Following on from our recent selection as finalists in 4 categories in the Merton Best Business Awards including Best Enterprising Business, Best Business in Wimbledon, Best Business in SW19, and Best Customer Service, we’re extremely proud to announce that we have now been selected finalists as Staffing Agency of the Year in the General Practice Awards! It’s been a busy year and a half since Eligo Medical’s formation, growing to a team of 4, introducing dedicated in-house payroll as well as a compliance officer, whilst building excellent relationships with clients and candidates throughout. We’ve extended our services to clients and candidates across a whole host of primary care providers through both the private sector and NHS. Ranging from single local practices to multiple location social enterprises, we’re proud of our work with each of them. Summer further saw us host our first annual local networking event during the famous tennis championships here in Wimbledon! ‘Pimms O’clock’ gave us the opportunity to meet some of our GPs and Practice Nurses as well as the individuals behind the Surgeries and Primary Care Providers we work to match them with. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed building further on our relationship with our clients and candidates, we hope that those who came did too! If you didn’t have the opportunity to attend this year, be sure to look out for an invite next summer: Pimms, Strawberries, and excellent company guaranteed! We’re looking forward to the General Practice Awards gala on the 26th of November and regardless of the result is extremely proud of being selected as GP Staffing Agency of the Year and of the progress and work the Eligo Medical team have done so far. Interested in working with Eligo Medical as a locum GP, Practice Nurse or more? Click here to register your interest and let us pay you an extra hour on your first timesheet whilst we’re at it! If you’re a primary care provider who would like to work with Eligo Medical on filling your sessions please don’t hesitate to get in touch to find out how we can help! You may also find our SELDOC case study interesting reading here.&nbsp;

Proud to be GP Awards finalists as GP Staffing Agency of the Year

The effects of climate change have gifted us with a heatwave this week,&nbsp;with temperatures rising up to 37 degrees in the city.&nbsp;Causing&nbsp;rows over whether shorts are appropriate for work, and it feels like its&nbsp;almost too hot to even wear skin.
Heatwaves like this&nbsp;can take you back to a time or place like a past holiday at the beach, or your youth, water-balloon fights in the school holidays. All great right? Though for me, as well as these, it evokes memories of the District Line at 8 am in the morning on a sticky Summer&rsquo;s day, desperate to finally get to work. Thankfully those days are long gone and it got me thinking about all the reasons I don&rsquo;t miss the commute into the city.
If you grew up in London, it probably feels like a lifetime that you&rsquo;ve spent navigating cancellations, body odour, and giving up any sort of hope of a seat. If not, you probably moved to the big smoke bright-eyed, excited by the opportunity to grab a quick read of your book on that famous London establishment; the tube.
<h5 class="ql-align-center"><img src="https://oliver-dev.s3.amazonaws.com/thumbs/500x500/dd9ed68c-38df-4321-aad1-12ef0f0e9003.jpeg" alt="London Underground Tube"></h5>
Who&rsquo;d have known that a couple of years down the line you&rsquo;d be staring across the platform at the same people every day, readying yourself to be packed like tinned sardines, inevitably about to spill your lukewarm coffee, barely uttering signs of a sigh as delays are announced; it now feels like a lifetime for you too right?
Commuting into the city sucks.&nbsp;Even more so in the Summer.
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<h4 class="ql-align-center">&nbsp;6 reasons why it&rsquo;s time to change your commuting direction</h4>
