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  • Special Report: What are the best UK university careers services?

    By Patrick Crowder

    If you ask almost any student why they go to university, they’ll tell you: “To get a job after I graduate” or “To help my career”. It amounts to a longstanding contract between the university system and its clientele – parents and students. But after the 2007-8 financial crisis struck, and still more after the advent of the pandemic, there have been doubts as to whether the young are really getting a good deal out of the university system.

    So are universities doing enough to help students achieve their goals? Over the summer, Finito World took a special look at university careers services across the UK to see what works, what doesn’t, and what can be done to fix it.

    The first issue is the value of a degree as a whole. Given the sheer numbers of people now achieving graduate and postgraduate degrees, employers are looking outside of academic excellence for attributes which make a particular applicant stand out. This can be an internship or work placement, independent work completed outside of university, the imaginative force a candidate’s application – and any number of other factors depending on an applicant’s chosen field.

    Euan Blair, son of the former UK prime minister Tony Blair, is an entrepreneur who runs an education start-up called Multiverse. The company, which made headlines this year on account of its valuation at £147 million, helps young people find apprenticeships as an alternative to university altogether. He believes that the culture of universities must change to focus more on employment after graduation.

    “There are a lot of people in the university system who fervently believe that they should not be equipping people for jobs and that it should be learning for learning’s sake and people should do what they enjoy to learn,” Blair tells Finito World. “And that’s all well and good – until it isn’t. Actually people have to make trade-offs, and that’s the case particularly when universities have allowed there to be this assumption that if you go and get a degree, you’ll be able to get a job.”

    Not everyone comes to university with a clear idea of their career ahead. It’s certainly true that students will sometimes attend university with a “learning for learning’s sake” mindset, particularly in the arts and humanities. This mindset is noble in many ways, but it has its drawbacks. For instance, students may find that the degree they’ve completed out of a love for the subject matter may not leave any clear path to the world of work.

    Antonia Clark is a careers consultant at City University of London with over 25 years of experience. She often sees the struggles students face when trying to figure a way to make a living from their passions.

    “Many of them are studying subjects that they’re interested in, but they just can’t relate it to a career,” Clark explains. “Then they get to the point where they postpone [finding a career], because everything they think they see is banking or finance, and they don’t want it.”

    In her role, Clark has seen up close the clash between academia and employability described by Blair. “There’s this huge divide between people like me and academics – some of whom say ‘we don’t want to do that stuff, we focus on the research’. If students want careers advice we employ a careers service or a placement team and that’s where they should go,” she continues. “But actually it’s wrong to think young people are that motivated. Many of them feel daunted by the task and an overwhelming sense of competition perpetuated by the media. I think it’s about the guarantee of these skills being built in to the degree.”

    One of the ways that university careers services try to help students is to get them thinking about employment early in their university careers – typically during the first year. However, careers services typically have low engagement with the student population.  “Only a small proportion of students use the careers service, and that’s pretty much the case nationally. For us (at City) it’s about 11 per cent or 12 per cent of the student body,” Clark concedes.

    Even the act of finding people to speak with for this feature proved Antonia’s point – the general attitudes of the students contacted were those of apathy, lack of confidence, and ignorance of their universities’ careers services. To combat this lack of engagement, some universities, including City, are introducing mandatory employment-focused modules.

    “This coming year, all City degrees will have some sort of professional experience built into them. First year business students all take part in an employability module. Science, maths, and engineering have one in year one as well, which is just a small element of their course, but it’s there,” Clark explains. “We’re piloting a sociology course which will work with a local charity as well. It’s that stuff which really focuses a student in terms of competing at the end and giving them valuable experience.”

    If the value of a degree in terms of employability comes from apprenticeships and work experience, students may wonder what the point of the academic side of university is in the first place. Aside from the fact that many jobs require a university qualification, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that graduates were less likely to be unemployed during the pandemic.

    In a study focused on graduate outcomes during the pandemic, the ONS found that graduate unemployment “has been consistently lower than the total” unemployment rate. This doesn’t mean that graduates haven’t been hard hit by the pandemic – in fact, the same study shows that unemployment rates for recent graduates were much higher than usual, reaching a worrying 12 per cent in the third quarter of 2020.

    Even so, it’s still far better to be a graduate than not. The ONS chalks up graduates’ lower rates of unemployment compared to other groups to their higher level of skills as well as their higher levels of “occupational and geographic mobility”. However, just because a graduate is employed, they are not necessarily in a professional career appropriate to their skill level, and – worryingly again – the skill-to-work mismatch turns out to be higher amongst graduates.

    The problems with the current system are clear. A greater focus on apprenticeships while attending university is just one of many possible solutions. Robert Halfon MP, who chairs the Education Select Committee, has frequently spoken and written about the ways that universities need to evolve in order to survive as an effective, sensible path to employment.

    “If I was in government, I’d be incentivising every company in the country to work with universities and give grants to universities conditional on whether they have a significant number of degree apprenticeships. Every university should do it. It depresses me that Oxford has closed its doors to any kind of apprenticeship at all,” Halfon tells us.

    While there is movement towards greater integration between universities and the working world, traditional institutions have often not joined in that shift.

    “We look at elite universities the wrong way in our country,” Halfon continues. “An elite university should have a lot of people from disadvantaged backgrounds, brilliant graduate outcomes, embedded work experience and training in the curriculum – and, most of all, significant degree apprenticeships.”

    Euan Blair adds that he is wary of giving universities advice, but that there are clearly issues with the current system: “I think that there will always be and should always be a place for purely academic learning in a university environment,” he says. “The challenge is, it sort of became this monopoly on early careers in a really negative way. That’s made universities complacent and it’s created this lack of equal access to opportunity – particularly around careers.”

    University is an expensive undertaking, both in terms of time and money, yet it is now almost universally expected of Britain’s middle class young people. Attending university for the sake of pure academia is considered acceptable, even honourable, provided the funds are there – but students who attend university with the idea that they will get a job more easily after graduation may be in for a shock.

