Building society in recruitment surge

Leeds Building Society has revealed it intends to carry on expanding its workforce.

The ongoing benefits for the financial services industry have been demonstrated by another institution announcing plans to create hundreds of new jobs.

Leeds Building Society has revealed it took on 100 extra staff in 2014, adding to the 200 it put on the payroll in the previous two years. It now has 1,145 employees, including 631 at its office in Leeds.

The society added that it intends to continue expanding its workforce at the same rate in 2015.

General manager of the society Becky Hewitt said staff are "highly motivated" and committed to growth.

She added: “Our People Strategy focuses on recruiting and retaining the best talent and maintaining a high performance culture and colleague engagement is high.

“The average length of service is almost seven years, with over a third of our colleagues being with the society for more than five years. We also run an apprenticeship scheme providing young people with excellent training and career development."

She concluded that the company offers plenty of opportunities for talented staff to make good career progress.

Leeds may provide an example of the kind of development successful financial firms can engage in, where staff are enabled to progress, contribute constructively to the business and by doing so can enjoy the best career development.

Candidates seeking work as accountants and tax advisors will be among those who could benefit from such an enlightened approach and using a specialist career agency can help people find an employer who can help fulfil these ambitions.

The financial sector is currently ahead of the economy as a whole when it comes to new recruitment, according to the latest survey on jobs by KPMG and the Recruitment and Employers Confederation.

Its survey for December revealed that the accounting and financial sector saw the greatest demand for new candidates, just as had been the case in November.

However, while vacancies were still on the rise, the pace of increase was at its lowest since June 2013.