Younger You: More than just a pair of Converse
Almost every day I put on a pair of converse trainers, date stamped with the year I joined recruitment and tie up my PRIDE rainbow shoelaces, ready for another day in the office. When I get in, I look around and see more and more pairs of converse, like mine, on the feet of those in our LHi leadership team. I also know that around the world, in Europe and USA there are even more Converse walking the floors of our international offices… and it fills me with pride.
Before you stop reading, this isn’t an advert for Converse – but it is a huge shout out to us. If you are a follower of LHi you may have heard us talking about our core leadership principle, the “Younger You”. A few years ago, before I became the CEO of LHi Group, I introduced the idea of the “Younger You”, a management philosophy that has, I’m proud to say, become part of our DNA.
The “Younger You” philosophy was born during our 2018 leadership summit in New York, in a session I ran focused on leadership and culture. I talked about how, as leaders, it is our duty to remember the person we used to be, brand new to the world of work and recruitment, absolutely no knowledge and buckets of fear and self-doubt. It is our duty to remember what it was like to walk in the shoes of the guys and girls that now work for us and most importantly, it is our duty to make sure that the path they walk is clearer than it was for us, leading them to greater success. The converse shoes, date-stamped, are a symbol of that, to help remember our ‘Younger You’.
Since that summit, the “Younger You” has been instrumental in shaping how LHi moves to a truly ‘people first’ approach, focused on hiring, developing and maintaining ‘good humans’. As leaders, we have one very simple philosophy… "The journey for those coming after us must be a better, happier and a smoother path to success than it was for us”, if we ensure that this is ever-present at LHi then I am confident that we are building a business on rock solid foundations and, as we grow, we will become stronger rather than dissipate. After all, it will be a business full of 'great humans'.
We now have over 50 proud owners of Younger You Converse at LHi and its creation is one that I am incredibly proud of.
In 2019, we introduced the Younger You Award at the end of the year award ceremonies, which saw two of our newest Managers at the time in Europe and USA win the accolade for being the best representation of our Younger You philosophy. So, in 2019 the first winners of this award were Mariano Allegra and George Davies. Both individuals have consistently gone above and beyond to demonstrate the values the Converse represent and were more than worthy winners. Both showed they truly care about the people in their team both professionally and personally and you can see that this has materialized in the incredible growth of the individuals with no fewer than 10 promotions between their two teams in 2019!
The LHi family is continuing to grow across all our locations but, I hope, with core elements like our “Younger You” philosophy and our shared values, mission and purpose, we are creating a legacy, one which will stand the tests of time and make us all proud of the part we played in LHi's adventure.
#YoungerYou #GreatHumans