Category: News &amp; Views

LI: https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/mary-maguire/18/73/553

Think of St George and you’re probably picturing a heroic knight, slaying a ferocious, fire-breathing dragon! On the 23rd April we celebrate England’s patron saint, St George.

However, like many early saints, the exact details of his life remain a mystery. Here, we separate the facts from the fiction, establishing the truth behind the legend of St George. Here are 9 little-known facts about our own favourite patron saint!

1. ST GEORGE WASN’T ENGLISH!

St George might be hailed as a national hero, but he was actually born – in the 3rd century AD – more than 2,000 miles away from England in Cappadocia (modern-day Turkey).

He is thought to have died in Lydda (modern-day Israel) in the Roman province of Palestine in AD 303. It is believed that his tomb was in a place called ‘Lod’, a centre of Christian pilgrimage.

2. ST GEORGE WASN’T A KNIGHT!

Often portrayed as a knight in shining armour, the truth is less fanciful.

Whilst St George was depicted from the 11th century as a heroic knight or a warrior on horseback, it is more likely that he was a humble officer in the Roman army.

3. ST GEORGE WAS A MARTYR

Like many saints, St George was described as a martyr after he died for his Christian faith. It is believed that during the persecutions of Emperor Diocletian in the early 4th century, St George was punished by execution, for refusing to make a sacrifice in honour of the pagan gods at that time.

4. HE NEVER VISITED ENGLAND!

Yep, St George never actually visited England. However his reputation for virtue and holiness spread across Europe and his feast day – the 23rd April – was celebrated in England from the 9th century onwards.

He became popular with English kings. Edward I (1272-1307) had banners bearing the emblem of St George (a red cross on a white background) and Edward III (1327-77) had a strong interest in the saint and owned a ‘phial’ or ‘relic’ of his blood. It was not until the reign of Henry VIII, that the cross of St George was used to represent England.

5. THE DRAGON WAS ADDED LATER

The story goes that St George rode into Silene (Libya) to free the city from a dragon who had a taste for humans, but it’s a story that post-dates the real George by several centuries!

Images of George and the dragon survive from the 9th century – 500 years after his death. Originally these may simply have been symbolising the battle between Good and Evil. In the Middle Ages, the story was developed and popularised in a compendium of stories about saints’ lives called ‘The Golden Legend’.

6. ST GEORGE WAS A SAINT FOR 1000 YEARS BEFORE THE ‘HOLIDAY’

St George was canonised in AD 494 by Pope Gelasius, who claimed he was one of those ‘whose names are justly revered among men but whose acts are known only to God’.

A feast day of St George has been celebrated in England for hundreds of years on 23 April, which was possibly the date of his martyrdom. Following the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, St George’s Day became one of the most important feast days in the English calendar.

7. ENGLAND ISN’T THE ONLY COUNTRY TO CELEBRATE ST GEORGE

St George is truly an international saint and England is not the only country or region to claim him as its patron. Something that in todays multi-cultural England, ought to be celebrated!

England shares St George with Venice, Genoa, Portugal, Ethiopia and Catalonia among others as their patron saint and many of these places have their own celebrations and ceremonies in his honour.

8. PEOPLE TURNED TO ST GEORGE FOR PROTECTION

During the Middle Ages, people believed that St George was one of the ‘Fourteen Holy Helpers’ – a group of saints who could help during epidemic diseases. St George’s protection was invoked against several nasty diseases, many fatal and with infectious causes, including the Plague and leprosy. It is a shame we cannot invoke his name to defeat the Coronavirus!

From around 1100, St George’s help was also sought to protect the English army. In William Shakespeare’s Henry V, the monarch calls on the saint during his battle cry at the Battle of Harfleur in the famous, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends” speech, crying “God for Harry! England, and St. George!”

Five hundred years later – during the First World War – a ghostly apparition of St George is said to have aided British troops during their retreat from Mons, and the naval commander of the Zeebrugge Raid, cited the saint as inspiration!

9. ST GEORGE REPRESENTS THOSE WE HONOUR

The Order of the Garter (founded by Edward III in 1348) is the very highest order of chivalry in the country, with Queen Elizabeth II at the helm as ‘Sovereign of the Garter’.

