Advo went through considerable change in 2024 with our new focus; we have new HR & Payroll teams and a new acquisition too. As we head into 2025, we believe Advo will have its best year yet since we launched in 1997 with many more exciting changes and projects in the year ahead, but what a 2024 we had!

Last year was a challenging, but ultimately very successful for Advo. Mid-2024 we took the difficult decision to shift the company away from insurance, an area where post-pandemic changes made the Advo approach less tenable, despite being recognised as the UK’s best the year before, and focus just on HR and Payroll.

This change allowed us to build an incredible new HR & Payroll team; our aim to become recognised as the UK’s best in these industries too. Our first step in July was to bring on new board members, Alison Gill and Chris McCracken and reorganise the teams with a new HR team manager, Jenni Welch and combining the Payroll teams under one manager, Caroline Jackson.

With changes in legislation and the need for our clients to better understand how this effects their staff and their business our training seminars continued with subjects ranging from the bullying & harassment and the new laws around sexual harassment in the workplace.

With new websites and marketing launched, and with an expanding team we redeveloped part of the wider site here at Cobdown to create more office space. The wider redevelopment of our extensive country house also started in earnest and is already starting to look beautiful.

A focus on local businesses with similar ethos also led to the acquisition of Mustard Payroll, Tonbridge based company with an excellent reputation. Our changes and refocus recognised by the local press with interviews and articles including the Kent Chamber of Commerce.

Even our famous Finnish Sauna received Grade II listing making the national news!

We also took the decision to promote the Heart of Kent Hospice as our primary charity to support into 2025 with events already raising money.

We finished off 2024 with a fantastic Xmas Party where we recognised our best of the best continuing the Advo culture of working hard, supporting our clients wherever and however we can, while having some fun along the way too!