The hiring scheme is supported by a £1.5m investment grant from Sheffield City Region’s Unlocking Business Investment growth programme. The funding is provided on the basis that at least 100 jobs are created through its investment.
"Route One and Instantprint are online businesses, which have grown hugely in the past year. All areas have come under pressure as we’ve grown so we are recruiting in a variety of roles, all the way from customer service through to print through to finishing," said James Kinsella, ecommerce director for Route One and Instantprint's parent company Bluetree Group.
As part of the recruitment drive, Instantprint will be hosting a recruitment day for applicants for 11 factory production positions at the Holiday Inn, Wath-upon-Dearne, on 26 August.
“I think candidates are increasingly wanting to get very quick answers rather than going through a long process so the aim is to try and do as much of the assessment as possible in a day so at the end we are in the position to offer someone a role,” added Kinsella.
According to Kinsella, approximately 60% of the new roles will be with Route One. He said client service roles are proving far easier to fill than operations.
Instantprint is also looking to take on two more apprentices, to join the two they currently employ in the pre-press and printing departments.
Bluetree Group applied for the £1.5m grant in 2014 and received the funds in early 2015. Since then the business has grown, rapidly bolstered by the addition of 50 new jobs so far in 2016.
The combined businesses employ 252 staff, split roughly equally across both operations, which are housed in one shared production facility.
In total Bluetree invested £7m across the two companies in 2015 and has so far invested a further £4.4m this year.
The company relocated to a new premises in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, in July last year, from a 3,344sqm site to a 9,290sqm site.
"The grant enabled us to move into a new factory because the old building didn’t have any space to expand," Kinsella said.
"Managing to get funding for it was tough and it would probably have been deferred if we weren’t able to get the backing to get everything in place," he added.
Route One has made a series of investments this year, including the purchase of an HP Indigo 10000 alongside a Horizon Smart Stacker, a Duplo iSaddle Pro Duetto and a 10-colour B2 Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75.