To this day, St George’s cross still appears on the Garter badge and his image is the pendant of the Garter chain.

In 1940 King George VI created a new award for acts of the greatest heroism, bravery or courage in the face of extreme danger. The George Cross, named after the king, bears the image of St George vanquishing the dragon. The image of St George also adorns many of the memorials built to honour those killed during World War One.

Last year, poignantly, thoughts on this day turned to the bravery, dedication and hard work of all critical workers and our NHS Heroes who worked so valiantly to help those affected by the Coronavirus and COVID-19. This year, with the huge success of the vaccine roll-outs and reduced infections – we are thankfully in a totally different place.

Back in the dark days of winter, our team wanted to do something different. We wanted to help inspire those wfh, furloughed and people looking for work with a target to help them with their fitness and mental health. We also wanted to provide much needed support to a local charity.

But how?

Tom Norton, one of our Senior Consultants, came up with the inspirational idea for our team and any friends of Astute who wanted to join us, to try and walk from John O’Groats down to Land’s End by Easter, with all money raised going to Derby City Mission – a fantastic local charity which provides many critical services and support to our local communities including vital food parcels. Our #miles4meals charity initiative was born!

At first, our team themselves managed nearly a couple of hundred miles. Our MD, Sarah Stevenson covered 90,000 steps in just one week herself!

Slowly but surely, as we spoke to more candidates, clients and companies generally, more and more people wanted to join us. Whole finance teams rallied together, while WFH to walk, run, cycle, and jog with us. Popping us emails once a week with their mileage tally. People looking for work would look forward to their weekly catch-up with our team to give us their progress.

Amazingly, as a group we were soon covering over 1,000 miles in a single week. Our initial goal was smashed, as was our ultimate goal to make a round trip of 1,822 miles from the northernmost tip of the UK down to the southernmost edge.

Back then, with over a month to go, we decided to set a new challenge and walk from Norway down to Southern Italy, a total distance of 4,960 miles. We thought that rather than just keep going up and down the UK, we would set a challenging goal for our dedicated band of followers and see what we could achieve together for our charity.

Our team rang round more local businesses, accounts teams, HR professionals and business owners.

The result?

With a week to go we have Italy in our sights and a distance of just 1,200 miles to go.

What started as an idea just 2 months ago in the short days of February with just 9 recruitment professionals, has grown into a truly wonderful movement of people, including teams from over 72 local East Midlands companies, people WFH, people looking for work. We are truly inspired by everyone’s help and are deeply grateful.

Keep an eye out for our news in the next few days when we will be announcing if we have achieved our ambitious target to get to Southern Italy, and importantly, how much money we have raised in total for Derby City Mission.

We hope that you have all had a wonderful Easter break in the meantime.

Thank you again to everyone who has supported us. Your efforts are deeply appreciated by all of us at Astute Recruitment and by Derby City Mission.

It is with huge pleasure that we can announce our long-serving employee, Sarah-Louise Wykes, has just been awarded a well-deserved promotion to Director! As part of the ongoing development of our recruitment team, it is crucially important to reward success and see the careers of good people in our team flourish. We have a clearly defined career structure of promotion and career development for our staff, and it is wonderful to see someone achieve so much in our team.

Sarah-Louise originally joined Astute in 2012 after a successful career as an Assistant Accountant. With her hands-on experience in accountancy, she has been able to develop excellent, long-standing relationships with clients and candidates in the local East Midlands market.

From starting as a Trainee Consultant, Sarah-Louise achieved 4 promotions. After a break to follow an opportunity to recruit finance professionals internationally, we are delighted to announce that Sarah-Louise has just been promoted to Director after resuming her career with us in 2020!

A well-deserved promotion!

Our MD Sarah Stevenson said of Sarah-Louise’s promotion: – “I recruited Sarah-Louise into my team at Astute with no prior recruitment experience, but a great grounding in accountancy and finance and lots of ambition. She has always been quick to learn, and equally keen to develop. Sarah-Louise has been and remains one of the hardest working members of my team. To be able to help her career along, and watch her thrive and become the successful business person she is today is one of the proudest moments in my career.”

