in 2000. He spent the next decade working at some of the best-known specialist tour operators before setting up Holiday Architects in 2010. Holiday Architects was founded on a lot of belief and very little money, and Andy soon wished it had been the other way around, but by surrounding himself with really capable people, managed to get the company to 2020 in good shape and growing rapidly. The setback of the pandemic (18 months of zero revenue) was eventually overcome and some very useful lessons learnt in the process. Throughout the growth and challenges of Holiday Architects, Andy has always been a keen student of great workplace culture: his belief and experience is that a highly motivated and engaged team is absolutely essential if you want enduring success as a business.
Andy Hunt, Managing Director/Owner
Jenny Hawrot • Partner in Employment Law • Willans LLP Solicitors
