From Emirates to Egham

My Adventure from Corporate Success to Meaningful Career in Care

My story of adventure begins in 2017 when I left my home in Dubai and a high-profile job to start a business in Runnymede-Egham. Originally from Pakistan, my parents relocated to the United Arab Emirates when I was only two years old. Before making this life-changing decision, I was working for the General Secretariat of The Executive Council – Government of Dubai in Human Resources as a Senior Manager in Learning and Development. However, there comes a point in everyone’s life where you want to do something more meaningful.

Jim Collins once said, “It is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.” Inspired by this idea, I embarked on a quest to find something meaningful, landing in the quaint town of Egham.
After months of painstaking research, I decided to move into the care industry. Growing up, I always wanted to be a doctor but was enticed by the glitter and glory of the corporate world. Working in the care industry and supporting the vulnerable would be the closest to this rewarding profession. Without any background in the care industry, I started looking for a franchise model. I came across a resale of a Caremark franchisee, although the business was not doing well. It had only five clients, eight part-time care assistants, and 76 hours of service. The positive side was that the business was already registered with CQC with an overall rating of “GOOD” and had a successful tender with the local authority, plus a registered manager.
The best aspect was the office’s location on the high street of Runnymede-Egham. Weighing my pros and cons, I took the deal and signed on the dotted line on March 22, 2019. Failure was not an option for me as I had set my ships on fire and burnt my bridges.

As a Human Resources professional, I had gained many transferable skills essential for the care industry, such as recruitment, training, quality, and compliance. I was confident in my success in this new field. I made strategic changes due to the organization’s size, including going paperless and using the PASS System for day-to-day care planning. Not only was I able to retain the five employees, but word spread, and we began recruiting new employees. My objective was to attract people to the care industry by increasing salaries and offering long-term career opportunities and more benefits compared to my competitors.
I ensured that my team was diverse, creating a marketing edge with multilingual staff. We now have people from 11 different nationalities who speak 13 different languages, including rare ones like Pushto, Tagalog, and Arabic. We are frequently contacted by social services when a specific language requirement arises.
My confidence was put to the test once COVID-19 hit. Surviving during those challenging times was extremely difficult, but we not only survived—we thrived. Our strategy was to be not only the care provider of choice but also the employer of choice, offering quality care at an affordable cost because care is for all.
Looking back at this road less trodden, I can say that this was the best decision I ever made. We have come a long way from 5 to 55 clients, from 76 to 1478 hours per week, and from 8 to 26 care assistants. My success story is due to always putting employees first and ensuring my team is happy. A happy team leads to happy clients. I continue to recruit people who speak different languages, adding to our beautiful colors of diversity.
Now, I am focusing on moving from being merely good to achieving excellence. My goal is to attract, retain, and develop the younger generation to take up care as their profession.

And so, the adventure continues.