Even as a teenager, Andrew Lynch was always entrepreneurial. However, by his own admission, it took him some time to land the right idea. There was the time he launched a fashion show. And there was an ill-fated business selling ponchos during the summer. His brothers called him Del Boy for his wheeling and dealing, and his mother begged him to get a proper job.

He pondered life as a sports agent, as several of his friends were professional athletes. However, he reckoned it would not be as glamorous as it sounded, and that the market in Ireland was locked up by a handful of excellent incumbents.

Eventually, a friend asked him if he would consider recruitment. “Recruitment,” he responded, “I don’t even know how to spell it.” But the idea stuck, and after working with an international recruiter for 15 months, Lynch went out on his own and launched Mason Alexander, with the backing of one his sporting friends, the rugby player Rob Kearney.

It started with an “office the size of a cupboard and a laptop” in 2013 but has since grown to employ more than 45 people in Ireland and Portugal. Its core business remains recruitment, but it has added other divisions and now offers Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO services), primarily to multinationals. Its MA Enable division, meanwhile, builds recruitment technology for clients.

However, in today’s podcast, Lynch admits that much of today’s success was built on past failures. “I love trying new things. I love challenging myself. It’s something I always say to my colleagues in Mason Alexander – not to fear failure. And I really don’t,” he said.

“If you want to start your own business, you have to be prepared that it might fall flat on its face. It’s not the money thing. It’s actually just the embarrassment. And I think luckily for me, I tried lots of different things and failed miserably.

“And so, I’d had some experience of trying to do my own thing and so I had that experience and was not afraid to fail. I was just really believing in what I was going to do and for me, it was about trying to create something that was – I think people use the term ‘different’ a lot – and for me, it’s not like innovation and it’s not about being different. It’s about being better, quicker, faster, better quality, whatever the better it is.”

Now, six years launching the business, Lynch says Mason Alexander is on the cusp of its biggest play yet. In January, the company will incorporate a US division, and Lynch says it is part of his growth strategy to scale the business further.

“We have lots of big ambitious plans. We’ve hired a couple of people in Portugal. So that’s an area that we’re going to scale, not to what we have here. But the US is a big thing for us,” he says.

He says it will focus on recruitment and project solutions in the US. “Our AM Enable business builds products for companies, and that’s something that we think could scale to being a big number. Where do we get? to look, I have this thing in my head that we’re going to scale to about 1,000 people in the next three or four years, and I’ve mapped that out.”

Lynch said the strength of the business was listening to the customer and not being afraid to make a mistake. “We’ve tried lots of other things that have failed miserably, and I won’t go into them. But we’ve tried development and software, we’ve done things and they cost us an arm and a leg to do it. And again, I’m proud of these things, because I’ve learned a lot from them. But we’ve always been about just being out there talking to customers and figuring out what it is that they need. And what are the problems they have? And can we solve them?”

Talent and side hustles

With the OECD driving a forward to create corporate tax parity – or at least a global minimum tax – the battlefront is moving firmly to talent. Many employers are appointing to a battle for talent, while others are fearful of the so-called Great Resignation.

It is an area that a range of industry voices have commented on in The Currency in recent weeks. “The talent agenda is where it really, really, really is at. And I don’t say that glibly,” said the country managing director of Accenture Alastair Blair, while Dogpatch Labs CEO Patrick Walsh addressed the same issue in last week’s podcast: “So why would you come to Ireland now? It’s not for twelve and a half, right? And it’s not because of our low cost of living? It will be because we have really talented people that we can tap into.”

As someone working at the coalface of recruitment – both for scaling businesses and for corporates – Lynch has his own view on the issue. “I don’t see it as a talent problem. I see it as a scaling problem, a scaling challenge. So, there’s a lot of companies out there at the moment who are doing extremely well, really smart people behind them, great products, lots of money being thrown around on term sheets. So, a lot of these companies have made a lot of money. They’re growing at a really fast pace, which again, is a good thing. And I think they’ve run into scaling challenges,” he says.

“And I think the talent piece – I’ve read a lot about this and especially what happened in the US with the phrase, the Great Resignation. For me, it’s not that there is a lack of talent, but that there is a battle for talent. And that’s where we can really help companies around their story, getting their message right, and really getting to market what they’re actually about, who they are, and why they can attract the right people for them.”

Overall, Lynch remains circumspect that the Great Resignation will come to pass, but that the pandemic has changed priorities. “A lot of people have made life choices around who they work for, where they work, what they do. And I think Covid has given people time to reflect on what’s important to them. I think with the whole great resignation piece, there are two main things,” he said.

“One is the return to work. So, I think in the US what happened was a lot of companies said ‘right, you have to come back to the office’. They didn’t want to do that, they lived in a different state, and it was cheaper. And then second piece was, again, in the last 18 months, a lot of people have side hustles now because you can build a website for €100 and off you can go and sell something, and you can buy crypto now and become a gazillionaire overnight and all these other things.”

Andrew Lynch on flexible working

“We really promote flexible working. We’re a digital-first business. That means people can work from wherever they want, whether it’s a home, coffee shop, off on the beach somewhere. Right now, my colleagues and people who work for me could be watching Netflix, they could be shopping in Dundrum. What we focus on is output and are they going to do what they’ve set out to do each week, each month. Outside of that, as long as they’re doing that, then they can manage their own day. If you give people autonomy and trust, they will repay it back in spades, and you’ll get better. And I know myself, I work well when I have autonomy. I was terrible in school. I was a good kid. But I was terrible in school, because when I was told to be here, do this, do that study here – I would just do the opposite because I was just immature.

“Flexibility is a really, really important thing. I think our culture is better now than it was 18 months ago. And I genuinely mean that. I don’t know what the reason is. I think you’ve to collaborate better and communicate better. I think you actually get to spend more time speaking to people properly, because I know if I call someone, we’re having a proper conversation, whereas, in the office, it can be a fleeting vibe.”

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