Mary Maguire, MD also had this to say: – “I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Sarah-Louise for many years now. Recruitment is a people business and you need colleagues in your team who are great listeners, communicators, and team players. Sarah-Louise has each of these attributes in abundance. I’m thrilled and delighted to welcome Sarah-Louise onto our Board of Directors, and look forward to many more successful years working with her.”

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If an SME is in good financial health without a finance director (FD), entrepreneurs are often sceptical as to whether they need to recruit an FD.

Having the right people is what makes any business grow, and an inspiring finance director (FD) can contribute more than most. Yet entrepreneurs can be sceptical about hiring such a senior position.

It’s not uncommon to hear, ‘… but my business is doing well, and I already have an excellent external accountant. Do I really need an expensive over-blown bean-counter?’

The idea that an FD is just an overpaid number cruncher, can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If an entrepreneur sets out to recruit a glorified accountant, that’s what they’re likely to get. In fact, an FD should be viewed as an essential part of any growing company’s senior management team. Someone to be an expert in planning and running the business AND someone who can add a lot of commercial and operational value to a business.

The FD should be able to provide management information that a financial controller or accountant can’t – information that will really help an entrepreneur make decisions. For example, how profitable an individual customer relationship is compared with others, so they can focus on the customers that really count.

Management information and advice from an FD will also help a company with its external negotiations. Once an entrepreneur gets his or her hands on solid information about changes in their overheads and the cost of sales, it becomes much easier to agree price rises with customers and ultimately protect profit margins.

FDs can also provide advice about which business opportunities to pursue. For instance, if an acquisition is on the cards, an experienced FD will be able to help assess the right target, negotiate and seal the deal, and then help bring the two businesses together. An FD should be a dynamic leader who helps a company to do profitable deals and put processes in place to make sure you realise that profit.

How to pick a Finance Director?

So what should an entrepreneur be looking for if they decide to recruit a Financial Director?

First, let’s look at what a good FD should already be doing and have on their cv: –

Own the numbers & be able to explain the numbers. Fully understand, and be able to explain to everyone else, how the business makes its money

A great FD will put systems in place to gather and analyse information to ensure that everyone in the business knows how profits and cash are generated, by product, service, customer, contract, geography, etc. With this knowledge, a management team can make informed decisions about which activities to focus on and which to stop.

Actively drive value in the business. Successful FDs are leaders, motivated by the desire to help grow business value as quickly and effectively as possible. They want to be influential in supporting and challenging business planning and decisions. A good FD will actually be keen to add value and if they can’t, that’s a common reason for them to decide to change job.

Cash is king. Understand the importance of cash flow. Securing future cash flow is critical to a company’s valuation. A good FD will handle Forecasting, managing cash flow, and championing ways of optimising a company’s cash generation model. This could involve extending supplier terms to re-working the business model and client’s payment terms. (i.e. should the business move from short-term contracts, with unreliable payments, to a long-term, regular recurring revenue model?)

IMPORTANT: If you are looking for a future exit strategy, an FD or CFO will often be interested in some sort of equity in return for their longer-term commitment right through to sale. This means it will be directly in the FD/ CFO’s interests to do a great job and stay in the role.

Be forward-looking. An FD should help the business plan ahead by providing analysis, insight and challenge to help the management team evaluate the company’s options for the future. They should help the business pitch their budget at the right level – making it challenging but achievable and then make sure this can be reported.

Good with detail as well as the big picture. Great FD’s are adept at contributing to strategy, but also want to get into the detail to ensure the information being used around the business is absolutely correct.

Be intelligent, qualified, experienced, and ambitious. Entrepreneurs should look for someone with a professional qualification and experience working with respected people. Another good sign is when a Finance Director maintains a network of professional contacts who can help them keep abreast of the latest industry developments.

So, while a growing, entrepreneurial business may have coped without a Financial Director up to now, and feel they can carry on without one, they run the risk that limited senior management expertise will actually hold back the growth of the business.

The very thing most important to the business owner.

With the right FD at the helm, growing companies will make better-informed decisions AND have the support to lead the company where the owners want to take it, whether that means a trade sale or towards extra PE investment.

