ONE of the north’s most successful businesses is continuing to allow its employees to choose where they want to work.
Kainos, which now employs 2,990 people worldwide, said its staff retention levels increased to 88 per cent in the latest year as the total amount it paid its workforce soared in the year to March 31 2023.
The London-listed tech company, which is now valued at more than £1.6 billion, said office attendance remains below 20 per cent over the course of a week.
But that does not appear to have slowed its growth rate. Kainos announced a 24 per cent increase in sales to £374.8m in the latest financial year, with adjusted pre-tax profits rising 15 per cent to £67.6 million.
A combination of inflation and the competition for skilled IT workers heaped an extra £64m on the Belfast firm’s staff costs last year, which came in at £232m for 2023, or £77,600 per head.
That was 24 per cent higher than the average cost per worker in 2022 (£62,550).
“You have to employ good people to be successful as a business, so it’s a happy sacrifice we’re prepared to make,” said chief executive Brendan Mooney.
However, he said the company had detected a “slight cooling” in the labour market.
“People are more cautious about moving,” he said. “We’re seeing our retention rate go up to 88 per cent. In the last few months we’ve seen it improve again.”
READ MORE: Kainos reports "strong growth" as profits rise to £68m
READ MORE: Kainos add 300 staff as global workforce approaches 3,000 people
READ MORE: Kainos sells off half of Dublin Road site for student accommodation
While office attendance means just one-in five workers on site over the course of a week, Kainos is still planning to build a new multi-million pound headquarters at Bankmore Square, on the former Movie House cinema site.
Mr Mooney said the company expects to be in the new offices by the end of 2026.
“Office attendance remains optional,” he said. “So we leave it up to people as to where they can best do their job, if that’s at home, in the office or a client’s site, they get to make that choice themselves.”
Rather than deter company growth, Brendan Mooney said Kainos has actually turned down work in favour of a more disciplined and controlled expansion.
At a time where tech giants have announced major lay-offs due to ‘over hiring’, Kainos’ latest figures show the company growing across the board in a more balanced way.
“We’ve always been of the view that you don’t want to get into hyper-growth, you don’t want to grow so quickly that you put real stress on the organization,” said the Kainos boss.
“We’ve had a real discipline over many years of saying no to work where we don’t have the capacity to take it on. That way you don’t end up over-hiring.
“You could have made that a bigger number, but there are consequences to that.
“You put pressure on people and put pressure on the quality of people coming into the organisation, you could damage the customer relationships.”
Government digital transformation contracts have traditionally formed the bedrock for the Belfast software firm’s business.
And while that side of the business remained relatively strong in 2023, the latest financial results show Kainos’ commercial side grew by 51 per cent to £186.4m in the latest year, which was 50 per cent of its total revenue.
Much of that growth was down to rising international sales.
“If I go back to us going public as a company eight years ago, we had £3 million worth of international business and today it is £132m," said Mr Mooney.
“Our aspiration is to be a global company.”
