Alex: Hi Andrew, can you tell me a bit about yourself and your business?
Andrew: I am a fully qualified employment lawyer with over 25 years’ experience, and the owner of aiMac-hr employment law consultancy. We offer a range of employment law and hr services to businesses and individuals.
aiMac-hr was launched on 1st July 2020 right in the middle of a pandemic and a global crisis. This certainly created a number of challenges for us, especially in relation to the work we do for our clients in the health and care sector.
We celebrated our 1st birthday last summer in a fairly low-key way due to Covid, but we are already looking forward to our 2nd birthday this year when we will be planning a proper event for our clients, contacts, and referrers.
Alex: What made you start your business, and what are you trying to achieve with it?
Andrew: I had worked in London and Bristol before becoming a Partner in several leading firms in Devon. But I have always had an exciting vision to create a different and unique offering for clients, combining my legal expertise and practical hr knowledge. This has now become our USP.
I believe most clients want high quality, responsive, and pragmatic advice at sensible charging rates and that is exactly what aiMac-hr delivers.
My aim now is to make aiMac-hr the number one choice for clients who are looking for affordable, expert employment law and hr advice from a friendly company who will really get to know them and understand their aims and culture.
Alex: How were you affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns?
Andrew: On a personal level, I contracted Covid myself (before anyone even knew what it was!) at the beginning of 2020, following a fun visit to London to celebrate a friend’s 10th wedding anniversary.
The virus laid me low for several weeks, but I was very lucky it didn’t actually stop me from working. Most lawyers are now very used to working remotely and taking advantage of all the wonderful technology we have available to us these days.
Zoom and Teams meetings have become a regular feature of my working life, and whilst I can’t say I miss the daily commute, I do still really love visiting our clients in person because I consider that crucial to building and maintaining those relationships for the future.
Alex: Do you have any big plans for the future?
Andrew: Absolutely! Because I want to grow aiMac-hr, and to do that we need more clients coming on board to benefit from the responsive and personable advice service we provide. We are extremely lucky to have many longstanding, loyal clients, contacts, and referrers who have ensured we have been busy from our first day of trading.
Going forward, whilst we are perfectly happy to cover everything employment law and hr related, we are mainly looking to focus on acting for businesses under cost-effective employment retainers, where the client pays a fixed price per month to cover all their employment law and hr needs.
We adopt a “prevention is better than cure” approach because we know this saves our clients time and money, and they seem to like that a lot!
Alex: Is there anything else you’d like to say to our audience?
Andrew: I would like to say a big “thank you” to all our loyal clients, contacts, and referrers who have made the launch of aiMac-hr such a huge success. We have already doubled our turnover in Year 1 and I am delighted to say we are on track to double it again in Year 2!
I hope that potential new clients will consider using us as well now. In the last 18 months, we have worked very hard to develop and build our brand, and once they realise that there is a new opportunity to move away from the old model choice of law firm versus non-lawyer hr consultancy, I am confident that aiMac-hr can only prosper.
We are offering something refreshingly different for our clients, and I know they are always willing to give us a shout out and provide testimonials to prove it.
Alex: How can people get in touch with you?
Andrew: Our website can be found at www.aimac-hr.co.uk and we are also on social media channels, including LinkedIn and Facebook.
If you have any queries, you can also call us on 07921 938675 and we look forward to helping everybody in future.
Alex: Great, thanks for speaking with me, Andrew.