If you are considering hiring an FD, CFO, or FC, and woud like some confidential advice around the best options available, please contact Mary Maguire, who will be pleased to help you.

Mary Maguire

Managing Director
Astute | Accountancy & Finance | HR | Office Support

Suite One, Ground Floor West, Cardinal Square, 10 Nottingham Road, Derby, DE1 3QT

T: 01332 346100
M: 07717 412911

LI: https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/mary-maguire/18/73/553

The remit of a Financial Director (FD) is to direct the financial obligations, and financial reporting of a business AND help drive the company forward with the senior management team.

But that’s the easy bit. What genuine qualities lift an ordinary FD into an extraordinary Director of Finance?

This isn’t about which accountancy qualification you secured. The best, most brilliant FDs we have had the pleasure of recruiting and recruiting for, have had the full range of qualifications from CIMA, ACCA, ACA, CA, CIPFA, and QBE. The ability to pass exams, demonstrates academic rigour, but the modern FD needs much more than just letters after their name.

They need emotional and business intelligence as much as academic prowess. As the world emerges from the maelstrom of Covid into a new normal, MDs are looking for candidates who can own and understand the numbers, but who can also be intuitive to understand the power of having and keeping a resilient finance team intact.

To start with, let’s distinguish the difference between a Financial Director and a Financial Controller. The lines of duty can blur in an SME setting, but a crucial difference is an FD directs, while an FC controls the day-to-day operations of the finance function.

To effectively ‘direct’, you need to be able to command, lead, inspire. If you can’t influence people to perform their duties properly, this is a big problem.

Then we have the engagement /people bit.

You may have a great ‘number 2’ as a financial controller or finance manager, to manage staff day to day but it’s crucial you can also command the respect of the team underneath.

Don’t silo yourself but keep open lines of communication, at all levels.

A modern breakdown of the key attributes to being an exceptional FD: –

D Decisive

I Inspirational

R Reflective

E Emotionally intelligent

C Collaborative

T Tenacious

S Supportive

Let’s look at these in more depth.

Decisive: –

Decision Makers have to be able to make decisions. You’re in the wrong job as an FD, if you struggle to reach a decision, stand by it and take responsibility for the course of action you have taken. Hindsight is a great thing. There will be mistakes made. But the extraordinary FD will own their decisions and be able to deftly calculate a fresh course of direction weighing up the risks and benefits. There’s no hiding place for a great FD. You need to be seen to be a leader in your company, amongst your peers, and by your team. That’s how respect is earned.

Inspirational: –

To inspire is to be innovative. To think “outside of the box” through your knowledge and experiences, and to be creative in your thinking. The key here is application. How you apply your experience to specific, spontaneous work and business situations. As a mindset, the exceptional FD will have the dexterity to apply their interactions to a wide spectrum of situations, encouraging, and motivating their people and peers to achieve the best possible business outcomes.

Resourceful: –

This has become an absolutely crucial attribute. More than ever, the ability to adapt to many different functions or activities, the FD may have to step into other roles e.g. Interim Managing Director/ IT Director/ HR Director. They must be commercially aware and must understand the other areas of the business such as HR, Strategic direction, and IT amongst others.

Emotional intelligence: –

The Oxford University definition: the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.

“emotional intelligence is the key to both personal and professional success”.

People have been hugely affected by changes to their working routines. An FD needs to be more mindful than ever of the psychological and mental well-being of their team and lead their staff through the return to a new normal. An outstanding FD will be able to direct how their team(s) can be professionally steered during the transition from Lockdown to new normal.

They will also have honed great recruitment skills to select the talent they need, interview and challenge potential hires, and most importantly have a succession plan.

Collaborative: –

Collaboration at work means involving two or more people working together for a particular purpose for the benefit of the company. This means having the ethical, professional, and moral compass to know what needs to happen and how to work together, to bring the best results. Being emotionally aware of not just yourself but others at work is key. An exceptional FD will understand how to approach people at all levels and how to temper their language, tone and timbre to make the best possible collaboration work. Remote working and online meetings mean your efforts need to transfer even more clearly and effectively than in person.

