The founder of Team24, this year’s top ranking staffing firm in Recruiter’s Hot 100, believes that allowing recruitment consultants to set their own targets produces better results than the traditional bottom-up approach.

Last year average gross margin per employee at the healthcare recruiter rose to more than £222,000, with sales rising to £30.3m. And according to managing director Robert Stiff, giving consultants freedom to set their own targets has played an important part.

Stiff told Recruiter: “If I set the targets for the consultant, I believe it’s my target, and the ownership [of the target] is not as great as if they set their own target.”

When combined with a transparent remuneration system that allows consultants to see exactly how much business they will need to generate to earn their target salary, Stiff said the result is “total buy-in” by consultants.

The approach, that Stiff picked up from his experience in financial services, also benefits the business, he added.

Stiff said that compared to the traditional bottom-up process, the combined targets of Team24’s consultants always “far exceed” the targets that he himself would have set, although consultants’ individual targets are subject to ongoing review.

The combined targets set by consultants for this year was £42m, compared with £36m for his own. “We will probably end up somewhere between,” he said.