About Nicoll Curtin Ltd.

Nicoll Curtin's leadership team knows that the best ideas can come from anywhere in the business so they are committed to learning from everyone and implementing great ideas irrespective of where they have come from. The leadership team reviews any ideas that come through and communicates them with the business. Work hard, work together. The Senior Management team understands why their business is successful and it’s because of who they hire and how they develop their consultants. Their MD and Sales Director sit with the teams on a daily basis and operate an open desk policy, meaning anyone can go up to them and ask questions. They sit on the floor and hot desk throughout the teams which demonstrates how involved they really are.

The company use a number of formal and informal processes to support employee development. Monthly business reviews between an employee and their manager are time off the desk and cover the monthly results in terms of activity and performance, then touch on areas of concern and areas of strength and a section left for discussion upwards and downwards and then room for manager comments and actions for the next month. Quarterly reviews are a more in depth look at how an employee is doing and cover more areas such as challenges faced across the quarter and training and development discussions which focus on what training the individual needs to succeed and quality of training is evaluated. The quarterly reviews also look at the promotion criteria and discussions are had to ensure the individual is on track for promotion. Ratings are also given to each employee on how well they demonstrated the Nicoll Curtin Attributes over the last quarter, and this rating needs to be at a minimum level in order to be considered for promotion. Annual career reviews work to ensure that an individual’s goals and targets are recorded and acknowledged by the business and enables them to create a talent pipeline for the business- knowing who wants to become management or principal billers. These annual reviews do not cover billing performance but more about the individual and how they are doing in terms of their career and satisfaction..

Team building is incredibly important at Nicoll Curtin. As a company they have an incredibly strong culture and people genuinely are surprised by how positively like-minded their colleagues are to themselves. Their teams are always initiating their own team building nights with a yearly budget each team leader is given, but getting the whole company together is important. Each summer they fly in their Zurich office and shut down the office for the afternoon and organise a group programme which gets people from all parts of the office working together. Last summer they rented out a space in Victoria Park and had a company organise a giant Olympics course where teams competed in 6 challenges and one crowned the winner. Feedback was exceptional on the event, not only because of the investment into the calibre of activities but the fact that staff developed great relationships with new people in the business across floors and between their global offices. Following that event, their summer party takes place in the evening at a top dinner destination in the city and it is all funded by the business and something the staff talk all year about. Another initiative Nicoll Curtin has started is called Project Outstanding whereby a team is nominated at the quarterly town hall to spend £500 in any way they want in order to make the business more outstanding. The teams hold brainstorming sessions and come up with their idea which they present to the business at the next quarterly town hall, and pass along the baton.