Remember: Collaboration can be upwards, as well as cascading to more junior staff.

The FD needs to balance ambition with reality and needs to be the “wise counsel to the board without allowing entrepreneurial flair to become suppressed.”

Tenacious: –

Tenacity is the determination to consistently continue what you are doing. To see things through. From ensuring financial information produced stands up to scrutiny from external auditors, bank and other external, legal parties.

All stakeholders expect honesty and a “nothing to hide” attitude to be consistently delivered. The highest standards (ethics) must be maintained, the FD should be seen as the “Champion” of the organisation’s culture and ensure that good corporate governance is maintained at all times.

The exceptional FD will have this in hand.

Supportive: –

“Your support network is the solid ground from which you can propel yourself upwards” . Anna Barnes.

This is about your own support network as much as being a supportive FD.

The most successful business people will have great emotional and personal backup networks. From family, and friends to external services and people to make their personal lives run as smoothly, healthily, and efficiently as possible.

You can’t be an effective, exceptional FD if your personal life and own wellbeing are in disarray.

If you would like confidential career or employment advice around this or any other topic, please contact Mary Maguire and she will be delighted to help you or navigate you to one of our team.

Article by Mary Maguire

Managing Director
Astute | Accountancy & Finance | HR | Office Support

Suite One, Ground Floor West, Cardinal Square, 10 Nottingham Road, Derby, DE1 3QT

T: 01332 346100
M: 07717 412911

LI: https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/mary-maguire/18/73/553

“Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can’t buy more hours. Scientists can’t invent new minutes. And you can’t save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you’ve wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.”

Denis Waitley

We hope you didn’t forget to pop your clocks forward an hour too!

But this set us thinking. How do you truly value your time? AND can this influence your levels of life satisfaction and levels of happiness.

The pandemic has carved up our usual lives, routines, working days and so, so much more. The enforced lockdowns reducing our world down to a microcosm within our homes.

Breaking normality.

Challenging our sanity.

Now, with renewed optimism, many cautiously turn their minds to regaining control of their lives, careers, and routines.

But, we cannot turn back the clock.

The last 12 months have left an indelible marker on our innermost thoughts and desires.

From many conversations, candidates from credit control to Finance Director, confirm their views on what really matters in their search for a new job has shifted.

The company car?

The snazzy office?

The potential promotion?

These don’t factor anywhere near as highly post pandemic. Instead, potential employees and job seekers value the currency of time above all else.

Work life balance, and genuine flexibility from a future employer are cited with increasing frequency as the most desirable attributes an employer can offer.

This is not to be confused with laziness or sloth. Infact, research has flagged again and again that increased employer engagement yields greater productivity.

So what can employers and business owners do?

Answer: Reaffirm your people value proposition and brand.

Culture Counts
Being valued matters
Ethical Employers with a strong moral compass

Its as though the isolation of the last 12 months has made many people re-evaluate what is really important, and money, prestige, have fallen away to be replaced by more holistic values – especially time.

As businesses look to return to the office, it becomes even more key to ensure that protecting staff retention rates and top candidate attraction are front and centre of company strategy. This can be done by looking at the most valuable commodity to everyone of us at work and in life – the commodity of time.

Many of us value time differently because we each experience time in different ways. Some people believe they have enough time; others feel as though they’re being chased by the clock.

The question is, where are YOU on the spectrum? Time starved? An abundance of time at your disposal or somewhere in between?

It’s important that you consider this question because your experience of time dictates how you manage your day, your work, your life, even your finances.

We all have the same amount of time each day. So, what’s the difference between time deprivation and having an abundance of time?

The short answer: –

How you think about yourself in relation to time dictates how you value your time. Its also a precursor to happiness and contentment with life.

The Flow of Time

What makes the passage of time so challenging and individual in its passing, is that it’s both concrete and abstract at the same time. We watch the minutes on a clock face tick by on a very real clock. Even so, we measure time according to “zones.” And, depending on your circumstance, time can seem to move either fast or slow.

If you’re late for work, a red light can seem like hours, but if you’re scrolling through zillions of work emails, that same light can feel like it changed in a split second. The phrase “a watched kettle never boils” is so true. Time seems to slow right down when you are waiting for something to happen.

