When people think about recruitment, naturally the first thing that comes to mind is filling vacancies.

And of course, that's a huge part of what we do.

But on the Garden Centre team at MorePeople, I think our role goes quite a bit further than that.

To recruit well within this industry, you have to understand it. You need to understand the pressures garden centres face, how dramatically the seasons affect trading, where the skills shortages are, what candidates are looking for and how businesses are changing.

The best way to do that isn't by sitting behind a desk.

It's by being part of the industry.

A team dedicated to garden retail

MorePeople has a dedicated Garden Centre recruitment team, including myself, Leo, Elleanna, Lucy and Ella.

Between us, we recruit across pretty much every area of a garden centre – from Plant Area Managers and Department Managers through to catering, buying, operations, HR, Garden Centre Managers and senior leadership appointments.

That specialism is important.

Garden centres are incredibly diverse businesses. You can have horticulture, traditional retail, restaurants, food halls, seasonal departments, furniture, gifting and leisure all operating under the same roof.

Finding the right person therefore isn't always as simple as finding someone who has done the same job somewhere else.

A big part of our role is understanding transferable skills, culture, personalities and where someone is going to fit.

Getting out into the industry

One of my favourite parts of working on this desk is how much opportunity we have to actually get out and meet people.

MorePeople has longstanding relationships across the garden and horticulture industries, including organisations such as the HTA, GCA, GIMA and LOFA, and you'll regularly see people from the team at events including Glee, Four Oaks and other industry conferences and networking events.

I've personally really enjoyed attending events such as the GCA Conference and HTA regional meetings, because you come away with a much better understanding of what's actually happening on the ground.

You hear what businesses are struggling with.

You hear what's working.

You hear how trading has been, where businesses are investing, which departments are growing, where recruitment is becoming difficult and what leaders are thinking about for the next few years.

Those conversations make us better recruiters.

They also mean that when a client calls us six months later with a vacancy, hopefully we're not starting that conversation from scratch.

Sharing what we're seeing

Another area we've become increasingly involved in is speaking at industry events.

At previous HTA Business Improvement regional events, for example, we've spoken with garden centre businesses about recruitment, staff retention and succession planning.

Those sessions have often developed into wider conversations about everything from difficult-to-fill positions to wage increases and how businesses can improve the way they recruit.

That's something I'd like us to continue doing more of.

We speak to garden centre businesses and candidates every single day, so we're in quite a fortunate position.

We see both sides of the recruitment process.

We know why good candidates turn jobs down.

We know why people leave.

We know what makes someone excited about an opportunity.

And we also see the small things businesses do during a recruitment process that can make a massive difference.

A lot of the advice we give isn't particularly complicated either.

Often, it's about getting the basics right.

Is your salary actually competitive?

Salary benchmarking is a big one.

Businesses understandably have salary structures and budgets to work within, but the candidate market doesn't always move at the same speed.

If you've been paying £35,000 for a position for the last few years, that doesn't automatically mean £35,000 is still the market rate today.

MorePeople's Salary & Benefits research is designed to give businesses current market information that can help them benchmark salaries and benefits when recruiting and retaining staff.

But the data is only part of it.

Because we're speaking to candidates every day, we can also give clients a live view of what's happening.

What are people earning?

What would make them move?

What benefits do they value?

How important is flexibility?

What are competing businesses offering?

Sometimes the conversation might be that the salary needs to increase.

Other times, the salary is absolutely fine and something else is stopping the business from attracting people.

That's where understanding the market becomes useful.

What does a good recruitment process actually look like?

This is probably one of the most common areas where businesses can make relatively small changes and see a big improvement.

Good candidates rarely stay on the market for long.

A recruitment process with four interviews spread across six weeks might feel thorough, but if another business meets that candidate twice, communicates well and makes an offer within ten days, there's a very real chance you've lost them.

That doesn't mean rushing a decision.

It means having a clear process before you start.

Who's interviewing?

What does each stage need to achieve?

Who actually makes the final decision?

What questions are we going to ask?

When will we give feedback?

A candidate should leave every interview understanding what happens next.

It sounds simple, but it makes a huge difference.

Interviewing is a skill too

We also spend a lot of time helping both clients and candidates prepare for interviews.

An interview shouldn't just be an opportunity to run through somebody's CV.

The best interviews create a proper conversation.

If you're recruiting a Garden Centre Manager, give them situations they might genuinely face.

How would they improve an underperforming department?

How would they manage payroll without damaging customer service?

How would they develop their management team?

What would they look at during their first 90 days?

How have they improved margin, stockholding or profitability previously?

The objective isn't to catch somebody out.

It's to understand how they think.

And equally, the candidate should be interviewing the business.

The strongest recruitment processes allow both sides to decide whether the opportunity is right.

Recruitment doesn't finish when the offer is accepted

This is another area I think gets overlooked.

You can run a brilliant search, find the perfect candidate, get the offer accepted…and then go quiet for four weeks while they work their notice.

That's the point where counter-offers can happen. Doubt can creep in. Another business can approach them.

Good onboarding starts before day one.

Keep in touch.

Send them information about the business.

Introduce them to key people.

Give them an idea of what their first week will look like.

And once they start, make sure somebody actually has the time to welcome them properly.

The recruitment process might finish when someone accepts the job from an administrative point of view.

The candidate experience doesn't.

Being part of the industry matters

Ultimately, we're recruiters.

We're not going to pretend we know more about running a garden centre than the people who do it every day.

But we do know recruitment.

And because we specialise in this market, speak to people within it every day and spend time attending its events, visiting garden centres and listening to the people running them, we're able to build a pretty detailed picture of what's happening with talent across the sector.

That's the part of the job I really enjoy.

Sometimes we're helping someone find their next career move.

Sometimes we're helping a business find a Plant Area Manager they've been struggling to recruit for months.

Sometimes we're discussing succession planning with an owner who's thinking five years ahead.

And sometimes we're standing in a room at an HTA event talking about why a recruitment process isn't working.

They are all different parts of the same thing.

Helping garden centre businesses find, attract, develop and keep good people.

And the closer we stay to the industry, the better we can do that.