Inspired Vet Profile - Olly King

Olly King is an equine and small animal vet and founder of the Meraki Initiative. Meraki brings the veterinary community together to put teams and cultures at the heart of a new, modern approach to recruitment. On a mission to accelerate change and improve retention, Olly shares how his own unmet career expectations inspired him to drive change on a profession-wide scale.

Please provide a brief summary of your career path so far:

2000 – 2004: Biochemistry degree, University of Bristol, with a year sabbatical studying Marine Science at the University of Otago.
2004 – 2008: Veterinary Medicine and Surgery, University of Glasgow.
2008 – 2010: Small animal and equine practice, Nottinghamshire.
2010 – 2011: Equine hospital-based internship, Yorkshire. Certificate in Equine Practice.
2012 – 2014: Travel and worked in equine clinics on the Gold Coast, Adelaide and Singapore Turf Club.
2014 – 2015: Equine and small animal locum around the UK.
2015 – 2018: Hospital ambulatory equine vet, Staffordshire. Certificate in Diagnostic Imaging.
2019: General practice ambulatory equine vet, Devon.
2020: ongoing: Part-time and locum small animal GP and ECC veterinarian, Devon.
2021 – 2023: ILM Level 7 Executive and Senior Leader Coaching and Mentoring, University of West of England.
2022 – ongoing: Launch of The Meraki Initiative, a professional networking talent engagement platform.

What is the biggest challenge to staying passionate in your veterinary career you’ve overcome, and how did you approach it?

In 2018 I was languishing, felt undervalued and demoralised by unmet career expectations. On paper, as a white male with two equine certificates my career should have been easy, yet I found myself planning my exit from the profession. I was frustrated by negative workplace experiences, echoing others in surveys of the profession, and by the laissez-faire approach to leadership fuelling the retention crisis.

Setting about doing something about it, the goal was to showcase great veterinary workplaces where people love to work to inspire others. I wanted to help the workforce better navigate their career and make it easier for people to find the best EMS placements, jobs and to research their dream place to work – all on one centralised platform.

I saw Meraki as a way to celebrate great teams and cultures. It would offer a new digital channel for employers to make themselves more visible to recruit talent at all stages of their career. In doing so, I hoped this would create a new rhetoric to mitigate the pervasive negativity ‘that all workplaces are bad’ on social media that had created an unhelpful ‘us vs them’ divide.

Ignited with a renewed a sense of passion and purpose, in 2019 I sold my house to fund my vision, and build Meraki!

Meraki puts workplaces on a searchable map used by students and professionals to connect with employers

What is it about your work that enthuses you and brings you satisfaction?

Change is a marathon, not a sprint, and Meraki is challenging the status quo. Pioneering a modern, transparent approach to recruitment, like with any change, it is not going to be for all straight away. But when I show the better way and persuade initially resistant employers to say ‘Yes, I want to work with you!’ there is no better feeling.

I am motivated to make a difference and Meraki exists to improve employee wellbeing and make the profession a better place to work. I want all to enjoy a great workplace experience, to feel like they belong and to fulfil their ambitions. With each employer that says ‘Yes’, I know I am influencing leadership teams to be intentional in creating these human-centred cultures where people thrive.

What advice can you share with others frustrated by their workplace experiences?

Change is all about solving a problem, and so if something is affecting you, then it will likely be impacting others too. Invite people to share their stories. Identify recurring experiences and, supported by the knowledge you are not alone, find the courage to speak up.

It is not easy, particularly when employers say “don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions!”. This negative, hand-rinsing attitude does more to intimidate than it does empower. Problems simply get brushed under the carpet until the wheels fall off, when an imperfect early ‘solution’ could have prevented a crisis.

If you do have a ‘good enough’, first draft solution to suggest, great! But if not, don’t let this put you off sharing feedback. Problems and the best solutions often necessitate a team approach, requiring inquiry and the consideration of different perspectives.

What do you feel would most benefit job satisfaction in the veterinary professions?

Humble and compassionate leadership.

Meraki is addressing the profession’s two greatest interrelated challenges: poor workplace cultures and our retention crisis. Unmet career expectations, leadership gaps, cultural façades and poor employee experiences fuel too many to prematurely leave the profession.

The business case for inaction is nonsensical, especially when HR is every business’ biggest cost. Low morale, poor team performance, poor health, presenteeism, absenteeism and high staff turnover cost UK employers billions of pounds each year.

To help leaders to better understand the needs and feelings of their employees, I engaged an occupational psychologist consultancy with vast experience working in the NHS. Working together we researched and assembled a specialist veterinary employee experience survey.

If a leader’s greatest fear is not knowing what you don’t know, then this is the solution. Used as a leadership development tool, humble leaders invite their people to share their honest feedback. I then aggregate employee responses into an anonymous report to unlock team insights into the workplace’s drivers of engagement.

You are wanting to know: ‘what do you like best about working here?’, ‘what makes us different to other places where you have worked?’ or ‘what one thing would you change to improve your workplace experience?’ No single survey will give you the whole picture, but it sends a strong message that you care, breaks down barriers and serves as a catalyst for discovery. Having sowed the seeds for a learning culture, it facilitates more candid conversations, enabling leaders to compassionately take action and drive meaningful positive change.

How could we work towards implementing this as the norm?

For employers I work with, this is the norm – benchmarking leadership performance, team morale and year-to-year progress. Teams are feeling heard and, with heightened awareness, leaders tell me how they now notice things that they had previously overlooked. It really is a win-win for all!

Workplaces are awarded a star-rating to boost their profile display in search results on Meraki, rewarding these employers with a competitive advantage. It builds trust in prospective job seekers who can make more informed decisions where they work, confident that they are networking or applying to join a happy team.

Going further, I want to ensure great workplace experiences start as a veterinary student. Meraki was the first centralised open EMS database. This is something I am really proud of and student feedback has been amazing. We all know the quality of EMS experiences is still a lottery – mine certainly was as a student – and in a lot of cases this is out of the student’s control.

Retaining our vets of tomorrow begins with ensuring graduates enter the workforce confident in their utility and competence to hit the ground running. My developers are right now expanding our searchable EMS functionality within workplace profiles to make it even easier for students and workplaces that love to teach to connect.

With more features planned, this is just the start, so watch this space (or better still sign up now)!

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Inspired Vet Profile – Olly King