Hays buys diversity & inclusion specialist Vercida Consulting
HR services and recruitment consultancy Hays has purchased a majority stake in the consulting wing of the Vercida Group. Hays will now leverage Vercida Consulting to ramp up its diversity, equity and inclusion advisory offering.
Traditionally, Hays has been known as a workforce solutions and recruitment firm, employing over 13,000 staff operating from 255 offices in 33 countries. An expert at recruiting qualified, professional and skilled people worldwide, the group operates across the private and public sectors, dealing in permanent positions, contract roles and temporary assignments, in the UK, Germany and Australia, and in Continental Europe, Latin America and Asia.
Previously, Hays has acquired four firms throughout its history, to help with that primary goal. This included the purchase of Hays Executive and Recruitment Solutions Group in 2006, James Harvard International in 2007, and Veredus in 2014. However, the firm’s latest acquisition sees it branching out into the newer market segment of diversity and inclusion consulting.
Hays CEO, Alistair Cox, commented, “The world of work has undergone significant changes in recent years and the needs of our customers have evolved alongside that. One of the core pillars of our Group strategy is to deliver a broader range of workforce related services to our customers across the globe, helping them with their wider human capital and talent challenges, ultimately delivering more value to our relationship. The purchase of Vercida Consulting will increase our ability to deliver a host of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) services.”
Vercida is an expert in DE&I leadership, supporting businesses looking to attract diverse talent and create a culture of inclusion. Looking ahead, the acquisition of Vercida will help Hays to have more in-depth conversations with clients who see DE&I as a significant challenge, and need a partner to help them improve. Hays will immediately look to leverage Vercida to this end, as part of its advisory services line.
Vercida Consulting is currently focused on the UK market, however, it provides services through employees and an associate network in the US and parts of Europe. Joining Hays gives it the opportunity to grow into target markets such as the US, Australia and New Zealand, and Germany, in the move’s initial phase. Co-founder Dan Robertson will meanwhile continue his role of Managing Director of Vercida, in addition to heading up Hays’ Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Advisory Service for external clients.
Robertson commented, “The acquisition of Vercida Consulting by Hays will provide us with the ability to upscale what Vercida has been doing all these years, creating a more diverse world of work and developing inclusive leaders. We will now have the capacity to help far more organisations on their DE&I journeys, across the globe. By offering an evidence-based approach to inclusive culture change, we can constructively challenge the existing organisational norms and ways of working.”
Fellow co-founder Morgan Lobb will remain as CEO of Vercida Group – the broader HR and diversity services organisation he helped set up in 2017. Commenting on LinkedIn, Lobb noted that he was “immensely proud” of the deal, which would “ramp up the business growth beyond our expectations and ultimately have a positive effect on the way employers interact with their people.”
