"A Great Place to Work” – work out what is ‘Great’!

The definition of a great workplace from an employee’s viewpoint is one you trust the people you work with, you have great pride in what you do and you enjoy the people you work with.

I have to say when I first came across the Great Place To Work Institute’s description of what makes a great place to work its simplicity and insightfulness resonated with me strongly and from the start of our journey in autumn 2011 these simple principles have been at the core of everything we've tried to achieve. I can’t begin to tell you how happy I was when it was announced that we were chosen as one of the Great Workplaces in Ireland 2013 by the Institute. It was the official stamp of approval on what has been a very rewarding journey for all staff at Hays in Ireland. Our employee survey comments suggest that Hays is a very enjoyable place to work, with high levels of camaraderie and pride and also a place where people are encouraged to perform to the peak of their abilities and progress in their careers.

One of the biggest learns for me has been the opportunity to see the impact of the many initiatives we've undertaken over the last number of years and to see which of these have made a really defining difference to how people feel about work. We've introduced lots of improvements and changes - big and small - and it seems that while staff are happy with tangible improvements to their workplace, what they really want is a place where they can give their best performance. If we can provide an environment that makes them successful at their jobs, then there is a greater sense of satisfaction long term.

So the real challenge is to have a culture that promotes and supports high performance opportunities for everyone and that also gives people space to develop and flourish individually. At the outset we tried to strike a balance between the commercial realities of a business - profits, KPIs and targets etc with a workplace that people enjoy, trust and have pride in. A place where they feel that can make real and valued contribution, putting them at the heart of the business. We found that the two were inextricably linked.

Everything seems easy in hindsight but there were quite a few lessons learned along the way. Believe me, we did all sort s of things, everyone had lots of ideas, lots of enthusiasm and wanting to be the best of the best within the first month. It’s very easy to get carried away.

I also attended quite a few Great Place to Work events and listened to successful companies give their views. I personally filled several notebooks full of great sounding ideas. While you can pick up some relevant ideas and insights you need to be careful that they don’t lead you away from what’s going to make real and lasting impact. It’s much more important to take time to get to the essence of what’s important for your business – what ‘Great’ means to you.

What we found really worked for us at Hays was focusing on the “3 C’s” Communication, Caring and CSR with a special focus on recognition and thanking And this was the results:

High Impact Initiatives

• Considerable increase in CSR participation
• Broader recognition programmes for all Hays staff
• Improvements in communications including more regular Town Halls and sharing views and suggestions though the ‘bottom up’ teams
• Flexible working hours 

Other Good Stuff

• Enhanced maternity benefit, educational grant, new voluntary benefit schemes
• Improvements to office facilities

What the journey has taught me is that it’s not about the badge of honour, but the journey to find out what ‘Great’ really means to your staff and then ensuring you consistently imbed those values.

My Top Tips on the journey to becoming a great place to work.

• Engage with all staff: make the message loud and clear that everyone has to do their bit to help a company become a great workplace
• Be realistic on what you can do, don’t try and be too ambitious and end up not delivering due to cost, time or complexity
• Keep it simple, don’t try to do everything, pick around three subjects to tackle
• Don’t get too distracted by what makes other companies great
• Get managers on board & have a consistent message
• Communication – use a variety of approaches – bottom up emails through to MD town halls
• Use & share survey feedback in a timely fashion
• Be prepared for the work and time that it takes – get commitment from your GPTW team(s).
• Celebrate and promote the value that your business brings to society
• Patience and persistence – it can take time for initiatives to embed but once they do, you see the impact
• Embed a culture of high performance

www.hays.ie/great-place-to-work

Michelle Waters

HR, Hays Recruitment

Dublin 

Banking in Ireland - a new horizon

UlsterBank confirmed yesterday that it will be cutting its workforce by 950 staff bythe end of the year. 600 employees in the Republicof Ireland are to be made redundant,while 350 jobs are proposed to go in Northern Ireland.

LarryBroderick, general secretary of the IBOA which represents the majority ofUlster Bank staff was extremely shocked by the sheer scale of the job cutsbeing proposed by management

Howeverjob losses have been widely forecast in retail banking and Ulster Bank, who hasbeen seen as one of the best employers in the sector will not have taken thisdecision lightly. The cost pressures onall banks have been well documented, as is the need for them to return toprofitability.

Thequestion that springs to mind now is - is the banking sector doomed?

