Clinical trials tech company creates 12 new jobs
A Nottingham-based firm which collects data from clinical trials is creating a dozen new jobs.
ERT, which has its base at Wheatcroft Business Park has created and filled a range of new roles, with further appointments imminent, according to Martin Johnson, senior talent acquisition partner at ERT.
He said: “Whilst the Covid-19 crisis has unfortunately led to a great deal of uncertainty in the job market and indeed within our own industry, our virtual trials solutions have been a major strength in terms of our offering and we have been recruiting heavily for some months now.
“The challenge of course is onboarding our new people when we are in a period of lockdown but thankfully the technology exists to do this as seamlessly as possible from a skills and processes point of view.
“The real issue and opportunity is around organisational culture and finding ways to open and maintain channels of communication as we build our teams and integrate new employees into the wider ERT family here in the UK and across the globe.
“Thankfully we’ve seen some great initiatives from the team here in terms of welcoming our new hires and keeping everyone feeling like they are part of a larger organisation even if we are all working from home now.’
Two of the new hires are Charlotte Lappin who joined ERT in a talent development role and Ed Watson, who is a software developer working within the eCOA initial release team.
Lappin said: “My role focuses on the training side of the business and building teams and so it is certainly an interesting time to join a growing organisation but what I’ve seen from day one has been incredibly refreshing and innovative.
“These are unprecedented times, there’s no classic manual or best practice to follow but I’m seeing some wonderful ideas and some very creative approaches to team building and communication already which is fantastic to see.’
Watson, a JavaScript developer who joined ERT the week before lockdown, said: “It has been a little surreal because I’ve only been to the offices once since joining ERT but we’re a tech business so as long as we can keep the culture thriving we are in a good place wherever we are physically based right now. Even things like code reviews, which we’d normally do in person, are continuing online through a series of very secure systems.
“There’s been plenty of activity around global and local Google communities so we can all keep in touch and we have daily catch ups but there’s also a major focus around the wellbeing of our colleagues with things like virtual yoga and even a few virtual ‘happy hours’ where we’ve joined up online to unwind at the end of another busy week.
“I’m looking forward to meeting my colleagues in person as soon as possible but for now, we’ll embrace technology to build our teams and keep moving forwards.”