    The great difficulty in writing about the universities is that the stories of apathy in the sector meet the problem that apathy tends not to be particularly responsive. Nevertheless, below we have compiled profiles of the most prominent careers services in the UK, based on extensive research and interviews with members of staff. Insodoing we have come up with our inaugural Finito World rankings of the top universities.

    In order to do this, we took criteria including technological offering, presence of noteworthy guest speakers, visibility on campus, social media content, size of team, navigability of website, and engagement levels of students to produce our exclusive Top Ten of the best careers services in the country. We also factored in a university’s place on the QS Graduate Employability Rankings of 2020, which focused on outcomes for students after leaving university. By examining these factors and assigning ratings for each categories based on our own research, we were able to produce overall scores for each university.

             So what are the findings? Firstly, while we saw much that was promising among universities, the student engagement is almost always too low and the services in question insufficiently hands-on. There remains much to be done to make sure that students get a fair shake in a highly competitive global economy.

    Some areas for improvement turned up time and again. Extensive early engagement with the careers service did happen at some universities, but it was certainly not the norm. Many of the universities are rightly proud of the one-to-one counselling aspect of their programmes, but unfortunately they are only seeing a small percentage of students on that basis. Lack of engagement with the careers service can also stem from the fact that students may not be thinking about their future careers during their first or second year. It should be a university’s job to ensure that students are aware of the services offered, and to remind them that it is best to begin thinking about careers early in their university lives. Some universities did achieve this through engagement during fresher’s week, careers fairs, and careers-based modules, but by no means all and that approach should be universal. In addition, if engagement among the Russell Group universities isn’t high then this raises serious questions for other universities, where student employability outcomes are far lower – and in some cases worryingly so.

             Secondly, it is clear that there is a considerable gap in the national fabric where a profound mentoring service ought to be. It is clear that this need to be enacted by the private sector, as this magazine’s parent company has shown. However, it may be that the private sector needs to partner with our existing university institutions at a far deeper level, and Finito World will be exploring these ideas in subsequent issues. Put simply, many of the universities lacked a personal touch in their careers guidance and would benefit from taking a more one-to-one approach. Careers counselling should take the form of mentorship, not one-off meetings. By keeping the same counsellor/mentor, a student can build a relationship with them, allowing the student to open up about their true dreams and aspirations. We know there is a lot of anxiety around asking for help, so it is much better for a student to speak with someone they already know and trust than to walk into an office for the first time not knowing what to expect.

    However, there were many silver linings too, and these were to be found when we were able to conduct in-depth conversations with careers officers. We have tended to find  members of staff at these universities to be both qualified and motivated to help their students. The apathy we have referenced surrounding careers centres has not been displayed by any of the university staff profiled in this feature. In some cases, they have also been disappointed in lack of engagement with their services, especially when the services they offer would be beneficial to students if they took advantage of them.

    Cambridge University

    Finito Score: 93/100

    Fast Facts

    Sometimes considered the top careers centre in the UK, this offering is run by Director Jenny Blakesley. In 2020, Cambridge careers centre made the switch from its old system to Handshake – an app which allows students to network with employers, contact the careers centre and schedule meetings, check the status of their applications, and see new job listings tailored to their profiles – it has achieved positive reviews on the App Store. The careers service also provides advice and support for current students at all levels of study as well as alumni. Alumni benefit from the Alumni Careers Connect program, which connects graduates with mentors who have successfully transitioned to the world of work. This is all very good, but there have been occasional bumps in the road in terms of delivery. In 2019, the careers centre sent out an email entitled, “Disappointing results? Our top advice,” which many students found patronising and alarming. To their credit, the service subsequently issued an apology.

    Director Jenny Blakesley

    When she took over the Director of Careers role at Cambridge in 2019, Jenny Blakesley already had 15 years’ experience in the field. She led the careers services at the London School of Economics and King’s College London after working in careers at Queen Mary, the University of London, and more. She was instrumental in the switch to Handshake. Blakesley studied at the University of Bath, where she received a BSc in Pharmacology.

    Oxford University

    Finito Score: 91/100

    Fast Facts

    The Oxford Careers Service is housed in an appropriately aged and ornate building located next to Wycliffe Hall. The service offers online resources which help with CVs, networking, and interviews, as well as traditional in-person guidance. The careers service publishes “The Oxford Guide to Careers” annually, which contains industry information, tips from employers, and help with planning for the future. Students and alumni can find job listings, book meetings, and see upcoming careers events through the online CareerConnect portal. Their website is good, but visually uninteresting. Extensive advice is available for students on the website, however it is presented mainly as text with little video content. Despite this, they are still providing a good service with few issues.

    Director Jonathan Black

    Jonathan Black has led the careers service at Oxford for 13 years. He studied and pursued a career in engineering before moving into finance. Now, he helps students by creating new careers programmes, delivering advice seminars, and coaching students individually. He wrote the book “Where am I going and can I have a map?” in 2017, which Emma Jacobs of the Financial Times described as a “wise, calming, and pragmatic” careers guide.

    University College London

    Finito Score: 85/100

    Fast Facts

    UCL Careers offers an employment newsletter, an annual careers guide, alumni mentoring, and tailored one-on-one advice. UCL students can book three different types of appointment with the careers centre, depending on their needs. Meetings for applications advice, interview coaching, and short, general guidance are available with UCL careers consultants. Their website could be easier to navigate, and video content is not prominently displayed. The careers service would benefit from an overhaul of their website, because they do offer good services and information which is easily locatable.

    Imperial College London

    Finito Score: 83/100

    Fast Facts

    The ICL Careers Service provides all you would expect from a top-level organisation: alumni support, one-on-one counselling, networking events, and online careers resources. What makes them stand out is their focus on students’ wellbeing. The front page of the careers service website features frequently asked questions about the careers service and the job market during Covid-19, as well as a section dedicated to diversity and inclusion. The service also has a section called “You said… we did”, which explains how the university is addressing issues with the service which are flagged up by students. ICL could be higher on the list if their careers office was more centrally located. A larger emphasis on employability during fresher’s week would also improve its score.

