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ONE of the region’s fastest growing recruitment companies has stepped up its expansion with the opening of a second office and the launch of a new division.

Jo Hand Recruitment has established a branch in Darlington in anticipation of growing demand for temporary office workers as businesses wrestle with the impact of the recession.

“Recruitment is an excellent barometer of business confidence,” says the company’s founder Jo Hand. “Temporary placements during January are the highest we have known because many employers are simply not prepared to commit to filling vacancies with permanent staff.”

Jo established her business in early 2006, having previously spent 18 years with global employment services company Manpower UK, where she worked her way up through the ranks from recruitment consultant to become regional manager for the North-East with a £10m budget.

Her company initially specialised in temporary office staff such as admin, accounts, PAs and office managers. It began life in managed offices at Teesdale, in Stockton, and moved three times into bigger offices until, having outgrown the fourth, it secured the tenancy of 16-26 Albert Road, Middlesbrough.

In only its second year, the business smashed through the £1m turnover barrier, it currently turns over in the region of £1.2m - and rising - and has a very healthy portfolio of nearly 160 companies, predominantly based in the North-East.

Says Jo: “Albert Road is the perfect location for us. It is easily accessible, it is in the heart of the employment agency sector serving the Tees Valley, and having run Manpower UK’s Middlesbrough office - one of its best performing branches in the country during part of my career - it is an area I know and love, and which knows me well.

“Expanding into Darlington was at the back of my mind from the beginning. Like Middlesbrough, it is an area with which I have close ties and a number of existing clients intimated that, if we had a local base, they would be keen to use our services. Already, within our first couple of weeks, we have gained three major clients.”

The opening of the office, at Lingfield Way, a developing new commercial centre on Darlington’s Yarm Road Industrial Estate, has led to two extra staff being appointed, one at Darlington and one in Middlesbrough, with experienced manager Nicola O’Hara transferring from head office to run the new operation.

Meanwhile, Jo Hand Recruitment has introduced an engineering division in response to demands from clients in the sector to which it provides commercial staff. The new division will recruit blue-collar workers, such as engineers, welders, fitters etc

Jo says: “I launched my own business because I identified a niche in the market for giving a platinum service, but without the platinum price. Our business is about providing the best service possible so people want to come back to us time and again. Thankfully, not only do most clients come back to us, but word must be spreading because we continue to add new ones from an increasingly wide range of sectors, and it is definitely helping the growth of the business to have eggs in many different baskets.

“After providing commercial staff for companies in the engineering sector, clients said our matching and recruitment was the best they had come across and asked us to consider supplying workers across the engineering trades. It is early days for new division, but initial feedback is excellent and all the early signs are promising.”

To contact Jo Hand Recruitment, call 01642 242777 for Middlesbrough or 01325 362777 for Darlington, or visit www.johandrecruitment.co.uk

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