Hollis has always been a fun company to work for and work with. We see it as part of our DNA and what makes us altogether different.

We have always prided ourselves on our ability to be hard working, professional and extremely knowledgeable, whilst still being able to have fun with colleagues and clients. Whilst we managed to maintain the ‘serious’ elements of our ethos throughout the pandemic, I think it is fair to say that, to some extent, we lost our sense of fun. Or, at least, the fun was much harder to come by.

When we sat down as a board and started to work on our business plan for this year, we had a handful of very clear objectives…one of them was to ‘find our fun’.

Being fun is important to us. Not only does it help with employee wellbeing, but it fosters a creative atmosphere and leads to greater collaboration between colleagues. As we have grown as a business, we have maintained our ‘one team’ approach that sees every service line and office work off the same profit and loss account. This has only been possible by bringing people together regularly and ensuring that colleague relationships are as strong as they can be. It also helps to build meaningful relationships with clients, so that they want to work with us because of the results we deliver AND because they enjoy it and like us as people.

In short (and I am), being fun is good for business.

Perhaps the epitome of our ‘playing as hard as we work’ philosophy was our return to a full company summer social this year, which saw us hold our inaugural ‘HollisFest’. This brought almost all of our near 500 strong team from across the UK and Europe together for a day of teambuilding and training in the heart of the Surrey countryside. With a campsite to rival the most popular of summer festivals, there were dodgems, a ferris wheel, a dodgeball court, street food stalls, bands and plenty of opportunities to ‘drench a director’ in the medieval stocks. Having gone through a period of significant growth over the last 12 months, for many this was a chance to meet others in the business for the first time and socialise with those from different offices and countries. It was also an important chance for us to re-emphasise some of the key attributes of our company culture.

At Hollis we have always invested heavily in socialising with our clients so that we can really get to know them as people, rather than just clients, and we don’t plan on stopping.

Some of our Chairman’s, John, great loves in life are sailing, seafood and surveying. Over the years, sailing has become a company-wide favourite playing a huge part in the fun we have with clients and I, for one, am really looking forward to our return to Cowes Week in August.

We did great things during the pandemic. We innovated. We put ourselves at the forefront of ESG. We grew. It feels fantastic to be able to continue to do all that, but with the added Hollis sprinkle of fun thrown into the mix.