Human Connections Group founder and director Emily Richards is referring to her and fellow director Victoria Robertson’s decision to downsize their Dunedin-based business.
Established in 2013 by Mrs Richards — she was joined by Mrs Robertson in 2016 — the human resources and recruitment business had its strongest financial year to date for the year ended March 2020.
But the arrival of Covid-19, with its "truly significant financial impact", took it from its best year to its worst in less than six months.
Two staff were made redundant in the recruitment team early on, and they had fought to keep their clients going, supporting them with "very challenging" conversations while also endeavouring to support their own staff.
During that time, they had also seriously reflected on their business and the toll it was personally taking on them.
A consultation process was recently held with their team with two options — either gifting them the business and removing themselves except for mentoring and support, or scaling back significantly to the point where only a few clients remained where there were outstanding agreements and obligations.
The process was now completed and they had started the steps to scale back the business and had disestablished the three remaining staff roles.
Mrs Robertson and Mrs Richards would close their Bath St premises at the end of this month and work from home.
Since its establishment, the business had been on a "meteoric rise" — "demand was just huge" — and while they were trying to keep a work-life balance, that "went out the door", Mrs Richards said.
But then Covid-19 hit and, while she ran a recruitment business in Sydney during the Global Financial Crisis, this was "quicker, harder, faster", she said.
They and their staff had been supporting businesses through some "awful" situations, which was emotionally draining.
"These guys have not had a nice conversation for months," Mrs Robertson said, as they outlined how it had all been about restructuring, redundancies or tough conversations.
With a key human resources business partner also leaving for a new job opportunity, it left the pair to seriously reflect.
Mrs Robertson’s father died suddenly in March and she had not had time to grieve properly, while Mrs Richards had some health issues to deal with. Both have primary school-aged children.
When it came to work-life balance, "we’ve somehow lost our way and we need to retain that balance", she said.
"It’s a bit of a reset.
"For us, it was never about the money. It was about doing the right thing and helping people that needed support with HR and recruitment.
"That’s helped us make the right decision, as hard as it is. It’s still not about the money," she said.
Their three staff had been "amazing, supportive, professional and caring". One already had secured a job and opportunities were being explored for the other two.
When it came to the future of the business, Mrs Robertson said they would be remembering the lessons they had learnt, and remembering their priorities.
"We’re not doing all this to do it all again," she said.
They would not be marketing their services and they would get better at "saying no", Mrs Richards added.
