Hireland founders seek to inspire others with ‘blueprint’ ebook

A not-for-profit organisation that convinced Irish business owners to take on thousands of additional employees during the recession has published an ebook which it hopes will serve as a blueprint to inspire other movements.

'Hireland: The Story of a Kitchen Table movement' looks at the setting up of a national job creation initiative at the height of the recession when a group of people involved in business, marketing and media came together on a voluntary basis to try and make a difference.

"We wanted to reverse the way of thinking that had taken hold, where people believed nothing could be done about the high level of unemployment in Ireland at that time," said Hireland co-founder Lucy Masterson.

Launched in January 2012 with a budget of just €149, Hireland sought to persuade individual companies that by taking on just one more employee they could make a big difference.

The ‘Hire One’ campaign has proven successful with more than 2,400 businesses in Ireland pledging over 8,000 jobs since its launch. From those pledges, more than 5,400 jobs have been created.

Hireland received 1,177 job pledges from businesses all around the country in its first week alone as companies responded positively to its campaign. National media also got behind the initiative by giving the organisation approximately €2.5 million in advertising. The campaign was covered in the New York Times and in a BBC documentary. In Ireland, Hireland's efforts were covered by all major press, television, radio and online channels. The Irish Times also produced a 16-page supplement with guest articles from Bono and Bob Geldof that envisioned how Ireland could be in 2023 if people engaged with the spirit of collective entrepreneurialism.

The model has already been successfully reproduced in the US and Nigeria, and emulated across Europe and now the individuals behind the movement are hopeful that by revealing how it got started and the mistakes it made along the way, it will motivate others to come together to try and bring about change.

Ms Masterson said Hireland was never about solving the unemployment problem but was a movement “designed to change the mindset of employers by encouraging them to think about hiring instead of firing during the recession”.