Joining us recently as Business Development Manager, Craig Fletcher has a breadth of experience in building relationships across the HSEQ sector and other industries. We caught up with him recently to find out how he’s settling and hear more about his role, career path and what’s coming up in 2025.
Quensh: Welcome Craig! You’ve joined the Quensh / Involve HR team as Business Development manager — can you tell us a bit about the key responsibilities and priorities of your new role?
Craig: My role is about growing the Quensh / Involve HR brand name, making people aware of what we do, building relationships and growing our customer base across Scotland. Between the two sides of Quensh / Involve HR, there’s real potential for ‘crossover’ with clients and providing an array of HSEQ and HR services that enhance their business operations and ensure compliance.
Therefore, there is an element of making both new and existing clients aware of the full range of services we provide to ensure they are capitalising on the breadth of expertise across our teams.
In a continually growing business it’s inevitable that people — particularly the senior management team — wear a few different ‘hats’, and everyone gets involved in developing new business and contributing to growth, but in doing so they have a lot to juggle. So, I’d say I’m also coming in to provide a bit more ‘firepower’ and pick up responsibilities that allow the existing team more time to focus on other areas.
Q: What’s been your career path to date?
CF: I’ve had quite a diverse career background — and the more I get to know my new colleagues the more I realise that lots of us have had a variety of different career paths into HSEQ and HR! I began in retail, initially a Saturday job at a high street jewellery business which quickly developed into an Assistant Manager role and management training. This was sort of unplanned and never really what I expected to be doing, and so I moved into an account management and sales position with a well-established global workplace supplies business and started building some of the BD skills that I utilise in my role at Quensh / Involve HR. That was a mixture of growing existing accounts and a focus on new business.
Then, I did a big ‘career pivot’ and worked as a police officer for six years. This was obviously a major change, but was always something I wanted to do, and when I hit 23 I decided that was the time to do it. I worked across a variety of areas in Aberdeen and later Inverurie, where I now live. You’d think ‘rural policing’ would be a bit more relaxed but the sheer size of the area was a challenge — the ‘Inverurie beat’ is the size of the island of Cyprus!
I enjoyed my time in the police but knew that I wanted to return to a corporate setting. It was important to me to be somewhere where I could affect and support change, so I took a role with a Recruitment Agency where I headed up their QHSE specialism. This was a fantastic learning experience for me in terms of building a strong knowledge of HSEQ. Having just recently been promoted to a senior role in Recruitment, an exciting opportunity arose at Quensh / Involve HR to join and I decided it was a great move for me.
Q: What do prospective new clients value most when speaking to Quensh / Involve HR about working together?
CF: It’s a bit of cliché but it’s still very true — ’people buy from people’. If you can build a relationship with someone and really get to know their business, how they work and what they need, you can deliver the most value and benefit.
I think what sets us apart from our competition is that we are a fully managed and outsourced service and we completely tailor to your needs in that you can turn support on and off if circumstances change.
We are dynamic, we don’t tie clients into long term contracts and pride ourselves on being a local service with a personal touch. It allows companies of all sizes to have access to a full HR and Health & Safety (HSEQ) department without the associated cost burden.
Q: Was there anything in particular that attracted you to join Quensh / Involve HR?
CF: When I was approached by Quensh / Involve HR about this role, what immediately stood out to me was how down-to-earth and easy to speak to everyone was, so that was very encouraging. Now having settled into the role, I see this across the business and the exact same experience/service is given to all of our clients.
When I learned about Quensh / Involve HR’s growth strategy, this really appealed to me, and I knew this was something I wanted to be a part of. The business is already well established, but there is so much potential to grow the business in the UK which is really exciting, building on the growth and development from recent years.
Q: Is there a piece of advice / way of working / pearl of wisdom that you wish you’d learned earlier in your career?
CF: I’ve always been naturally pretty good at the ‘people part’ of work — I enjoy engaging with clients, contacts and colleagues, finding out more about them and developing relationships.
The aspect that I’ve had to deliberately work at and develop in my various career roles over the years has been on the administrative, planning and process side of things. I’ve always had a strong work ethic and I always like to be involved in as much as I can, but process and structure is so important for consistency and accountability, both to yourself and to others.
I would definitely encourage anyone early in their career to develop these kinds of skills, as I now have, and while playing to your strengths is always a solid strategy, developing other areas to make sure you have a well-rounded skill set is equally important. It’s great to have a ‘can do’ attitude, but success comes from the emotional intelligence to identify areas for development and the commitment to working at them.
Q: With 2025 fast approaching, what are some of the key objectives for Quensh / Involve HR in the new year?
CF: Next year, the big focus is further expansion of our client base throughout Scotland. We’re very well-established in the North East of Scotland but now we’re looking to build on work we’re doing in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and surrounding regions. The business is really committed to this, and it’s an exciting time to join.
With this in mind, another key focus will be continuing to recruit talented individuals into the team to support this growth and further strengthen our offering to clients.
Q: What do you like to do when you’re not working?
CF: It’s fair to say that I’m happiest when I’m doing something physically active, it’s what I enjoy. From a young age, I was involved in martial arts — boxing, kickboxing etc. — and really enjoyed that as way of keeping fit, but during my time in the police I switched to more general gym and fitness routine.
I have two dogs — half husky, half shar pei — so as you’d imagine they’ve got a lot of energy, so it takes a lot of walking and hiking to keep them occupied and happy.
Additionally, my three older sisters all have kids — so uncle duties also keep me busy — and I’m in the middle of planning my wedding, so there’s lots to do there too!
