Published on 4th September 2020
House of HR is a fast-growing European group active in the field of specialist recruitment and engineering & consulting. It started from the company Accent Jobs, founded in Belgium in 1995 and grew to secure a leading position in four specific types of staffing: engineering & consulting, specialized staffing, general staffing. Every evolution was supported by strong digital recruitment tools.
Rika Coppens is the CEO of House of HR since 2017. “We like to see HR, not just as Human Resources, but also as Human Resourcefulness,” she says about the company’s mindset. “People are at the core of our business and we believe that providing jobs to people is life changing. Having a job is not just about working and getting money. It is being a colleague, contributing to society, having a purpose in life. We are passionate about that mission.” The other component, she adds, is resourcefulness. “We don’t take things for granted. We want to be creative and bold, even if it means doing things differently than the rest of the industry. That’s why we call ourselves at House of HR ‘the Happy Rebels’!”
With a network of over 500 offices in Europe, House of HR has a strong presence in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and France but is also present in Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Romania and Poland. The Group provides jobs to over 44,000 people each day and achieved €1.8 billion in sales in 2019 through its 9 operating companies.
“As the company grew over the past 4-5 years and truly gained a multinational presence, it became obvious that we needed to join a global organisation to better understand what is going on in the world of work and to exchange with our peers,” explains Coppens. “We also felt that we are now in a position to bring a valuable contribution to the table and shape the industry’s position on topics like blockchain. We are very interested in the potential of this technology to facilitate people’s access to work and we are keen to work on this topic – and many others – with the other WEC members.”
WEC’s agenda for the coming months will greatly focus on how the private employment services sector can rebound after the Covid-19 crisis. “There is clearly a role for our sector to help policymakers make the right decisions to get out of the crisis and get labour markets back on track,” says Rika Coppens. “Our knowledge of the sectors and the skills landscape puts us in a unique position to coordinate initiatives from various stakeholders and help save resources.”
Coppens is convinced that there is still a great deal of work to do to change perceptions around private employment services. “We need to get rid of the negative image that our sector still has in some countries and demonstrate how we provide flexible work with ‘Huge Respect’ for people. Flexibility is key for the future of work, not only where and when we work, but over a career. Our industry can enable people to combine working, studying and other activities throughout their life, at the pace they want.”
House of HR joins WEC as a Regional Corporate Member. The WEC’s other Corporate Members are global companies The Adecco Group, Randstad, ManpowerGroup, Kelly, GiGroup and Recruit Global Staffing. The WEC also counts National Federations in its membership. For a full overview of our global presence and our value proposition, check out our Membership dedicated webpage.
