People power and ‘Glassdoor’ hold no fear for ANS Group CEO
If there’s model for a successful democratised company, then perhaps ANS Group, led by its recently-appointed chief executive Paul Shannon, is it.
Delisted in 2011, the Manchester-based cloud services provider is almost 100% owned by its 263 northern employees and directors.
And according to Shannon it is possibly one of the best things that happened to the company which calls Manchester Science Park its home and celebrated record turnover of £53m as it struck a £58m refinancing deal in 2016.
The 37-year-old Warrington native cites that ownership issue as the main reason for its high level of talent retention.
“We believe the key to our success is the incentivisation of our staff our talent retention,” he said.
“Delisting has enabled our staff to buy shares in the business, which means they have a 10% stake. The remaining 90% is owned by the directors which means that almost the entire business belongs to people working for ANS.”
Since taking office in January, Shannon says his main aim is to keep the company’s 250 staff engaged.
“We have to listen more and make it easier for staff to tell us anything that can push the business forward,” he told TheBusinessDesk.
Shannon’s conviction on the point is so strong he has just published a blog extolling the virtues of the Glassdoor – a platform, similar to the TripAdvisor concept – on which employees can anonymously post warts-and-all appraisals of the companies they work for, which potentially can be brutal.
In the blog he describes the “lightbulb moment” when he realised taking on board criticism from staff may a good thing.
“Thinking about how I use TripAdvisor, I realised how dependent I’ve become on a tool that hasn’t failed me over the last two to three years and why I have become so dependent on it,” he wrote.
“In my mind it became clear that Glassdoor is effectively ‘JobAdvisor’ and I am one of the proprietors of a business that we absolutely love.
“Loving a business ourselves is what leads to the initial defensiveness about ‘JobAdvisor’ and anyone having the audacity to say anything negative.”
However, Shannon wrote that “with the lightbulb on”, it led ANS to do the following:
• Digest all reviews in detail
• Ascertain that the bad reviews relate to a specific team within ANS
• Triggered the business to create a company-wide internal survey earlier than scheduled
• Poured over the internal results to if the department feedback matched Glassdoor
• Identified a direct correlation
• Organised internal meetings with team leaders of said department
• Listened to all their feedback and developed short, medium and long term actions
• Implemented all the short term and planned in medium and long term actions.
“The feedback from these actions was amazing,” said Shannon. “The difference was visible among the teams.”
Shannon said off the back of those actions, ANS has now implemented a company-wide “100% People Engagement policy”.
It has instigated digitisation of its personal development plan recording system and made transparent the pay enhancement agreed with individuals so they can see how progressing themselves impacts their benefits.
ANS has also expanded its training and development team and re-introduced an intensive management training initiative.
Shannon added: “In essence, Glassdoor isn’t our enemy, nor is it a ‘problem’. The feedback we receive from our employees is a powerful took which will help us build an even better business.
“The future for ANS is going to be awesome and we can’t wait to harness the opportunity to grow and flourish as one of the best and most rewarding companies to work for in the UK.”