To complicate matters further, research tells us that people experience time differently based on their stage of development. Think of the repeated question every young child asks a parent on a car journey: “Are we nearly there yet?” For that child, a half-hour trip can seem like days. Some scientists state that conceptually, human beings live most of their lives by the time they reach 18 years old. This is because time seems to pass more slowly to a child than to an adult. As we age, the years appear to pass faster and faster. When in actuality – time of course has not sped up at all. Our concept of the passage of time has merely shifted.

Lets look at some interesting points around ‘Time Poor’ vs ‘Time Rich’

Here’s What Time Rich Looks Like: –

For the people who live in scarcity of time, the distinctions are fairly obvious. They always feel as though they’re being chased by time. There’s never enough time to do the things they want to do; they are frustrated and overwhelmed. Often at work, they will be creating extra anxiety over their perceived lack of time to get work tasks completed.

If you score highly as being time rich, there are subtle differences to those who are time-poor.

From an assessment by The Money Meter, their results suggested two groups of individuals in the time-rich category. Let’s talk about these two groups as the Blue and Green Groups.

The Blue Zone: Moderately Time Rich

People who are scoring in the moderate zone of time abundance, state that they experience less anxiety, stress, and fewer negative emotions about time than those who are time-poor because they view time as neutral.

Yes, time is transitory, fleeting, a precious commodity, and it should therefore be managed well. However, this group experiences time as a continuum that marks the passing of events.

People in the Blue Group appreciate flexibility and having control over their own time. They are deliberate and intentional in creating time for family and relaxation, and they pride themselves on how well they “manage” their daily timetable & work schedules.

Precisely because they appreciate, rather than fear, the fleeting sense of time, the people in the Blue Group are often more energised and focused. They tend to experience a greater sense of accomplishment at the end of each working day.

Whilst keen on making time for family and loved ones, they are more focused on time from a task orientation perspective than they are from a relational one. Time with family, for example, may only happen when their ‘work’ is completed.

No room for sentiment – thats just what has to happen for them.

Responsibility and control are key elements for how people in the Blue Zone value time. For people in this group. their realisation is that “Time is fleeting. I should manage it well!”

In short, they firmly believe they have control over their time.

They take pride in themselves in their ability to prioritise work/ jobs, and they enjoy a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day.

Then we have the Green Group representing those who are highly time rich.

People who score as ‘highly time rich’, seem to believe that they have enough time to accomplish whatever they want, whenever they want. They view time as precious and go beyond “managing it” to using it astutely.

Wise use of time means that they live from a sense of joy, appreciation, and freedom. They are present in the moment and therefore better able to respond to changing timetables or altered meeting times in more spontaneous ways.

Because of this high level of flexibility, the Green crowd lives a more balanced life. Family activities are not tasks to check off a list. Family is first—not an interruption.

For people in this category, there is always time to do the “important things” in life.

Perhaps the biggest differentiator between these two groups is that the green group has a deep desire to make every moment count. They value time in terms of relationships over task orientation. Making memories is important; they don’t want to be known as workaholics or taskmasters.

Major Theme: Time is precious. I should use every moment wisely.

Research has been inconclusive to tell if this highly time-rich perspective on time occurs with age and the passing of time or after a life-threatening loss or illness.

Either way, it’s a perspective worth considering in a world held hostage by the increasing demands of work, social media, mobile phones, and the expectation of being available at a moment’s notice.

As a call to action, examine your perspective on time.

Every one of us, every single moment of every single day, experiences huge pulls on our time. Our daily demands are great. It can be hard to set firm boundaries between work, family, and very importantly yourself.

Time for you!

What this research and many other investigations flag, is that those who value time and appreciate its transience, are the ones most likely to achieve a happier, more satisfying work/ life balance.

Now that’s something we could all do with!

Mary Maguire

Managing Director
Astute | Accountancy & Finance | HR | Office Support

Suite One, Ground Floor West, Cardinal Square, 10 Nottingham Road, Derby, DE1 3QT

T: 01332 346100
M: 07717 412911

LI: https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/mary-maguire/18/73/553