New Possible’s British Recruitment Awards sets out to discover and celebrate the organisations that are truly passionate about recruitment’s role in building a thriving organisation.
In our ‘Sharing Success’ series, we interview British Recruitment Awards Winners to shine a light on the inspiring projects that are improving workplaces across the UK and beyond. In this article we talk to Olivia Brown at Octopus Energy, Winners of the 2024 ‘Recruitment Campaign of the Year’ and ‘In-House Recruitment Team of the Year (5,000+ employees) categories.
About Octopus Energy
Octopus Energy is a true green leader and role model. As the UK’s largest power provider, they went bigger and better during 2023-2024 to engage everyone in making the small changes needed to electrify their energy systems faster and cheaper, all while demonstrating exemplary green credentials in-house.
They serve 5.4 million UK customers and support 54 million contracted customer accounts through licensing their proprietary technology platform, Kraken, to global utilities players.
A Fast-Track Approach to Hiring
In early 2024, Octopus Energy set an ambitious goal to expand its services division by onboarding 3,000–4,000 new team members to accelerate clean energy technology deployment across the UK. To meet this need, the company launched “OctoPalooza” - the UK’s first same-day hiring festival, uniquely designed to attract top talent and fast-track recruitment for essential roles, including heat pump engineers, solar and EV charger installers, delivery drivers, and operations personnel.
OctoPalooza was designed with speed and accessibility in mind, operating as a family-friendly festival where candidates could immerse themselves in Octopus Energy's vibrant culture, participate in hiring tests, and potentially receive job offers on the spot. To maximise reach, OctoPalooza events were scheduled monthly across different regions, with the first three festivals taking place in Manchester, London, and Peterborough in January 2024. These events attracted over 600 prospective candidates and led to hundreds of hires across a single weekend.
Complete with free food, refreshments, and kids' activities, OctoPalooza ensured inclusivity, allowing individuals from all backgrounds to explore fulfilling career paths in the green tech industry. John Szymik, CEO of Octopus Energy Services, described the festival as “our version of F1’s pitstop process — turbocharging the time it takes to hire exceptional people into future-proof jobs that fit around their lives.”
Meeting Surging Demand for Green Tech Jobs
The rapid hiring drive aligns with the rising demand for heat pumps in the UK, with government data showing a 39% increase in heat pump grant applications over the past year. Octopus Energy, with over 100,000 customers waiting for heat pump installations, has been actively scaling its services workforce to meet this demand.
As Octopus Energy experiences fast-track growth, its in-house recruitment team has been instrumental in sourcing and nurturing top talent, achieving a remarkable hiring surge. Over the last 12 months, the team increased hires in it's services division by sixfold, bringing in thousands of people - a substantial jump from the hundreds of hires made in the previous year.
Octopus Energy prides itself on a comprehensive end-to-end recruitment process that prioritises candidate experience, from initial engagement to employee development and wellbeing post-hire. The recruitment team's focus on high-quality in-house hiring led to 85% of their hires this year being sourced directly by the team. This approach has contributed to Octopus Energy's reputation as the UK's only Which?-recommended energy provider for seven consecutive years, as well as an industry-leading 4.4/5 rating on Glassdoor - significantly above the 3.5/5 industry average. The company was also recognised as one of the Sunday Times Best Places to Work in 2024.
Olivia Brown, Global Head of Talent Acquisition at Octopus Energy, commented: "At Octopus Energy, we have had over 500,000 job applications this year alone (2024), so it’s fair to say we are not struggling to find people. The real focus is on hiring people who genuinely care about making an impact toward our mission. At the start of this year, my team was given a goal to hire thousands of engineers across a variety of low carbon technology jobs, including heat pump and solar installers, electricians, and surveyors. To do this, we’ve launched OctoPalooza… an innovative hiring festival that we run across different cities in the UK, hiring hundreds of engineers at each stop. It’s a fresh way to bring the best and most passionate to our business in a completely different way to approach recruitment."
Overall, the judges praised the ‘great initiative to support driving the green and renewables transition’ and described their campaign as ‘innovative, exciting, and inclusive!’
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