    Director Jason Yarrow

    Jason Yarrow has worked in careers advice for 17 years, becoming Director of the Careers Service at ICL in 2017. He holds degrees in Careers Guidance, Management, and an MA in Geography and European Studies.

    University of Manchester

    Finito Score: 78/100

    Fast Facts

    The Manchester Careers Service is designed to help students not only find a job but decide what job will suit them best. One of the first things you see on their website is a downloadable guide with the name “I don’t know what I want to do”. This guide assures students that being unsure about their future is perfectly fine and offers strategies to find a career which will fit a student’s passions and abilities. The service has a webchat feature for quick advice, and traditional meetings can be booked as well. One issue is the lack of transparency in regards to staff. While there are contact details available for the careers office, it is not clear who you will be talking to. This issue is such that we were unable to profile the Director of the careers service, as the information is not available. The service does emphasise work experience early in their students’ careers, with internship opportunities for first and second years displayed prominently on the front page. The location of the careers office is central and easily accessible, and the resources on the website look sound. This careers service would be much higher on the list if they made their staff more available for contact, and had more video resources on the website.

    Bristol University

    Finito Score: 78/100

    Fast Facts

    Over 60 members of staff work at the Bristol University Careers Service, under Director Stuart Johnston. An online portal offers links to events, CV help, job listings, and a live chat if students need help. The website is clean but unimaginative, and can be tiring to navigate when looking for specific information. Their Tyndall Avenue office is near the main campus, sporting colourful signage right next to the student’s union lettings building. The careers service should be more prominent during fresher’s week, but the university does have a wide variety of events and a careers week.

    University of Nottingham

    Finito Score: 77/100

    Fast Facts

    The Nottingham Careers Service office is located near the central student service centre, offering one-on-one guidance and resources to its students. The careers service is currently operating online, and the website prominently features a section called “Graduating in 2021”. This link takes students to a list of statements which may apply to them, such as “I’m worried about the job market” or “I’d like to gain work experience”, alongside relevant advice for each situation. They also offer Magpie, which is an online learning engine specifically tailored to each student based on level, career aspirations, and learning style. We have been unable to find evidence that students engage with the careers service during fresher’s week, but they do hold a careers fair and a wide variety of events. The website could also be slightly easier to navigate, though it holds a significant amount of information in video format.

    Senior Careers Advisor Joanne Workman

    Joanne Workman has worked in careers at Nottingham since 2019 and was promoted to Senior Careers Advisor in March 2021. She holds an MA in Career Development from Nottingham Trent University, which she achieved in 2019.

    London School of Economics

    Finito Score: 75/100

    Fast Facts

    The LSE careers service offers advice tailored to their focus as a university. The service offers advice on the usual things, such as CVs, interviews, and further study, but it also provides specific job market information and help navigating the psychometric assessments which are common in corporate job applications. You can find their staff, but it is not as easy as some other unis with a prominent “meet the staff” page. Their video resources are also not very well developed, but the service does offer many text-based resources. The department also offers career planning advice broken down for each year of study, outlining the events, internships, and networking opportunities available throughout a student’s time at LSE.

    Director Elizabeth Darlington

    Elizabeth Darlington has worked in the careers office at LSE since 2012, taking the role of director in 2019. Prior to joining the team, she gained experience as a careers advisor at both Oxford and Cambridge, as well as working in graduate recruitment at Barclay’s and L’Oreal. She achieved Honours in her BA History degree at Manchester University.

    University of Leeds

    Finito Score: 75/100

    Fast Facts

    Leeds Careers Centre is located near the refectory and student union. Its staff can offer same-day advice as well as mock interviews, application support, and help choosing a career for those who are still exploring. Its colourful website is neatly laid out with highlighted sections including appointment bookings, disability support, and judgement-free advice for changing or leaving a course. Its score would be improved if it had a more tangible focus on early engagement with the careers service, and if it were to graduate from a basic booking system to a more dedicated app or web service.

    Mary Cawley

    Mary Cawley has been Work Placement Project Officer at Leeds for three years, focusing on securing internship opportunities for her students. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Theology from the University of Birmingham, and has past experience in both admissions and recruitment.

    University of Edinburgh

    Finito Score: 68/100

    Fast Facts

    The Edinburgh Careers Service is clear and easy to navigate. The department also has solid engagement on social media, which is updated frequently. The service’s website features an “ask a student” live chat function, as well as quick links to resources available on the front page for students in a hurry. The office is located in the main library. However it doesn’t have an app or program for the careers service – at least not one that can be seen by the public – but their fairly simple appointment booking portal should suffice. The department arguably needs to expand its video resources, and while they the service does have a careers week and engagement during fresher’s week, more contact with students would help their ranking.

    Director Shelagh Green

    Shelagh Green has been Director of Careers and Employability at Edinburgh for 12 years, and she has worked in careers at Edinburgh since 2000. She is a higher education careers professional who states that her role is to “enable students to make successful transitions to life beyond University”.

  • Entrepreneur Henry White on building the “Netflix of finance”

    Entrepreneur Henry White on building the “Netflix of finance”

    CEO of Finance Unlocked speaks to Georgia Heneage on his career journey, the world of money and the future of FinTech. Originally published in March 2021.

    When Henry White – now a fully-fledged FinTech founder – first entered the thorny world of money as an eager young intern in London, he found the industry to be like a “black box”: opaque and inaccessible.

    Overcoming these barriers was for White a case of “learning on the job”. White began working his way up the London finance ladder with no experience or training. Soon he was working as a successful hedge fund analyst, his job taking him from Greece to New York and Canada.

    But this method of scaling the industry via trial-and-error seemed to be the privilege of a few, and his company Finance Unlocked – a digital educational platform for those in the finance world which completed its second fund raise in January at £1.75 million – was born out of a recognition that for many young people in finance, the “tools available” to them are few and far between.

    The idea was conceived in part when co-founder Robert Ellison’s position on his firm’s Learning and Development Committee opened his eyes to the limited scope of educational resources available. “We realized that either traditional incumbents were producing classroom-based learning- which wasn’t scaleable and was expensive – or there were generic massive online course providers like LinkedIn Learning.”