Ibelieve the answer is no; although numbers may initially dip, in the long runthere will still be considerable job opportunities in this sector over thecoming years. What will change, almostcertainly, is the actual banks and financial services providers that willprovide jobs here. As internet bankingbecomes more and more popular, there is less requirement for the physicalretail presence.

Thenumber of players on the high street has reduced and is unlikely to return towhat we saw five years ago. However, we have seen tremendous growth in the‘funds’ and wholesale banking operations in the IFSC. The IFSC Clearing House Group’s plan for thesector targets 10,000 new jobs in the next 5 years.

Even themain retail banks retain an appetite for collections expertise, risk and creditanalysts, corporate relationship managers and restructuring experts. Some salaries are showing signs of increasingfor the first time in 3 years, driven by a lack of supply.

Withouta doubt our Financial Services and Banking Sectors will remain a keyemployer. There will continue to beradical change and restructuring but that should just mean re-orientation andtraining for some ‘traditional’ bankers. The sector is set to remain vibrantfor years to come.

As aclosing observation – we at Hays have certainly seen significant levels ofactivity in our Banking team which has grown steadily during 2011 and shows nosign of abating during 2012.

Allan Daly is Business Director of HaysBanking in Ireland

Follow Allan on Linkedin

E: Allan.daly@hays.com

P: 01 897 2400
Hays Facebook
Follow @HaysIreland

A career in recruitment for grads - how to get from 300 to 8!

We recently participated in the graduate careers day in the Smurfit Business School. I really enjoyed having a chance to chat with the students about their career hopes and expectations. The main reason we were at Smurfit was to talk to students interested in a career in recruitment and to tell them all about our grad programme and what Hays has to offer. We had six grads start with us recently and three of them had completed master’s degrees in Smurfit. We thought we might get a head start on next summer’s grad intake.

The day was a great success. There were four of us in attendance from Hays. Myself, our marketing exec Caroline Kelly, business manager Sean O’Kane and trainee consultant (Smurfit Graduate Siobhain Smyth). I’m certainly glad there were the four, because there was a lot of attention around our stand and it wasn’t because of free sweets! We were providing something a lot more useful: advice on CV preparation, interview preparation tips and sharing our market knowledge. The advice went down a storm.

It was fantastic to meet so many young people with lots of potential and enthusiasm and for me the best thing about the day was getting a chance to speak to the students about a career in recruitment. I started with Hays over ten years ago and love the excitement and challenge of the industry. For some it was the first time they’d considered recruitment as a career and for many after speaking with us they realised that it was a career that ticked all the right boxes for them: best-in-industry training, excellent career development opportunities, a world leader in our field in 25 countries. But most importantly the role of a recruitment consultant is one that truly gives you a fantastic well rounded grounding in business.

Our grad programme this year has already been a great triumph. We had six talented trainees start with us in August and they are doing fantastically well. Right now we are in the process of selecting another eight ambitious individuals to begin their career with us in January 2011. We’ve had an amazing response, hundreds of cvs and I’ve personally spoken with nearly 100 of these individuals. So what can you do to improve your chances of going from one of 300 applicants to being one of the final 8? What will make you stand out?

Top Tips

• Always know what you’re applying for. I found that some people I spoke with weren’t quite sure of what it was they’d applied for – obviously not good! So don’t blast your cv around to any job that has “grad” in the title.
• Make sure your cv is relevant for the job and of high quality and supply a cover letter for every job, it really makes a difference.
• Don’t assume. Do your research on the job. Too many people I spoke with thought that recruitment was solely a HR job and hadn’t properly researched and considered all the other aspects to the role.
• Enthusiasm: You need to convince us that you are committed to the job as a career and are excited about it, enthusiasm goes a long way.

London’s calling for accountants again!

Back in March we had a large amount of accountancy jobs with our large banking clients in London. Subsequently, we organised two career events, which were a great success and led to a number of Irish qualified accountants with financial services experience moving to lucrative jobs in the city of London. We asked a few of the people we placed what they thought of their experience of moving to London. Read the case studies of Vincent Holohan, Romeo Macari, John Dalton and Caoimhin Young to find out more.

Based on that success and a request from our banking customers, we are hosting another two events on the 13th October in the Clarion Hotel and the 14th in the Conrad Hotel. We are looking for a wide range of qualified accountants and we are very confident we can get Irish accountants with experience in the financial services sector jobs very quickly. If you’d like more information go to www.hays.ie/londonscalling.