Zoe Suren, Founder and Managing Director at EnergiLink

It has been over 4 years since the inception of EnergiLink, and what a journey it has been. We have completed all sorts of projects in that time from rebuilding the E&P workforce brick by brick, to realising our ambition to be one of the first search firms to provide a route of transition for upstream skill sets to alternative energies.

Having carved a niche of working with small businesses to build their teams, from North Sea development projects to Helium Exploration in Africa and everything in between here are a few of the key points that we have learnt from building teams in small businesses:

• Track record: Do your potential hires have a track record of success but also failures - how have they managed both.
• Resilience: We all know that most of the wins are achieved through learning from the challenges. Starting out means accepting that there will be harder times and hiring teams who can stand the pace.
• Incentives: There is always a risk to joining a small company and giving thought to how your team are rewarded to mitigate some of that risk is key to attracting and retaining top talent. Bonuses - LTIP's - ownership all matter.
• Personality: Ambition is key to building momentum in a small team but having the ability to work as one of the team is just as important. Finding the right balance is key to building a productive and successful business. It is not an easy thing to find and I will follow up on the methods that we use to identify this in in another article.
• Culture: Being clear and aligned on what culture is important to your business is key. The reality is that only a small percentage of success is down to 'luck', the majority is down to hard work from skilled people, so choosing the culture that suits your vision is much more important than adopting someone else's (even if it is sometimes easier).
• Clarity: Small companies are appealing because they attract the type of people who are willing to take the risk to be a bigger part of something they believe can work. We usually hire them for their skills and knowledge so an openness within the business really helps to retain talent long term. Sharing company goals, opinions, growth plans and reviewing workplace satisfaction is important, particularly as small companies don't usually have a HR department to do it for us.

Having my own experience of founding small businesses over the last ten years has given our team a unique position to understand not only the challenges around growth but also the opportunity to get it right.

The satisfaction that we get seeing many of our clients thrive with the teams that we have helped build, is what drives us and we look forward to more as the market continues to create opportunity.

If you are starting out, or interested in joining a small company do reach out.

KeyFacts Energy Industry Directory: EnergiLink