    Ellison and White identified a gap in educational resources which taught the fundamental skills of finance. “We felt like ultimately the whole learning experience was broken,” says White. “It became commonplace in the workplace that you would have bad training, and people strangely accepted it.”

    During development, Ellison and White’s customer research revealed that people “wanted to be more knowledgeable” and wanted to be “the best possible versions of themselves”, but that “the tools didn’t match up with the demand”. Their research also surfaced a common theme: that people wanted an educational platform that could coincide with their leisure time. “That was a kind of ‘aha!’ moment for us”, says White.

    “We wanted to build a brand that people could emotionally connect with and care about: we wanted it to be as beautiful and tactile as Netflix.” White says that digital content – particularly video – has grown in popularity during the pandemic. And because their audience demanded a premium product, they decided early on to create the content themselves, rather than outsource.

    As well as attempting to “redefine learning for finance professionals”, Finance Unlocked aims to democratise the world of financial learning for young people. They opened up their platform free to universities during the pandemic: “the feedback was phenomenal”, says White. “96% of the student learners felt more confident applying for a career in finance having had access to this content, and it really improved their employability”.

    And what of the future of FinTech? “The FinTech industry is moving at a lightning pace. Its role as an enabler is obvious when it comes to making frictionless payments, exchanging currencies efficiently or democratising the investment space. But the impacts are much broader than that – and that broad impact now includes financial education.”

  • Economic uncertainty shifts employee expectations

    Patrick Crowder

     

    For the first time following the pandemic, we are seeing a new shift in what employees expect from their employers. A study commissioned by Burson Cohn & Wolfe (BCW), which involved more than 13,000 people across five industries and 15 countries, indicates that growing economic stability is causing employees to reprioritise when considering their employment situation.

    In a marked shift away from post-pandemic norms, the flexibility to work from home or the office was ranked relatively low, at 12th out of 62. Now, half of employees say that they value job security, workplace safety, comfort, salary, benefits, and culture most out of the 62 options presented to them.

    It is reasonable to surmise that employees who once held the desire to work flexibly still hold that desire. Therefore, the trend away from hybrid working being a main concern is most likely a result of pragmatism rather than genuine desire to give up that once-coveted benefit. It may well be that employees in the current economic climate believe that they simply cannot afford to prioritise things like hybrid working or work/life balance, instead favouring job traits which translate to financial stability, such as salary, benefits, and job security.

    Across the entire study, 50% of workers say that they are ‘very likely’ to stay in their current job for the next 12 months. Of the workers who say they are satisfied with their current position’s salary, job security, and workplace culture, 74% are planning to stay for at least the next year. Job satisfaction among the employees who feel these basic needs are met also increases by 56%. Head of BCW Change James Morley believes that workplace culture plays a pivotal role in employee satisfaction, alongside the essentials.

    “While the pendulum has swung back and forth between conditions favoring employees and employers throughout the pandemic, the one constant we have seen is the need for inclusive, people-centric cultures where staff feel heard and valued, and well-being and transparent leadership are prioritized,” Morley says, “Even though the survey findings suggest that employers must get back to basics to address the fundamentals of job security, workplace, and pay and benefits, culture must also be a top focus in order to retain talent.”

    In the UK, the highest priority is annual leave, which 61% of employees in Britain ranked number one. In a three-way tie for second place are job security, manager decision-making, and a competitive salary, all of which scored 59%. In human terms, this means that UK employees are concerned about keeping their jobs, the prosperity and longevity of the companies they work for, and earning a high enough salary to provide for themselves and their families.

    Alongside a geographical discrepancy in employee priorities, there is also a generational difference. Morley explains that the workforce is not a monolith, and that employers must understand this fact in order to attract much-needed talent.

    “The study clearly highlights the sometimes dramatically divergent expectations between different generations, as well as a clear disconnect between those expectations and current lived experiences,” Morley says, “To win the war for talent, leaders need to both understand the wide-ranging needs of their workforces and ensure they’re met in order to attract, retain and motivate the talent they need, now and into the future.”

    Younger employees are much more concerned with their well-being and comfort in the workplace than their elder counterparts, who are more likely to prioritise salary, benefits and pensions. Depending on viewpoint, this could mean a few different things. Are younger workers naïve, idealistic idlers who long for the comforts of home in the workplace, or are they pioneers, willing to forgo a higher salary to maintain their standards of life, blazing a path for all who come after them? Are older workers hardened, responsible, and resilient enough to not require the coddling needed by younger generations and instead secure their futures, or have they fallen victim to the belief that a job is something to be despised, or at best tolerated, to the point where they can no longer see any point of work other than pay?

    These questions are not for any one person to answer – they are questions to ask of yourself. The tumultuous economic climate of the moment is uncertain at best, but what is certain is that people are making sacrifices. It is up to each and every individual to make the choice for themselves and the future of what exactly they are willing to give up, and each one of those decisions will slowly – at first unnoticeably – decide history.

  • Two in three UK employees receive no training at work

    Patrick Crowder

     

    66% of UK office workers have no opportunities for training or progression in their current roles, according to a nationwide survey by Just Eat for Business. Additionally, 29% of employees surveyed said that they believe their wage is not representative of their skill level, causing them to feel undervalued.

    The pandemic has changed the way that many people think about work, and employers are scrambling to attract new talented people who will stay with the company long-term. Salaries and pensions are still at the top of the list for potential employees, but training and the opportunity to develop new skills are also major factors. Over a quarter of the respondents stated that they would leave their current job for one with a higher salary, an improved work-life balance, or more seniority.

    The survey comes as part of Just Eat’s Lunch and Learn programme, which combines corporate catering with training. Just Eat for Business Account Management Director Tom Baxter believes that training can be an excellent way to attract and keep employees.

    “Career progression is an increasingly important aspect of work life for employees, particularly given the recent discussions around cost of living and people desiring a better work-life balance overall,” Baxter says, “Progression doesn’t always mean salary increases or promotions – the survey shows employees are just as keen to build upon their existing knowledge and enhance skills. Scheduling regular training, such as Lunch and Learns or catered workshops, is a great way to promote career development and increase employee interaction on a weekly basis.”

