City is a centre of excellence for skills in HR

The software company is on a major recruitment drive and hopes to add software development talent as part of its expansion.

The Leeds-based firm, which currently has 140 staff, is set to add another 55 jobs after expanding on to the second floor of office building One City West.

Oliver Shaw, CEO of Cascade HR, said: “It’s always hard to find talented people but Leeds is a great location for finding software skills.

“There are some really big development organisations here, there’s Sky, NHS Digital, Emis. Leeds is quite a good hub for great skills.”

Mr Shaw admits that there is a skills gap but that they as a technology business have to take some responsibility.

He told The Yorkshire Post: “There is a skills gap but we have to take some responsibility for planning in good enough time to be able to develop those skills through the business.

“We have to be passionate about helping people develop their careers.”

Founded in 1994, Cascade HR was acquired by IRIS Group in 2014. Cascade is part of the group’s Human Capital Management (HCM) division, which employs 398 staff. Across the whole of IRIS Group there are 1,000 employees.

“There’s no question that Cascade is absolutely a key part of the growth strategy for the whole company,” said Mr Shaw.

Last year IRIS Group acquired software firm Octopus HR and integrated the business at its Leeds site.

Paul Sparkes, product and marketing director at IRIS HCM, said: “In the last 12 months because of the great skills that we have here, we’ve actually made another acquisition in the HR space and immediately located it here in Leeds.

“We acquired an organisation called Octopus HR. We just knew that this was the right centre of excellence for HR. Therefore we have centred it all around here and that’s key for us.”

While Cascade’s strength lies in providing HR software solutions to larger businesses, Octopus delivers solutions fit for smaller organisations. Since the acquisition Octopus has been renamed Cascade Go.

IRIS Group has decided that Leeds will be the place where it builds out its development resources. When roles come up and other projects start they will be delivered from the city.

It remains hard to find people with the right sorts of skill levels, Mr Shaw says, to hire a developer from university is “pretty difficult”. But the onus is on the business he said.

“I feel quite strongly that we have a responsibility for developing our own talent,” Mr Shaw said.

He added: “Could universities do more? The problem is that the only way they can teach people to do stuff is in some level for it to be generic.

“The place where I think they could really help their candidates is around the softer skills of working on projects, working with other people, managing the aspirations around what’s really possible.”

In total the expansion on the second floor will allow the business to cater for 85 staff.

Cascade enjoying strong growth

Cascade HR is growing at “double digit” numbers, says its CEO Oliver Shaw.

The business was founded by Alan Jones, Heather Vitty, Richard Anderson and Dan Edwards in 1994.

Mr Shaw said: “Cascade is a really wonderful business. The founders who left us in November have done an amazing job of building a great product, a great team, a great sales ethos.”

He added that IRIS Group had coveted Cascade HR for a while and that he was to hammer out a deal in 2014.

“I remember the first time I met Alan, which was a year before that, I left the meeting with him driving home thinking I’d be really proud to run that business one day,” said Mr Shaw.

The IRIS Group itself is owned by private equity firm HgCapital. Cascade was acquired in order to grow the business, says Mr Shaw.

As businesses face increasing regulation, Mr Shaw believes that software can play a part in easing the burden on firms.

Cascade saw a slowdown in people purchasing solutions following the vote to leave the European Union but in March it “speeded up quite significantly”, said Mr Shaw.

The Leeds-based software firm has been planning its latest recruitment drive for a while.

Mr Shaw said: “When we took the building on we had the view that we might need the extra space.

“It’s become clear almost within 12 months that we actually needed that space.”