Millie Green of MDHUB sat down with Josh O'Riordan Managing Director at Brightec to hear more about his role and how he has fostered an award-winning working culture for his team

When Andy Ferret, Founding Director of Shoreham-based app development agency, Brightec, took a 12-week sabbatical to help himself recuperate after 14 years running the agency, Josh O’Riordan stepped into his shoes to run the company.

Now in his tenth year at Brightec, Josh is the Managing Director. Known and appreciated for his work ethic and his boundless energy and countless hobbies, we asked how he managed it all.

“I love learning new things, which is probably why I have so many hobbies. I have had to learn to slow that down over the years. Nowadays, it's more about aligning the other things I do to personal values.” This includes volunteering alongside his wife at their local food bank, and competing in strongman competitions.

Josh has worked hard to encourage his team to maintain a healthy relationship with work. The company recently won Best Employee Development Programme at the Company Culture Awards for an incredible career framework developed by its Head of Engineering.

Josh described how the framework allowed people to know where they were at in their career, how they could move to the next piece, how they could support them in doing that and what they would need to learn. This great initiative has proved a brilliant tool for employee retention and goal setting.

When Andy Ferrett announced his desire to take a break, Josh had to be ready. To prepare, they took not just the practical steps of handing over regular duties and establishing procedures, but also ensured that Josh had adequate support. He invested in executive coaching with Steve Boon, a trusted advisor whom he met with regularly to help make sense of, expalin and process the changes in the company that the team were going through.

Josh explains, “He helped me get the team through that, and it helped me understand what my strengths and weaknesses were as a leader – and ultimately face them head-on and improve myself.”

Executive coaching isn't the only support Josh has benefitted from over the last few years. Phil Green from MDHub has played a vital role with Brightec, acting in a non-executive capacity to bring real wisdom and experience to help shape the company's future and structure, and Josh has loved working closely with Phil. “His unique ability to bring together financial expertise, personal connection, and wider context has been invaluable.”

There are always wobbles and worries that bubble up when someone at the top of an organisation leaves, even  temporarily. Josh worked with each team member to support them through their individual experience. Regular check-ins and making himself available to talk were paramount to ensuring everyone felt supported.

For his part, workgroups with MDHUB provided Josh a safe place to ask questions and share concerns in a confidential and supportive environment. The invaluable, outside perspective of other business owners asking candid questions was an essential part of Josh’s support system. The workgroups have also proved an unexpected source of inspiration for Brightec.

“One of the things that we've taken in is that every working group session ends with a happiness score, out of ten. For instance, ‘how are you doing at the moment?’

“We’ve taken that concept and created a Slackbot that asks all of our staff that on a daily basis.” This sends a daily report to Josh and Brightec’s People Operations Lead, Caz, who monitors levels and checks in with employees. This helps the senior leadership team maintain a better overview of the team’s happiness.

Josh is excited for Brightec’s future. “We have staff who are actively volunteering for charities. Over the next six months, we're rolling out a scheme where everyone has three days where they can do that – fully paid.”

Brightec continues to develop its clients’ award-winning apps, such as the Virgin Trains Ticketing app and its apps for RM Education, a company that brings coding and computer science into schools with interactive robotics.

Regarding how he feels working trends will develop, AI was a big topic of conversation. “I wouldn’t be suprised if we don’t see the kind of mass step change that the media has been touting over the next few years, and it will be more things like tooling that slowly roll out.”

The biggest change that Josh anticipates is the perception of ‘soft skills’ in business. “I have a slight worry that the biggest differentiator in work is shifting from competency, negotiation skills, or whether it will be the effort being put into things that would have been seen as basic, like meeting in person or phoning someone.

“Those things are getting harder to teach as we have become more abstract and remote. Remote work is good for some people, but it's not a net positive in some ways. We are made for human connection and engagement.”

While the future of the working world is uncertain, one thing remains clear: a happy team does better work. MDHUB is looking forward to seeing more from Josh and from Brightec in 2025 as its continues to move from strength to strength.