    Nobody wants to feel like their professional life is going nowhere, and not everybody has the time to pursue their own personal development outside of their already stressful jobs, so it is vital that businesses work with their employees to help them pursue their goals.

    In a time when employees are taking a hard look at the value of their work compared with what they receive for it, training in the workplace is more valuable than ever in terms of increasing employee satisfaction.

  • Gibbons at 300: What the woodcarver can teach about mentorship and entrepreneurship

     

    Grinling Gibbons’ works and artifacts from his life were exhibited together for the first time at Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park, writes Patrick Crowder

    In 1671, at the age of 23, Grinling Gibbons had already become the most masterful woodcarver in the UK. He applied his natural, flowing style to detailed reliefs capturing the intricacies of the human form, mantlepieces depicting game and flowers, extremely fine replications of lace cravats, and many more ambitious projects. To stand before one of Gibbons’ pieces is to be transported to a world of minute detail and lifelike vitality. His carvings of ducks and lobsters look as if they could easily fly or scuttle away at any startling movement. A surviving example of one of his limewood cravats has maintained such detail that it is still possible to mistake the piece for genuine lace from a distance of more than a metre or two. His designs were so far ahead of their time that, even while Gibbons was alive, woodcarvers tried and failed to copy the masterfulness of his hand. Gibbons’ works can be found in situ at some of the country’s most important places, including St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Hampton Court Palace, and Petworth House, cementing his place in the nation’s history.

    Grinling and his wife Elizabeth ca. 1691.

    To celebrate his 300th birthday, Compton Verney art has put together an extensive collection of his works and artefacts from his life which have never been displayed in the same place before. Gibbons was not only a pioneer of woodcarving and stonework, but also a keen entrepreneur who knew how to run a business and find patrons for his work. I spoke to Hannah Phillip, who is Programme Director and largely responsible for the exhibition, about Gibbons’ life, approaches to business and mentorship, and the lasting legacy he has left behind.

    This could be Rotterdam

    As it turns out, the celebrated British woodcarver was not born in Britain, but Rotterdam on the 4th of April, 1648. The name Grinling was derived from his mother’s maiden name, while his brother Dingly was given the maiden name of their grandmother. Throughout his life he was both a benefactor and provider of mentorship, and Philip tells me that his first apprenticeship likely took place near his home. “There have been different views on where Gibbons might have learned his craft, she explains. “The traditional one is that he was apprenticed to a master carver called Artus Quellinus who at that point was operating in Amsterdam and working on a major project, which was Amsterdam Town Hall,” Hannah said, “But equally, the other school of thought, which is very compelling, looks at Gibbons’ roots and what was going on around him.”

    This new theory, developed by Ada de Witt, looks at the shipbuilding community in Rotterdam. In those days, the sterns of ships were adorned with intricate woodcarvings depicting a wide variety of scenes, and it is likely that Gibbons got his start on ships such as these.

    “In Rotterdam there was a huge shipbuilding industry which required highly skilled carvers,” Philip continues. “The new thought is that he was more likely to be apprenticed locally to the Van Douwe family, whose workshops were very close to where Gibbons lived. I suppose whichever master carver or sculptor he was apprenticed to, we do know that it is very much how he would have developed his skills, and without that mentor, he wouldn’t have been able to go on to what he was able to achieve.”

    The lessons Gibbons learned during his early years in Rotterdam would lay the foundation for him to become one of the most inventive, skilful carvers of his time.

    London Calling

    Gibbons left the Netherlands and moved to York in 1667, when he was 19 years old. Even at this young age, he was an extremely talented carver, producing detailed renderings of musical instruments, cherubs, and people while under the employment of carver and architect John Etty.

    Four years later he moved to Deptford, another maritime town, and continued to hone his skills. It was there that one day, when Gibbons went out to a small thatched-roof house in a nearby field to find some peace to do his work, he was stumbled upon by the prominent diarist John Evelyn. Evelyn was so astonished by the intricate depiction of the Crucifixion Gibbons was carving that he decided to use his royal connections and introduce King Charles II to Gibbons and his work. In his diary, Evelyn wrote;

    “I this day first acquainted his Majestie with that incomparable young man, Gibson, whom I had lately found in an Obscure place, & that by mere accident, as I was walking neere a poore solitary thatched house in a field in our parish neere Says-Court. I asked if I might come in, he opned the doore civily to me, & I saw him about such work, as for the curiosity of handling, drawing & studious exactnesse, I never in my life had seene before in all my travells.”

    From that point forward, Gibbons became known as “The King’s Carver”, winning commissions for mantlepieces, intricate wooden cravats which could be mistaken for lace, and decorations for St. Paul’s Cathedral.

    The Crucifixion panel Gibbons was working on became his primary showpiece to display his talent to prospective patrons, and his attitudes surrounding this masterpiece give us a glimpse into Gibbons’ business sense and self-worth. Philip explains how he used the Crucifixion panel to win commissions:“The Crucifixion panel became his CV in effect, and I think that’s the reason he was producing this virtuoso work. Yes, he wanted to sell it, and when John Evelyn asked how much it cost, he came back with a price of £200 pounds, which was a lot of money. He knew his worth. He played the cards of ‘I’m a humble carver learning my skill’ and all the rest of it, but I think we need to take account of the fact that he knew that he was very good at what he was doing.”

    Font cover from All Hallows by the Tower, carved by Gibbons and given to the church ca. 1682.

     

    From Mentee to Mentor

    After getting his start through apprenticeship, Gibbons took on apprentices of his own. He was a member of the Drapers’ Company and served on their Court of Assistants for 17 years, so we can see evidence of the carvers he apprenticed in their records. We ask Philip what apprentices meant for Gibbons and his work. “Gibbons undoubtedly would have passed on his skill to multiple carvers given the length of his career and the number of commissions he was given. We know that he took on apprentices because they are recorded in the Drapers’ records, and quite early on he took on an apprentice,” Philip says. “It would have provided him with some money – you had to pay for your apprenticeship – and it would also of course expand his capability to take on particular commissions.”

