Powerforce Field Marketing and Retail Services Ltd

Sector

Professional Services

Location:

Reading

Established in

1997

Employees

152

Website

www.powerforcegb.com

About us

Powerforce is an award-winning sales solutions business. We are part of the global Advantage Smollan Group which allows us to leverage best practices, capabilities and technologies to offer highly effective and consistent UK and international representation.

We work across retail representing well-known companies and brands such as Molson Coors, Pladis, Haribo, Lego and Lenovo. Our work includes the creation of strategic and tactical sales teams, through to experiential, events and product sampling plus a whole load of other approaches designed to help our customers sell more.

Our purpose (thinking differently to connect our customers to the world) reflects our privileged position of being at the centre of the connection between our customers’ products and the consumers that love them.

Our vision (create the impact your brand deserves) ensures we focus on making sure our customers’ brand execution is the envy of their competitors

Our mission (clever solutions delivered by passionate people) challenges us to provide new and better ways to represent our customers at the point of purchase, whilst still delivering industry leading engagement within our teams.

Awards

What employees say

Two and a half years ago I started working for Powerforce and have loved every minute since. They really see the potential in people, allowing us to develop our skills and confidence and grow within the business. I have personally had the opportunity to work in a few roles which has allowed me to explore different sectors of our business. Here at Powerforce we are part of a team, a unit, a family. I love working for the company and have definitely made some friends for life!

Jessica Wilson

Account Executive

89 %

I'm proud to tell others I work here.

90 %

I understand how my job contributes to achieving organisational objectives.

95 %

When you join the organisation, you are made to feel welcome.

93 %

This is a friendly place to work.

89 %

A high level of trust exists between the people in my team.

91 %

My manager/supervisor treats me with respect.

What defines us

2018 was a big year for us as we began a programme of refreshing our business and our approach. One key element of this was reviewing our Purpose, Vision and Mission as we felt we needed something new to reflect our growth and future aspirations. We wanted our PVM to be something that everyone could identify with so we made sure we included as many people from the business in its’ formulation.

For those who work here, we already know there is something unique, something that you can't quite put your finger on that makes you want to invest your all and be part of a winning team that delivers the best solution for our customers. We wanted to shout about this externally but also incorporate this into our daily lives by ensuring we accomplish this together, as a multifunctional sales team.

One example of this is that on a monthly basis, multiple members of each customer team, including Finance, Data & insight, Account Managers at various levels come together to review performance, reflect & plan against each customer's strategy, share success and seek 360° feedback. We know that we will succeed together better, so we tap into the skillset of each team member and "collaborate to find a better way". This is working brilliantly as it is allowing us to challenge and develop ourselves and each other, think differently and gain ongoing commitment to one common goal.

What inspires us

The work we do is fast paced and requires high energy, passion and determination to succeed. Fortunately, due to a good recruitment strategy and using many creative minds, we have many ways of retaining and nurturing engagement. Having fun is a necessity and showing each other we care is something that we know, through employee satisfaction surveys and customer feedback, we do well.

Small gestures go a long way, so on Valentine's Day, Halloween, Christmas or Easter, every employee receives a handwritten card and treat as a thank you. Partners watch out, because flowers could well arrive at houses for birthdays and big family events.

Recognising great work around our PVM and encouraging appreciation amongst peers is really important to us. One example is that our people have the opportunity to earn ‘Bolt’ badges in recognition for their outstanding work and progress including a special black Bolt badge for people who have been voted for by their peers.

Our teams know how to celebrate well, often accompanied by some unusual and outlandish choices of fancy-dress. Like last Christmas even more creative flair flowed out at our conference where teams from across the business performed the "Powerforce 12 days of Christmas" in (almost) vocal harmony!

At a glance

Age of employees

Years with company

Gender ratio

Fulltime / Parttime

Action highlights

This year we have put a real focus on health and wellbeing. To support this we have partnered with the mental health charity Mind to develop a series of tools that are easily accessible by all of our people. All of the support material is hosted on our intranet, myWorld, and we launched the initiative by sending out a postcard to everyone along with a tea bag and biscuit to encourage them to pause, make a brew, munch on the biscuit and reflect on their own wellbeing as well as their team’s health.

Just as Mind are supporting us and our people, we want to make sure we’re giving plenty back. Not only are they our chosen charity, but also we’ve entered a team in to the Royal Parks Half Marathon with all money raised going to Mind.

Word from the top

We’ve always known we’re a ‘great place to work’ so it is fantastic that we have been officially recognised by Great Place to Work® as one of the UK’s Best Workplaces™. I am so proud of each and every member of our business for being at the heart of what we do and driving such exceptional results each and every day for our customers.

We work hard to make sure our fantastic culture and development framework means that everyone has the opportunity to grow and realise their full potential.

Nicky Sanderson

Managing Director

Career and jobs

Application tips

Our recruitment ethos can best be summed up as ‘Recruit for Attitude, Train for Skill’ and we focus on this whenever we are on the lookout for people to join our team. We strongly believe that we have all the tools to provide someone with the right skills to be successful, but they have got to have the right attitude to begin with. Some of our best people joined us with little or no experience, but showed they had a positive attitude and a will to succeed. For more senior roles, as you would expect, we would need to see a demonstrable track record of success but not necessarily in our industry.

We recruit for a whole range of roles. Our strategic teams tend to be either full time or part time, or a mix of both. From a tactical perspective, our people work for us on an ad hoc basis as and when activities need completing.

Our great workplace

Our values and behaviours aren’t just words on a page, they act as our compass and we live them every day. Our values are:

• Be Open

• Be Connected

• Be Curious & Brave

• Be Positive

• Be a Team

We focus heavily on personal development. This framework includes annual appraisals and personal development plans in addition to regular one to ones with your line manager. We also put a strong focus on self-directed learning for those people eager to expand their knowledge and skills.

One of our key aims is to develop our people to be successful in their careers. For those that are ready to take the next step, we are in a very unique position to be able to offer opportunities across our business, our UK and global group as well as having a proven track record of moving people directly in to our customers. Not many companies are able to offer some many possible paths to choose from.

Contact

Dawn Olds

Recruitment Manager

Tel: +44118 927 1066
Email: dolds@advantagesmollan.com