The energy trading arm of GazProm, the Russian-owned gas producer, has overhauled its employer brand strategy to embrace “increased openness” in a hiring drive to recruit up to 600 extra people in the next two years.

GazProm Marketing and Trading (GMT) head of recruitment Alistair Milnes told PM that as the firm has grown rapidly it has faced a recruitment challenge because the firm’s “success story was not publicly accessible”.

A lack of accessibility combined with increasingly fierce competition for talent, driven by growth in the energy market, prompted Milnes to take a fresh approach.

He said that as recently as three months ago the employer’s website presented a very “bland and corporate” image to potential applicants.

“This probably created a mystique which made people think: ‘what are you hiding?’,” he said.

“We’re growing strategically and we have not been very public about what we were achieving or what we were aiming to achieve. And it’s important, if you’re looking to recruit great people, that you can tell them where you’ve come from but also to articulate where you’re going to, so people can buy in to that. It’s part of the psychological contract that HR people talk about.”

Milnes said the website now has employee profiles and blogs to give insight into what it’s like to work at the company. This is part of a “multi-channel career strategy” aimed at attracting the right people “and developing our brand as a leading employer”, he said.

He warned that “anyone can sell a position but it must be authentic, if it doesn’t live up to expectations the individual will have an immediate disconnect.” He said that GMT’s attrition was “comfortably under 5 per cent”.

For a medium-sized company the firm has a relatively large HR team of 18 people, which Milnes said “indicates how seriously we take HR”.

“We have our parent company OAO GazProm in Moscow, who are very supportive, but GMT culture is very international,” he added.

However, Milnes also said that the UK’s immigration cap, brought in by the government, was “something that can prohibit getting access to the best possible people”.

But he added that the company’s strategy of having multi-locations allowed it to circumvent the problem.
 
“HQ is here in London but it’s equally important to have strong people in all our locations. I think we’re at quite an advantage there because we’re not as restricted by only recruiting in London or the UK.”

The company is currently moving from its original headquarters in Hampton Wick to larger central offices in Regents Park.

As part of the move the firm will increase its employee base by up to 600 people. It currently has 375 staff in London and 580 globally, with offices in Paris, Berlin, Houston, Singapore and Manchester.