    Some of Gibbons’ assistants would have been journeymen looking to hone their skills, as he was himself at 19. Others would have been comparative beginners given simpler tasks, working their way up and gaining valuable insight from Gibbons’ process. “There would have been a conveyance of knowledge and skills over time in the form of workshop practice and mentorship,” Philip argues. “Of course there was commercial motivation behind it, but I don’t think that diminishes what that workshop process achieved in bringing on new skill and talent and perpetuating his own vision and style.”

    Detail of Gibbons’ intricate limewood cravat, carved ca. 1690.

    For Gibbons, apprentices allowed him to take on more commissions and to produce more work in his signature style. It is often difficult to distinguish the pieces made by Gibbons’ hands from those made by his apprentices, which is further evidence that he must have been a talented teacher. He was also not afraid to change things up if work wasn’t selling. Philips says he had a keen eye for shifting market demand. “He understood all the different key elements of running a good business – supply and demand, moving into more profitable areas and materials. He started off doing narrative panels but readily perceived that there was a market for decorative carving, so he certainly wasn’t so precious about his art that he would only continue in the way he wanted to. He comes across as someone who had really good business acumen and instinct.”

    Gibbons today

    Apprenticeships are still an integral part of woodcarving today, and most professional-level carvers and sculptors will have trained under a master of their field.

    The legacy which Gibbons has left behind extends beyond sculptors and woodcarvers, inspiring artists who work with all media both in his time and ours. Even while he was still alive people attempted to copy his work, which was a sign of the influence his style had on the market. Now, artists such as Rebecca Stevenson have taken more interpretive approaches, exploring his themes and their meanings in new ways.

    Rebecca Stevenson, Heathen, subverting Gibbons’ themes of flowers and game.

    A lot has changed since the time of Gibbons, but one fact remains the same – art relies on patronage. Heritage crafts such as woodcarving fall in and out of style with the passing centuries, so there is always a real danger of losing them without some incentive for the unbroken exchange of knowledge between master and apprentice to continue.

    To showcase Gibbons’ influence and to ensure that these skills are not lost to time, the Grinling Gibbons Society created the Tercentenary Award. This national contest sought up-and-coming carvers and sculptors from across the UK to produce Gibbons-inspired works in wood and stone. Prince Charles was a patron of the Grinling Gibbons Tercentenary award and even tried his hand at woodcarving as part of his quest to keep traditional crafts alive. Philip explains how the award helped young carvers develop their skills.

    “The idea of the award wasn’t just to deliver prize money to aspiring carvers – it was actually to mentor them, making the process of producing the work part of the learning experience. Each artist was paired up with one or two master carvers to help them with the development of their ideas. We felt that was the most important part – so that whoever ended up winning wasn’t the only winner.”

    Being an excellent carver, as the contest entrants were, is not always enough to win commissions. Philip has seen how practical experience with an art exhibition producing work to a deadline can help young carvers’ business acumen:“There’s a big chasm between going through a course and training to be a carver, and then actually getting your foot on the rung of doing it professionally,” she explains. “Whatever you learned at the training level, while very beneficial, doesn’t give you the commercial expertise and the ability to translate that to a business setting of producing things for clients.”

    But what if no clients can be found? Since Gibbons’ time, styles have moved away from intricately carved wooden mantlepieces and wall-hung reliefs to a more mass-produced culture, and the furnishings which were once the bread and butter of the woodcarving community now have far less demand. Philip hopes that the exhibition will inspire people to take another look at modern work with roots in the style of Gibbons.

    “It’s about educating up-and-coming carvers, but it’s also about trying to nurture some up-and-coming patrons – because without the patrons, there are no carvers,” Philips says. “By displaying these works in the exhibition, it gives an opportunity to see these artists’ works and maybe even consider commissioning something themselves.”

    The exhibition Grinling Gibbons: Centuries in the making ran from the 25th of September, 2021 to the 30th of January, 2022 at Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park.

  • An Interview with Oliver Curson of Berkeley Parks

    Christopher Jackson to talks to the impressive Oliver Curson about his career at family company Berkeley Parks

    The dynamics of a family business are always interesting. Berkeley Parks – one of the leading providers of residential parks in the UK – is no exception. Founded by John Berkeley in the 1960s, the firm is now run by David Curson, who married into the family and has run the firm since 2019, having joined in 2001 after a stint in the Fleet Air Arm.

    But there’s a third generation in the mix now, and I catch up with Oliver Curson, an impressive young business leader with responsibility both in the residential side, and in managing the expanding holiday parks side of the business.

    At the moment the firm has 51 residential parks, and two holiday parks. So what kind of clients are attracted by the firm’s offer? Curson explains: “The majority of our parks are for people who are fifty plus. They’re looking to retire and downsize. They want peace and quiet and don’t want too many children around.”

    As the father of two charming but boisterous children, I can immediately sympathise with this desire – and even feel briefly apologetic at what my family may be perpetrating unawares on the local population.

    Readers might also be interested to know that there are other perks to buying a house in a holiday park. As Curson explains: “You don’t pay stamp duty at all so nothing the Chancellor did on that last year affected us or any of our clients. In addition, there’s no requirement to pay solicitors’ fees which can save on costs.”

    Curson clearly has his feet well under the table and enjoys an impressive understanding of the business, talking knowledgeably about everything from the price points and structure of the business, to the needs of the client. But he actually had an unexpected degree. “I studied motorsport engineering,” he says chuckling. “I never did any roles in that field, but at university you do learn a lot of skills – time management among them.”

    Post-university, Curson trained as a marine – “my father also had a military background too so I guess I was scratching that itch” – leaving in 2018. So was it always the plan to join the family firm? “It wasn’t – although I knew the door was always open for me.”

    So what does his role entail? “Day-to-day, I have two main roles. One is managing the holiday side of the business. On the other side, I deal with current residents and that could be anything from residential refurb requests or attending court hearings and tribunals. It’s quite varied what I get to do.”

