Chief Executive Officer’s review
Resilience is the key
Resilience is the key Covid-19, supply chain shocks and rampant ransomware attacks have reminded us all how difficult it is to predict the future and thus of the importance of resilience against unknown risks. We are proud of our own resilience through the past 12 months, demonstrating our ability to deliver great work, to hire more talent and to grow even through the most extreme of shocks. Our resilience starts with our people and I would like to pay tribute to the remarkable skills and commitment of my colleagues. They are at the heart of our success. Last financial year we hired over 200 front-line technical specialists, increasing our global net headcount by 8.1%. It is remarkable to think that many of them have not been into an office or met their colleagues. Happily, the feedback from surveys we have conducted indicates that the work we have done to onboard colleagues in the remote environment has been valued. Overall, the global voluntary attrition rate remained constant at c.15% and our technical attrition increased to 17.0% (2020: 14.4%). We identify two particular influences on this attrition increase. First, the advent of remote working drove significant labour mobility in the United States as it became possible to work for the largest and most exciting technology companies without having to move to the Bay Area. Second, while attrition was much lower in the UK and Europe through the first half, as the world began to open up we saw people leave to change lifestyle or gain variety after being locked down in the same place for an extended period of time. However, once again demonstrating our own resilience, the global operating and resourcing model that we developed mitigated the impact of this higher attrition, enabling us to deliver revenue in North America using resources spread elsewhere across the globe. Everyone is welcome There are not enough cyber skills in the world to meet today’s challenges. We see ourselves as playing a significant role in the attraction and training of new talent, having one of the cyber industry’s most effective training programmes. As we strive to bring more people into the world of cyber and to make the population of cyber specialists representative of the societies in which they live and work, we continue to focus on inclusion and improving the diversity of our teams. In particular: • We are embracing more flexible ways of working – and intend to continue with that flexibility as we explore new ways of working • Our four colleague resource groups – Gender, Race and Ethnicity, LGBTQIA+ and Neurodiversity – have catalysed conversations on topics as diverse as menopause, systemic racism, transvestism and autism, as we strive to raise awareness, create understanding and respect each other to make NCC Group an inclusive place for everyone • Our teams have worked hard to provide mutual support with a particular focus on mental health and wellbeing. We have 61 trained Mental Health First Aiders. Over 100 of our people managers have received training in mental health awareness, and a full wellbeing programme for colleagues is supplemented by employee assistance programmes in our local geographies. All of these efforts continue to help our teams through these difficult times and will provide a legacy of ongoing benefit in the future
Adam Palser Chief Executive Officer
Our resilience starts with our people and I would like to pay tribute to the remarkable skills and commitment of my colleagues. They are at the heart of our success. Which pandemic will you still be worrying more about next year? Pandemics start somewhere else and affect other people – until very suddenly they are on your doorstep and inside your business, forcing you to re-evaluate how you live and how you work. Our 2021 financial year was a tale of two pandemics, one biological and the other digital. The ensuing tug-of-war between these pandemics defined our markets: • Covid-19 rippled across our geographic operating territories at different speeds and intensities provoking different responses from governments. We saw demand from customers ebb and flow depending on whether their industry was opening up or being placed under more restrictions • Simultaneously, the rapid uptake of remote working drove increased cyber risk, which was exploited by “bad actors” including organised crime and state-sponsored groups. Ransomware, in particular, has now become so prevalent that no organisation can afford to ignore the risk it presents
NCC Group plc — Annual report and accounts for the year ended 31 May 2021
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