About the RI Awards
Last week, we joined other recruitment professionals at the Sofitel Wentworth Hotel in Sydney for the awards ceremony and gala dinner. Every year, we look forward to the legendary purple ‘R’ award and we couldn’t be happier for winning the Best Training and Development Initiative of the Year award once more. This goes to show that our on-going investment in our training and development initiatives has benefitted our consultants and in turn allowed them to better support their candidates and the recruitment industry as a whole. Last year alone, we invested $4.5 million in our in-house learning initiatives to ensure our consultants are well-equipped to benefit from potential disruption in the STEM markets.
Having won the ‘Best Medium Recruitment Agency To Work For’ title last year, we were also humbled to be a finalist in this category this year. At SThree, we work together as a team to ensure that we remain focused on being innovative while maximising our candidate engagement, commercial achievement and contribution to the success of the recruitment industry. This is why we are so thrilled to have been nominated.
Our continual investment in our training and development programme
We see the value of investing in our employees and their continual learning. Having a solid training and development programme across all levels of the business provides our people with a clear career trajectory and supports their careers from an entry level through to executive coaching at the director level. This has enabled us to retain top talent in the business.
Our clients look for highly skilled recruitment partners and they choose us to source for them because of our specialist sector focus and expertise in all aspects of our operating markets. Our dedicated Learning and Development (L&D) team in Australia focuses on creating bespoke training programmes that leverage our consultants’ strengths and equip them to become highly skilled recruiters. In this way, we are able to provide a higher value-add service to our clients and candidates.
Over the past year we established the following programmes which have assisted our consultants to reach their full potential and deliver solutions to their customers through a consultative assessment of their needs:
- Contract Blueprint Programme – a comprehensive learning initiative that consists of nine different modules and designed to train our consultants in providing an excellent service delivery to candidates in contract roles;
- Recruitment Campus – a development programme designed for our new starters in their first six months with the company to equip them with the skills and knowledge required;
- Building Leaders’ Potential – a global leadership development programme that is designed to equip our senior leaders with the fundamental skills to thrive as a leader whilst supporting their career development;
- IdentiFy programme – our global initiative to support and develop women in leadership roles;
- LEAP – a sponsor programme that helps to identify future leaders who are proven high performers and have the ability to engage and aspire their team. Our most recent LEAP session took place last week and our consultants across the Asia-Pacific region flew to Singapore for a two-day intensive training programme;
- Mentor Development Programme – designed to prepare senior consultants in becoming competent coaches and mentors;
- CliftonStrengths – a development programme to complement our sales-driven training and help our consultants discover and leverage their top five talents. This has enabled our consultants to be 6.2% more productive and 4 times more likely to be engaged at work; and
- Certificate in Management Essentials (CMEP) programme – designed to develop first line management skills and behaviours to improve individual and team performance.
We also partnered with the Australian Institute of Management to enable our consultants to access external training from industry specialists for both their personal and professional development. On a more informal setting, we implemented Management Lunch and Learns whereby the entire management team would meet monthly over lunch to exchange their learnings and experience. Topics covered include how to deal with absenteeism, performance reviews and feedback techniques.
Our key development initiative over the past 12 months
Our Contract Blueprint Programme was launched with the objective of creating a framework that enhances our offerings to our customers long-term and was designed to deliver the best service to our customers – starting from their first moment of contact with us. To ensure this was relevant to the market in its best form, over 45 individuals at SThree – from trainee consultants to senior directors contributed their input and ideas. Every element is achievable by all consultants and is meant to connect the challenges consultants face with the essential skills needed to be successful. If utilised correctly – this will yield success no matter what market they operate in. The programme provides our consultants with a clear understanding of our contract business and helps them build a successful career in contract recruitment. They are provided with a series of learning tools including practical training comprising of self-learning modules, classroom training, on-desk coaching, experiential learning and offsite activities. The aim is to enable our consultants to gain experience in client-based activities whilst continuing to develop their strengths and defining their own recruitment approach.
The programme has had a positive impact on the business since its launch. We have subsequently seen an overall growth in all areas that we operate in – the technology sector was up 12%, energy by 30% and engineering by 16%.
One candidate stated that “SThree was outstanding and very understanding throughout a very difficult process. They were very responsive, helpful and kept me updated at all times”.
Our extensive suite of training and development initiatives has further established SThree as a great place to work and one that fully supports its employees in their personal growth and career progression.
A big thank you to our clients, candidates and the RI committee
We would like to extend a big thank you to the RI Awards judging panel for recognising our contribution to the recruitment industry and last but not least – our clients and candidates who believe in our vision and our potential to help them achieve the next step in their business and career respectively. More importantly, we want to show a huge appreciation to our SThree Australia team for their hard work and positive energy in the office!
If you would like to know why our people love working at our office and would like to join us, you can find out more by watching our video here or click below to search for a list of available jobs.