Chris Harvey is not your typical managing director.

He runs one of the country's largest family-owned recruitment companies which was founded in Kent. But he is not a salaried employee.

Company chairman Jack Parkinson hired him to take the business to new levels - it is close to achieving sales of £90m - but instead of being on the payroll, Harvey is a client.

Harvey invoices the company for his services. This arrangement allows him to work for other companies. But he says it does not diminish his commitment to HR GO. Far from it. "I changed my life at 35. I probably work harder living the way I do than if I was employed. If I don't produce, they can terminate the contract without paying out loads of money."

He believes the ability to work with other companies enhances his HR GO role through "cross-fertilisation" of ideas.

He says the arrangement does not mean he has any less emotional attachment to the role. He is also a shareholder and allocates all the time it needs. "I have to work at 110 per cent every hour of the day."

The chartered accountant has become something of a turnaround specialist. He worked with EMC corporate finance and interim management specialists in Maidstone on troubled smaller enterprises. "I'm probably a useless accountant but I'm quite good with people and understand most things financial and legal. I ended up helping people running their businesses."

That experience was useful to Jack Parkinson, son of the company founder Betty, who set up the Parkinson Staff Bureau in Dartford more than 50 years ago. Mr Parkinson was preparing to step down - he is now semi-retired - and wanted to place the company in good hands at a time of radical change in recruitment.

He had built the business by organic growth and acquisition, usually establishing a joint venture with acquired companies, a model that is slowly changing as more businesses are absorbed fully within HR GO.

The Plc operates across most recruitment sectors, and is especially strong in industrial, construction, food processing and production - it recruits for Thanet Earth - drivers, warehousing and logistics. It employed some 5,500 temps in the run-up to Christmas.

In 2008, recession was looming. The recruitment business is a good economic weather vane and Mr Harvey knew things were bad when, after a good first half, "things fell off a cliff" after September. Profitability dipped. "We had to save a quarter of a million pounds of costs per month for the business to survive."

HR GO shed around 100 staff from its 430-strong headcount, around 20 in Kent. "It was really tough but we survived the worst of it. Things came back and we started to focus on marketing, branding, training and IT."

The company has since taken on more people and the headcount is up to 390 as it develops new services, including HR and IT resources available to third party clients.

Rising unemployment suggests that permanent jobs are harder to find and that is mirrored by HR GO's findings. Mr Harvey says the temp side is going well, but he expects permanent jobs to return in due course.

The business has gone through a lot of change under Harvey, with a new HR outsourcing consultancy service and white collar division. Its IT division Eclipse offers outsourced services.

While HR GO has joint ventures with many acquired companies, some are being absorbed into the company. HR GO operates 55 branches, all now branded HR GO.

Mr Harvey pays tribute to Jack Parkinson who now lives a lot of his time abroad and is much more hands-off. "I've got the greatest respect for anybody who can build something like this." But Harvey is not copying Jack in one key area - his outspoken criticism of Kent County Council's commercial services and the way the council competed with the private sector.

Mr Harvey is more relaxed. ""It's not an issue for me. You have to get on with the situation."