    So how has the pandemic been for the company? Initially, things were difficult, Curson explains: “All our income from second-hand sales and new sales just stopped overnight. But then when we came out of that period, people began to move and there was that pent-up demand. By the end of the year we found that we were where we would have expected anyhow.”

    That sounds the definition of a resilient business. Even so, there were some headaches on the transactional front. “We were going to open a new Holiday Park in Essex, but that got cancelled because COVID-19 stopped it. We’ve been a bit on the back foot ever since trying to get it reopened.”

    I find myself very impressed by Curson. He’s achieved a lot young, and yet he is modest with it: one might attribute that to the fact that working in a family business can often be grounding. Having said that, it’s by no means a hard-and-fast rule – and for every Curson there’s another heir to a family business dynasty who’s neither so hardworking nor so quietly knowledgeable.

    So what do they look for in employees? “At the moment we have 150 employees, and really all we look for is the drive to do a good job. In terms of business direction, what we want to do is to build the holiday side.”

    That, he says, is a competitive market: “You’re going in at over market value because of the staycation bubble.” Price-wise, Berkeley Parks are in a unique position: “We’re governed by the manufacture costs and if that hasn’t increased we’re not going to increase our price. The manufacturers have been increasing their prices, due to the price increase in wood and metal. We always look at what new builds cost in the same area with an equivalent floor space and aim to come in under those prices.”

    There’s something decent about Curson and about the business. The firm will have much success in the years ahead.

  • Entrepreneur Sabina Ranger on founding her new beauty business BELLA

    Sabina Ranger

     

    Beauty has always been an area of interest for me. During my parents’ journey together, I would watch the transformative effect, both aesthetically and emotionally, when my mother would apply her make up and the confidence it would give her to pull through on the most difficult of days. Ending every regime with a flick of mascara (now our hero product), she would set off as an empowered woman ready to conquer her day ahead.

    Thus, from an early age I realised that beauty is incredibly powerful. Once we feel our best the world is limitless, no matter what our circumstances are. This, coupled with my understanding of how to produce quality products, is what gave birth to BELLA, which features vegan, cruelty-free and clean focused products made to empower you, solve beauty problems and outperform what is on the market.

    Quality products have always fascinated me. I grew up in a family business that specialised in producing high quality consumer products that would outperform those available on the market.

    For example, a leading air freshener had 0.5% fragrance in it and was not long lasting, but it was being sold at a premium price. My father created one with double the scent and different technology to make his longer lasting so that customers could use less to gain more, and at a price that is right.

    I watched the business grow from a £2 operation in a shed in Hayes to a world class company winning an unprecedented five Queen’s Awards for International Trade and exporting to over 130 countries, and it was all because of the quality of its products and the reputation that proceeded them.

    Product quality and innovation has always been in my DNA, so a career centred around this was a natural path for me to follow. After spending 5 years developing products in the business, creating brands, and getting these onto the shelves of retailers, I was inspired to venture into an area of passion; beauty. There I was able to innovate and make an impact by solving a problem that I and 97% of women face, which is pain, discomfort, and inconvenience when wearing false eyelashes. After 3 years of development, WANDERLASH mascara was born, and I officially entered the beauty industry.

    When I founded BELLA, I wanted to create a platform for positive change through my journey. I think it is really important to always give back, so it was never just about starting a business for me. We all have mental health & need to look after it and each other. As many as one in two, or officially one in four people are suffering from a mental health challenge of some kind. I feel that beauty is a powerful industry which touches almost everybody and can really help reduce the stigma & shine a light on mental health.

    My formal education took place at LSE, which taught me how to think outside of the box, work under pressure and critically evaluate situations. It is a very inspiring place where you are surrounded by many budding entrepreneurs with revolutionary ideas along with a track record of many great people who have made history – it is hard not to want to follow suit in some way. I also undertook many internships, and they all taught their own lessons, but I think the most important learning was how to work with different people and adjust to different personality types. The importance of feeling part of a team, all striving towards a common goal and how to multitask many different work streams are crucial lessons.

    It is also important to realise that I was not alone on my journey, nor am I alone now. I think mentorship is invaluable, having someone to guide you through life is powerful and life changing. What took them years or even decades to learn, they can share with you over a coffee. I am grateful to have a few mentors whom I can meet with regularly & learn from, on different areas of the business but also about life in general. If I could give some advice to my younger self, I would tell her to have more confidence and not look for anyone else’s validation for happiness or success. I wish that I had realised the importance of learning to love myself more without worrying if I was ‘good enough’ based on other people’s behaviour.

  • Tariq Ali on the Cult of Churchill

    Tariq Ali

    When I initially had the idea for Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes I was in two minds about it, but what convinced me it had to be done was the out-of-control Churchill cult that has taken over. It’s become completely absurd. Of course the book is for anyone who wants to read it, but I do think that it is for a younger generation who hears people speak the name “Churchill” in hallowed tones as if he was considered to be a saint. This certainly wasn’t the case during his lifetime!

    What I didn’t want to do was write yet another biography, so instead I thought to have a timeline of Churchill and a timeline of history, which showed from my point of view where he was right, which was rare, and where he was wrong, which was in most parts of the world. I had taken into account the amount of reading about Churchill that I would have to do, but what I hadn’t considered were the books I had to read around him. I ended up reading books on Kenya, books on Greece, books on China, and books Japan. That took up a lot of time, but it was very enjoyable. Without doing that, you can’t understand Churchill. Kipling famously wrote, “What do they know of England who only England know?” That applies to Churchill as well. And so it became a history of Churchill and the Empire.

    The book is basically divided into two. The first period covers the years he was alive when he was constantly being criticised, with very sharp language occasionally, by some of his colleagues. Some in the Conservative government referred to him as a semi-fascist and insane. He knew all that was being said about him and it just didn’t bother him. The second period covers the cult of Churchill as we know it now, which began in 1982. Margaret Thatcher used Churchill to bully Ronald Regan a bit over his moral compunctions towards using nuclear weapons, saying that Churchill had constantly been in favour of nuclear deterrents. Then the post-death Churchill became a substitute for an empire that didn’t exist anymore. The use of Churchill became something they did whenever they found it necessary. The evocation of Churchill is also to say to the Americans, “Look, we have a long-standing relationship. Regardless of the fact that the most important country in Europe is Germany, we will be better than Germany or anyone else in the EU, because we’ve been attached to you with an umbilical cord made of piano wire.”

