History

Where it all began

Working as a secretary in Tooley Street, London, fate was smiling on Mrs Betty Parkinson one December evening when her boss let her leave early and she was able to catch an earlier train home to Kent, narrowly missing the Lewisham train disaster in which 90 people were killed and 173 injured.

Betty quickly found temporary work at a Paper Mills in Dartford and it was here that she experienced her first taste of recruitment. The Paper Mills needed additional staff and within five weeks she had herself recruited nine people earning a profit of 10s (50p) per day for each of them.

This fuelled her ambition for recruitment and soon Parkinson Staff Bureau (PSB) was born in 1957. The success of Betty’s first office in Dartford which originally started in her front room at home, soon led to a network of PSB branches throughout Kent and Sussex and the PSB brand still operates to this day, 50 years later, under the name HR GO Commercial.

HR GO’s Group Chairman, Jack Parkinson, Betty’s son, joined the company in 1977 and through a programme of planned expansion and joint venture formation, developed the company into a major plc Group as it stands today made up of over 30 companies employing over 360 staff with a Group turnover of over £80 million.

Now called HR GO plc, the business is one of the top 65 recruitment organisations in the UK. Betty’s work has never been forgotten. The embodiment of female empowerment and a true recruitment pioneer, her memory will continue to live on in the Group as we celebrate her achievements and our 50th anniversary in 2007.