Hays, the sixth-largest staffing firm globally, announced today that it purchased a majority stake in Vercida Consulting, a UK-based Diversity, Equity & Inclusion advisory organisation.

Financial details were not disclosed.

Hays stated that it will immediately seek to leverage Vercida Consulting as the front of its Diversity, Equity & Inclusion offering as part of its Advisory Services.

Vercida Consulting is currently focused on the UK market, however, it provides services through employees and an associate network in the US and parts of Europe. Hays intends to expand the business globally, targeting US, ANZ and Germany in the initial phase.

“Hays customers are facing increasingly complex HR challenges and need support to address the demands of the new era of work,” Hays stated. “Many businesses don’t have the resources to address a lack of diversity within their organisations and often there isn’t a measurable plan in place. Hays is responding to these demands by expanding its range of services and investing in the infrastructure and capability to foster deeper partnerships and enhance Hays’ customer relationships to that of a ‘Leadership Partner’.”

Vercida Consulting was established by Dan Robertson and Morgan Lobb. Robertson will continue in his role of managing director of Vercida Consulting, in addition to heading up Hays’ Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Advisory Service for its external clients. Robertson has over 25 years’ experience of working in the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion field and has spent the last 15 years supporting global businesses to help them transform ideas into action, with a focus on strategy, bias mitigation and inclusive leadership.

Alistair Cox, Hays CEO, said, “The world of work has undergone significant changes in recent years and the needs of our customers have evolved alongside that. One of the core pillars of our group strategy is to deliver a broader range of workforce related services to our customers across the globe, helping them with their wider human capital and talent challenges, ultimately delivering more value to our relationship.”

“The purchase of Vercida Consulting will increase our ability to deliver a host of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion services,” Cox said. “The acquisition will allow us to have more meaningful conversations with our clients who, almost without exception, see DE&I as a significant challenge and want a partner who can help them in this area. The acquisition of Vercida Consulting is an important step in our journey to becoming a true Leadership Partner to our customers.”

Robertson said, “The acquisition of Vercida Consulting by Hays will provide us with the ability to upscale what Vercida has been doing all these years, creating a more diverse world of work and developing inclusive leaders. We will now have the capacity to help far more organisations on their DE&I journeys, across the globe. By offering an evidence-based approach to inclusive culture change, we can constructively challenge the existing organisational norms and ways of working.”