    Churchill is often praised for his wit, and he did have a turn of phrase, but you’ll see that turn of phrase was often coloured with outright racism against non-white people. He often attacked the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, and it just wasn’t funny in any way. Obviously he could be witty at times, but the wit was never neutral in that sense. I think MacMillan was genuinely witty, and Churchill’s wit was quite forced. Compare Churchill’s turns of phrase to Harold Macmillan’s; there was a meeting on the 200th anniversary of Downing Street with six former prime ministers present, and James Callaghan said to no one in particular, “I wonder whether there is a collective word or phrase to describe all those of us who have served this great office,” and immediately MacMillan said, “Lack of principle?” The reason MacMillan was far more effective is that he included himself in that joke too. This is something Churchill wasn’t capable of doing, his jokes were often pretty nasty.

    Churchill could say what he did and get away with it because behind him was the huge British Empire. That was the basis, and it was an empire supported whether we like it or not by a large bulk of the British population. Some of the most eager imperialists were the Scots, for instance, as well as the Northern Irish and some of the Welsh. It wasn’t just an English enterprise – it’s the empire that created the UK, so to speak. That’s why, with the end of the empire, more nationalist feelings are coming out in all these territories – Scotland in particular, but also to a certain extent Wales, and even in England.

  • Dinesh Dhamija reacts to Rishi Sunak’s appointment as PM

    Finito World

    Rishi Sunak’s appointment as Prime Minister has focused attention on the rising influence of British Asians.

    Yesterday, British-Indian entrepreneurs were reacting to the news. But on in particular caught our attention: entrepreneur and politician Dinesh Dhamija. Dhamija came to Britain aged 17 in 1968. He founded online travel agency ebookers in 1997, and sold it for £247 million in 2004, before serving as a Lib Dem Member of the European Parliament from 2019 to 2020.

    It’s worth remembering that Dhamija’s autobiography ‘Book It!’ was published earlier this year. Readers might remember that in that brilliant book, he comments on Rishi Sunak’s father-in-law Narayana Murthy. One relevant passage reads:

    “Rishi Sunak’s father-in-law Narayana Murthy stands head and shoulders above other Indian businesspeople in my view,” he continues. “He pioneered the current generation of Indian software companies, taking Infosys to global leadership – it was the first Indian company listed on the Nasdaq – and introducing the Global Delivery Model of software development.”

    Dhamija also puts the magnitude of Murthy’s achievements in context: “Basically, Murthy popularised tech outsourcing from Western economies to India, where he recruited thousands of highly qualified software engineers to work on the problems of American banks and multinational corporations,” he writes.

    For Dhamija, Murthy’s work must be viewed in the round – not just as a money-making enterprise. Another passage reads: “What I most admire about Murthy is that he combines commercial genius with a human regard for employees and a strong customer focus. Infosys isn’t just about making money, but about making the world a better place. These qualities have won him many friends, along with the Legion d’Honneur from France, the Padma Vibhushan from India and countless other awards and honours.”

    Yesterday, Finito World got in touch with Dhamija to get his views on the appointment of Murthy’s son-in-law as the UK’s first Asian Prime Minister. His reaction was typically forthright and illuminating: “I’m very pleased to see Rishi become the first British Prime Minister of Indian heritage. I believe he has many of the qualities needed to rescue the country from its current crises – even if he played a role in getting us here! Among other things, it opens a potential window of opportunity for closer economic ties between the UK and India, something that I’ve urged the government to pursue for many years,” he told us.

    And did Dhamija have any advice for the incoming PM? “The best thing for the UK would be to get 10,000 Indian software engineers to come to Britain, that would be gold for us. If Rishi can face down the anti-immigrant factions in his own party and act in Britain’s best interest, he could achieve something that his recent predecessors have failed to do and create a new era of Anglo-Indian cooperation.”

     

    For more information about Book It!: How Dinesh Dhamija built and sold online travel agency ebookers for £247 million, go to:

     

  • Study reveals work from home gender discrepancy

    The SEO agency Clickslice has found that men and women work from home at different rates, and in different ways. Analysis of ONS data reveals that 8% of men have not worked from home in the past seven days, although their employer allows it, compared to 10% of women choosing the office.

    Not all of this comes down to choice, however – women are more likely to be allowed to work from home than men. Of the 2,850 people surveyed, 34% of the women said that they are not allowed to work from home, whereas 42% of the men said that they had to go to the office. Clickslice CEO Joshua George commented on the difference.

    “It’s interesting to see how gender plays a role in working from home behaviours. While more women are working from home either all or some of the time, more men are choosing to work from home if they have the choice between that or the office,” George says, “Further research shows that Brits are planning to continue working from home. ONS data from February 2022 revealed that 84% of workers who had to work from home because of the coronavirus pandemic said they planned to carry out a mix of working at home and in their place of work in the future.”

    The pandemic opened up new possibilities for those looking to work remotely, and many are taking the opportunity. However, there is a discrepancy between the way that workers and bosses view working from home. Employees generally believe that they are more productive home workers, while bosses are not convinced. George highlights the issue this may raise.

    “Research shows that bosses and workers disagree about productivity when working from home. In a recent survey by Microsoft of over 20,000 people, bosses worry about whether working from home is as productive as being in the office. 87% of workers felt they worked as, or more, efficiently from home, yet 80% of managers disagreed. This discrepancy is something that both business owners and workers should be aware of to ensure that there is no confusion or resentment about where people choose to work,” George says.

    There is no question that a mixture of working from home and going into the office is rapidly becoming more accepted, whether bosses like it or not. Due to the labour shortage, potential employees who are told they cannot work remotely will not have a very hard time finding an employer who will allow it. Therefore, it is more important than ever for businesses to be open-minded and flexible.