Ep 43 Nikki Beaumont, Founder & CEO Beaumont People on the Four Day Work Week

2023-06-26

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Episode 43 features Nikki Beaumont…Founder and CEO of Beaumont People, a leading recruitment business who are all about placing people first – whether its their own people, their clients or the candidates they place. This ‘people first’ philosophy and purpose-driven vision to connect people with organisations that empower them to do meaningful work and to create more opportunities for meaningful work in Australia, has seen Nikki's team provide much more than standard recruitment services to her custome...

This ‘people first’ philosophy and purpose-driven vision to connect people with organisations that empower them to do meaningful work and to create more opportunities for meaningful work in Australia, has seen Nikki's team provide much more than standard recruitment services to her customers.

Key to Nikki's and Beaumont People's success has been the unfaltering investment she makes in her people. She has crafted a work environment that is conducive to success - where her people are nurtured and motivated to achieve their personal best not only for the business, but as importantly, for themselves.

In this episode we talk a little bit about Beaumont People’s approach and some of the initiatives it has driven, but we zero in on one key initiative that they implemented 3 years ago – the 4-day work week.

As one of the first Australian businesses to do this, Nikki has some valuable insights to share.

I hope our listeners can take these insights and use them to think – not just about the 4 day work week – but also to question some of the other rules of business that we rarely examine. How can we do things better? What can we change?

I hope you enjoy the gems that Nikki shares in our chat.

Here are some of the highlights:

Nikki shares Beaumont People’s origin story, including how the GFC was the stimulus that led to Beaumont’s strength in serving the charity sector
What their purpose around meaningful work means to Beaumont People
We talk about the ripple effect that having meaningful work has beyond the individual
Nikki shares her pride in the people in the Beaumont People team, in implementing the Four Day Work Week; in launching gender neutral parental leave; and their work in the charity sector (having saved almost AU$35 million for the charity sector to date)
What inspired Beaumont People to launch the Four Day Work Week and some of the best advice they were given to make it work by Andrew Barnes from the 4 Day Week organisation
How they announced it to their people at their annual conference and engaged them in thinking about how it would work
How Beaumont People’s peoples’ ideas were central to how the initiative was implemented
How they approached the ‘Productivity’ question, including understanding that productivity varies so much across teams and functions
How introducing the Four Day Work Week has clarified how Beaumont People measure productivity and success
The role of trust in the success of this initiative
Nikki shares her greatest learnings from the last 3 years of running the Four Day Work Week