Growing by acquisition - Building a new team together

Applause IT have been a recruitment partner of Heywood for almost 20 years. Recently, we have helped build an entirely new scrum team - what makes this relationship a continued success?

Who are Heywood?

Heywood Pension Technologies is a leading UK-based provider of innovative pension management solutions, dedicated to empowering pension schemes, administrators, and employers. Their award-winning software platforms are designed to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of pension administration.

Heywood's flagship product, Altair, is the most widely used pension administration platform in the industry, known for its seamless migrations, expert support, and scalable calculations. In addition to Altair, Heywood offers a comprehensive suite of services, including data management, pension risk transfer solutions, member engagement tools, and support for pensions dashboards. Their commitment to leveraging data-driven, technology-enabled solutions ensures that clients can make informed decisions for a secure financial future

Playing a major role in their largest recruitment drive in years!

Applause IT have worked as a recruitment partner of Heywood, based in Altrincham, South Manchester, for almost 20 years. Recently, we have helped build an entirely new scrum team, success being built on providing excellent customer relationship management

Heywood are a real successful story; combining a passion for software with Agile methodologies to create modern software solutions for business, pension providers and third parties, helping transform how their members manage their lifelong financial journeys

We caught up with their Head of People, to discuss their recruitment challenges and expectations of their agency support, and how Applause IT have played a significant role in their on-boarding of IT professionals, during a major period of growth in the last few years.

What has your relationship with Applause looked like and how have we performed in this drive?

Applause have been hiring into Heywood, for two decades across a variety of technical disciplines. For this drive, the focus was on Developers (Java engineers at all levels – Seniors, Lead and Principal), as well as specialists in Software Implementation and Project Management.

Our ability to deliver was described as “really, really great!”, as in this drive we have hired in the largest number of Java Developers with consistent high quality. In this financial year this has included an additional seven software engineers

What are the most important features that Heywood seek from their agency partners?

Honesty, trust, continuity, an ability to deliver and patience scored highly with an ability to understand the needs of working with a small, internal recruitment function.

To keep delivering great results it was considered key to maintain the feedback loop both ways; helping to educate and inform the applicants of the Heywood process to ensure they had the very best chance of demonstrating their suitability for the roles and understanding what the internal stakeholders expected in the engagement process. This, combined, with offering honest, constructive feedback into the recruitment team. Heywood invested time and effort in developing a detailed one-stage process, so Applause worked hard to ensure consistent messages were delivered.

Overall [good performance has been gained] by establishing solid long-term relationships with good continuity, an appreciation of working with a small [internal recruitment] team and respecting the recruitment process.

Head of People - Heywood

What do our candidates have to say?

With a large programme of recruitment and niche software engineering experience required, the process needed to be a great experience for the candidates - Java Developers, IT Project Managers and Implementation Specialists - that we were working with to ensure a positive impression of Heywood was felt.

The tech and digital sector is a competitive market and candidates will often have multiple opportunities to consider. Ensuring that our team are able to portray the Heywood employer brand to our candidates and give a fantastic customer experience increases our chances of securing the best talent for them.

A massive thanks to Jay for his support in helping me secure the Developer role at Heywood Pensions. From the beginning, Jay was attentive and proactive, guiding me through each step of the recruitment process and keeping me informed at every stage. He ensured I was well-prepared for the engineering test and the interview.

Even after receiving the offer, Jay continued to follow up and make sure everything was in place, making the entire experience seamless! I'd also like to thank Alex for keeping me updated while Jay was away. Overall, a big thanks to the Applause IT team!

Software Developer - Java

What are the perceived challenges for recruitment at Heywood in 2025?

Naturally, having almost built a new Team in 2024, Heywood are not envisaging the same level of growth in the year ahead, although being an Agile business, sales can promote the need to bring in new hires as well as having some natural attrition (their rates are significantly lower than the industry norm).

Exciting initiatives include rolling out a new recruitment system, to promote efficiency and communication across all stakeholders. Applause will continue to be an important recruitment partner, working to their hiring needs and playing a role in further promoting their business to potential hires. The HR team are proud of their ability to understand people better, values Applause will be upholding in delivering the right staff members.

We are looking forward to working closely together again in 2025!