2020 – AAB People’s Year in Review

2020 has been a year like no other and, as the year comes to a close, we wanted to reflect on some of our achievements and highlights as a business and a team, despite the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic.

Community Support

During a year of major upheaval and uncertainty, the role of HR has been crucial. We wanted to be at the forefront of helping companies and the wider business ecosystem navigate through this period. Helping and supporting others brings into focus what can be achieved with collaboration, knowledge sharing and working together, building a more inclusive and resilient economy.

It has been fantastic to be involved in several initiatives offering HR guidance and support to the wider community on key topics including remote working tips, maintaining your values in a crisis, supporting employees, keeping motivation and engagement levels high, career development and the post COVID-19 employment landscape.

We were proud to be involved in a number of initiatives to help leaders navigate these difficult times. These have included podcasts and webinars for Entrepreneurial Scotland, Social Enterprise Institute, Codebase, AAI Employability, Social Investment Scotland and RBS Business ‘Ask For More’, as well as contributing to a report in insider.co.uk, taking part in a BBC Radio Scotland interview, and a Tech Panel session for Scottish Business Network’s Scottish International Week 2020.

Learning & Development

Earlier this year, Lisa secured a place on the RBS Entrepreneur Accelerator programme – a six-month initiative for established entrepreneurs. Participating in these sessions over the last few months has been hugely beneficial, and sharing experiences and learning from other leaders has helped to adapt our approach to meet the current challenges.

It has been a year of continuous learning for all the team as we have pivoted our consultancy services business model to fully remote and virtual, set up home offices, supported many clients through challenging times and difficult decisions, as well as others growing and scaling fast. We have got up to speed with new schemes such as Furlough and JSS, as well as keeping abreast of the constant government announcements and changes.

Team Growth

We further strengthened our team and welcomed two new hires this year – Donna Wrigglesworth as Senior HR Consultant and Tyler Stevens as HR Administrator – as well as engaging Gary Deans as Board Advisor.

We have also been fortunate to have Pasquale Tangorra join us for several weeks on a part-time internship through the Royal Bank of Scotland Business Entrepreneur Experience Project, a great initiative supporting graduates and entrepreneurship in business.

A Growing Portfolio of Innovative Clients

We are very privileged to work in a sector that has continued to grow during the pandemic, and that our services continue to be required and can be performed remotely and virtually, which has enabled ongoing business growth.

We are proud to have welcomed a range of exciting new clients on board in 2020 across the health tech, fintech, sustainable energy, games and technology sectors including ClinSpec Dx, Talking Medicines, Exizent, Mocean, Wardog Collective (part of Tank Studios), Topolytics, NCTech, Bright Ascension and Pasabi.

We have enjoyed getting to know their businesses and embedding ourselves in their teams (virtually!) and doing what we love best – supporting them on their growth journeys.

Well done to all our innovative and purpose-driven clients on their fantastic successes and achievements this year, of which there have been many!

Virtual Events & Workshops

Getting familiar with different virtual event platforms and adapting to virtual networking have been key features of 2020!

We were delighted to sponsor this year’s Young Company Finance Conference in September and the FutureX Startup Summit Competition in October, both key events in the Scottish startup ecosystem calendar.

In September, Lisa and her 9 year old daughter Daisy were locked #InTheDogHouse to raise vital funds and support the fantastic work of the Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home which has been hit very badly by the pandemic.

In October we had a booth in the International Market Place at the EIE20 technology showcase event and enjoyed hearing the fantastic pitches from the data-driven startups.

It was great to work with Geovation Scotland in November delivering our ‘Building Your First Team’ Workshop to their Accelerator Programme cohort of very inspiring early stage businesses.

Guest Blogs

We were delighted to be invited to guest blog for both Fintech Scotland and the Scottish Games Network.

Our piece for Fintech Scotland, HR for Fast Growing Fintechs, looked at the importance of investing in your HR and people strategy to support growth and featured the case study we developed on our work with Exizent.

We wrote for Scottish Games Network on the importance of investing in your people to build a workplace culture which supports innovation, happiness, growth & success – Best Practices for Building a Positive Workplace Culture.

Lisa has also written several pieces for Women’s Enterprise Scotland and their new support platform, The Women’s Business Centre, on being true to yourself in business, growing AAB People, and the challenges faced during the pandemic.

A New Brand Video

We are absolutely thrilled with our new brand video which we launched this month. It was quite a journey working on it during the pandemic with delays and uncertainty, but we really think it tells our story perfectly – who we are, our purpose and passion, the amazing companies we support and our unique approach to being a trusted HR partner.

We look forward to fully embracing video marketing going forward!

Recognition

We were exceptionally proud to be shortlisted in two categories – Business Woman of the Year and Established Business of the Year – in the Business Women Scotland Awards 2020. These awards showcase the amazing talent of women in business and recognise the contribution they make to the female ecosystem in Scotland.

A real honour to be finalists alongside other such inspiring role models and success stories.

Final thoughts…

The resilience, energy and drive that we have seen over these last few months has been incredible. Attitudes, approaches and ways of working and engaging have changed, presenting an opportunity to think differently and to reprioritise, enhancing how businesses and teams operate. It has been fantastic to see market optimism and positive opportunities emerging despite the challenges faced, and is real testament to strength of the Scottish startup ecosystem.

Heartfelt thanks to everyone who has supported us this year – our fantastic clients, our network partners and the amazing business community in Scotland. As we look ahead to 2021, the pace of change shows no sign of stopping and we must keep adapting and moving forward.

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the team at AAB People.