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<h5 class="ql-align-center">Life&rsquo;s too short</h5>
<img src="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2016/07/11/103038875_protest-Victoria_Train_Station_in_London-NEWS-large_trans++ZgEkZX3M936N5BQK4Va8Rd8oAmGZYX8Vqbq2hlobTFc.jpg" alt="commuter hell " width="307" height="191">
Nobody wants to start their working day miserable and your working life will inevitably suffer in one way because of it. Life brings enough occasional stresses for there to be a guaranteed surge in blood pressure every single morning and evening during the working week.
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<h5 class="ql-align-center">Eau de train</h5>
<img src="https://jganolik.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/subway3055.jpg" alt="Eau de train" width="338" height="206">
Sometimes it&rsquo;s unavoidable, but it doesn&rsquo;t stop the odours lingering. Coffee breath, breakfast pasties, Lynx Africa, and sweaty armpits come together in a symphony of stink, one not so compatible with that hangover from last night, or the long-awaited summer heatwave.
<h5 class="ql-align-center">&nbsp;</h5>
<h5 class="ql-align-center">The Grass is Greener</h5>
<img src="https://oliver-dev.s3.amazonaws.com/thumbs/500x500/31ac95c1-cde1-4801-84f7-d3030f5c713a.jpeg" alt="wimbledon-common-green-spaces-london">
London is a beautiful city with some wonderful parks and great architecture, but travelling in you can feel part of the rat race, doomed to spend the next 9 hours surrounded by tower blocks and a concrete jungle. Yet break through the boundaries of zone 1 and 2 and the grass is literally greener, with the perks and quirks of the city all whilst enjoying it a little bit more.
&nbsp;
<h5 class="ql-align-center">Transport&rsquo;s Bankers</h5>
<img src="http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/1/590x/secondary/TWITTER-548680.jpg" alt="Transport&rsquo;s Bankers tweet" width="463" height="160">
&nbsp;
Everyone that commutes into the city feels a little bit of hate towards one commuter or another, it&rsquo;s near impossible not to. Travelling in the other direction, however, is another story, with empty carriages and little more than a suit in sight.
<h5 class="ql-align-center">Seating</h5>
<img src="https://oliver-dev.s3.amazonaws.com/thumbs/500x500/7e79f584-62b3-4f3f-921b-868874bd07cc.png" alt="manspreading-transport-tube-seating-travel-commute">​
The joys of travelling in the other direction also include actually getting a seat so you can&nbsp;avoid&nbsp;playing musical chairs with your fellow travellers at every stop and&nbsp;I won't even mention manspreading...
&nbsp;
How about somewhere with all the benefits of London without any of the above to rant about as you arrive at your desk each morning? For us that&rsquo;s Wimbledon!
<img src="https://oliver-dev.s3.amazonaws.com/thumbs/500x500/4fe87cb4-0e3f-4424-9bee-616169a03af3.jpeg">
Wimbledon in summer!
Here we truly are underground, overground, wombling free, with almost every transport connection you could think of, and direct trains into central in just 15 minutes should you want to meet up with clients, friends, or explore! We&rsquo;ve also got a whole host of restaurants, bars &ndash; including our favourite roof terrace on our doorstep, shops, and of course, the tennis!
So how about it, time to change up your commute? Enjoy work, before you even get there.​
Eligo are currently hiring for local recruiters that hate the commute just as much as we did. We&rsquo;d love to talk to you more about how great our location is and just what working at Eligo is all about. Take a look at our&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(229, 40, 125); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.eligo.co.uk/work-for-us" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">careers page here,</a>&nbsp;or get in touch for a confidential discussion to find out more.

