AN international business based in Newton-le-Willows is on the hunt for locals who want to work abroad.
Mercury Hampton, based on Crow Lane East, is a business performance and recruitment support company and currently the only business to offer its services in a collective package digitally.
The company’s service is used in 14 different countries, in seven different languages, to thousands of businesses.
The multi-million turnover business was founded by Chris Hickey and his co-director Jonathan Sallis four years ago and has since experienced significant growth in revenue and recruitment.
Mercury Hampton is now looking to branch out in America and is currently on the search for potential locals who are interested to work at its new office in Austin, Texas.
Discussing the company and its devotion to the wellbeing of its employees, Chris said: "We’re dealing with people, we’re dealing with businesses, and we’re dealing with the economy.
"You can help a company assemble the most powerful team in the world, but if there’s a big energy crisis, they are the things we can’t influence, but we can put stuff in place to make things easier and to give them more time.
"I’ve created a culture around a lot of the things I’ve experienced in my life, so these people who we have here, we have a really open, honest relationship with each other.
"We treat the people in here like a business family and because we’ve looked after the culture so much, I found that when we got in a situation in Covid, the people who worked for me were willing to run through walls."
The 38-year-old also emphasised the importance of valuing employees, and as the business experienced growth during the pandemic, they were able to take the team to a five-star hotel stay abroad.
Chris added: "Because of the loyalty and hard work during a very difficult and uncertain time, their hard work got us through the most difficult period in trading history, very successfully as well.
"It was nothing that I did; I was the orchestrator, but they we the people who did the work."
The company’s dedication to its role was recently recognised as Mercury Hampton bagged two awards at the St Helens Business Awards.
READ > The St Helens Borough Business Awards - winners and pictures
The business won Employer of the Year and Scale up business of the Year.
On behalf of his team, the former Cowley college student said: "Employer of the year was important because it was good to know that the effort we gave our employees to have a safe place and a nice-looking environment was rewarded, and to be recognised for that is fantastic and only adds to what we’ve done has been the right decision.
"To win the Scale Up award, on the back of Covid, for any company, is an achievement in itself."
Following the company’s recent success, a second company has been launched, Mercury Hampton Contract, with Chris and Jonathan teaming up with Contract and Interim director Danial Smith.
Chris, who formerly worked for an executive recruitment company where he met his business partner Jonathan, came from a working-class background, and has always advocated the importance of offering local opportunities in a community full of "understated heroes."
Mercury Hampton is looking to hire locals who are interested in the fully funded move to Texas.
He said: "We’re trying to recruit locally and get people who’ve got an interest of potentially relocating; we want to keep our identity in America.
"When I set this business up, I knew there was lots of good people locally, so I was able to develop a business that would offer people a home.
"It’s an opportunity to work somewhere that would develop them professionally whilst allowing them to express themselves in a safe-working environment that puts wellbeing at the forefront of what we do."
For further information on opportunities, visit https://mercuryhampton.com/.
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