6 Reasons Why Your Commute Doesn’t Have To Drive You Crazy

Roses are red, violets aren&rsquo;t&nbsp;blue, and recruitment is that relationship looked down upon by those surrounding you.
Yep, recruitment sometimes doesn&rsquo;t have the best rap having gained a reputation from a select few as an industry that plays fast and loose, often doing no more than sending across a CV and bombarding the phone with calls. If we were casting industries for a Jane Austen novel, it&rsquo;s unlikely recruitment would be chosen to play Mr Darcy.
For those that love what they do in recruitment, however, it&rsquo;s an unfair reputation and often people don&rsquo;t understand the efforts and highs and lows that go into the job every day. As such we&rsquo;re abandoning the cheesy poems and asked some of the team here at Eligo what it was that they love about recruitment. From genuine joy to sarcasm highlighting the pitfalls of working in a people-centric market here&rsquo;s what they said.
&nbsp;
We asked a number of our team what they love about recruitment, so here's our love letter (of sorts) to recruitment.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;I love building relationships with clients who trust me, value my service and genuinely turn to me for help. Being talked through a business strategy and how I can help that company achieve their goals through a structured recruitment plan is exciting, challenging and rewarding when together we reach the end result.&rdquo;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;Networking is one of my favourite parts of recruitment and due to being in such a niche industry it&rsquo;s great to go to places and be recognised; it&rsquo;s important to put faces to names sometimes so you become more than just a voice on the phone. Networking drinks are always fun, sometimes with some embarrassing but funny stories to tell the next day!&rdquo;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not all glitz and glamour and there are many challenges and let downs that we have to face, but the most important thing not only for yourself and your company but to your clients and candidates is how you work through it, stay focussed and overcome those obstacles in a professional manner.&rdquo;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;I love the fact that people never fail to surprise you &ndash; no really I do really love it!&rdquo;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;I love that I work with candidates who are senior with most having degrees including Masters and PHDs, however when it comes to finding an office right outside a station they crumble and roll up to the interview late&rdquo;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;Being in control of your own destiny financially can be daunting, but is so motivating. Knowing that the harder and smarter you work, the more you will earn is enough to keep going even when the times get tough!&rdquo;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;I love the fast pace environment, every call and email is different so my day is always full of surprise&rdquo;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;Working in recruitment is rather like riding a rollercoaster on a daily basis &ndash; plenty of highs but sometimes these can be swiftly followed by a low and you have to keep your nerve and focus on it being alright in the end! Oh and tomorrow&rsquo;s another day to ride it again!&rdquo;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;I love getting creative in order to attract the best candidates. Whether it&rsquo;s by writing an out-of-the-box job ad or conversing with my network to get introduced to the right people, every day can be a new and different challenge which you can approach in a number of different ways&rdquo;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;I love the rare moments when the whole process goes smoothly and falls into place; from getting the role to spending a great deal of effort to find the right candidate. They&rsquo;ll be a real golden nugget, a needle in a haystack. They&rsquo;ll fall in love with the role too and they&rsquo;ll go over and interview and everything will go amazing. Of course, usually either the candidates partner will put a stop to the move or we&rsquo;ll find out they spoke to a different agency a couple of years back that happen to have&nbsp;candidate ownership&ldquo;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;I love the fact that you effectively run your own business, build your own network and succeed based on your own abilities and strengths&rdquo;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;I genuinely love some of the excuses you hear for people not turning up to interviews. It&rsquo;s a wonder that driving to interviews hasn&rsquo;t been banned yet with the amount of car accidents that happen!&rdquo;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;I enjoy the relationship building and the satisfaction you get from clients who view you as the best at what you do and you assist them in growing their business or making their team or company successful.&rdquo;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;I enjoy getting to know and following candidate careers over a long period of time and again their pleasure in finding a recruiter who is a specialist in their field who understands them and doesn&rsquo;t try to put them forward for roles that aren&rsquo;t right for them.&rdquo;
&nbsp;
We believe that part of the reason we&rsquo;re so successful at Eligo is because everyone here genuinely loves what they do and does it with integrity, quality, and passion every day. If you&rsquo;d like to speak to us more about the process behind our recruitment, how we can help you recruit for&nbsp;you&nbsp;next role, or if you&rsquo;d like to fall in love with recruitment here too, please don&rsquo;t hesitate to&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(229, 40, 125);" href="https://eligo.co.uk/find-a-recruitment-consultant/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">get in touch</a>.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

A love letter to recruitment…

A couple of month&rsquo;s after initially being announced as finalists and more than a couple of outfit choices later, the Merton Best Business awards finally arrived last night where we were up for the Employer of the Year award.
We&rsquo;re absolutely delighted to say that not only did we walk away with the Employer of the Year award but in what was a huge surprise to us all on the night, scooped the Best Overall Business award as well!
The awards come as a huge achievement for the company, demonstrating the progress we have made since initially forming in 2001 with a clear prerogative&nbsp;to found a company where our staff would enjoy coming to work. In the time since, we&rsquo;ve seen the company grow to include Eligo Technology, Eligo Fire &amp; Security, Eligo Medical, and Eligo Events, encompassing over 25 staff.
Taking place at the prestigious and local All England Lawn Tennis Club, the awards gala was not only extremely entertaining (featuring yet another Conga!) but an excellent opportunity to showcase Merton&rsquo;s wide array of top businesses, of which we&rsquo;re proud to be one. We&rsquo;d happily say that this year&rsquo;s awards were the best yet, with so many of these high-quality businesses in attendance celebrating the tremendous achievements of everyone recognised.
Both the Employer of the Year and Best Overall Business awards come at a fantastic time for us as we seek to continue to grow our sectors. As the night proved Merton and the surrounding areas is abrim with talented individuals, and these awards serve as an excellent opportunity to spread the word about Eligo and the benefits of working here. For more information about that, take a look at our careers page here, or get in touch!
All of us at Eligo would like to thank the Merton Chamber of Commerce, and Love Wimbledon for their support throughout our time as members, as well as for the coordination of such a successful, entertaining evening. Of course, we wouldn&rsquo;t be who we are without our wonderful staff either, who continually drive the company forward, aid in all our successes, and have contributed towards making us both employer of the year and Merton&rsquo;s best business.
Congratulations to all the other winners of the night
Cheers!
&nbsp;