Staff development Academy at Hays plc

Introduction

Hays plc is a global leader in specialist recruitment and the UK’s largest listed recruitment group, placing professional candidates in permanent, temporary and interim positions. With over 8,900 staff in 390 offices across 27 countries, in 2007 they placed 68,000 people in permanent jobs, and each week paid 46,000 temporary workers. Hays plc saw net fees to the end of June 2007 of £633.6m.

Opportunity for improvement

The Hemingway Corporation was approached by Hays plc to work in partnership with them to provide a solution to develop their staff in order to meet ever demanding business needs. 

Hays plc was in the enviable position of facing very rapid growth and the need to develop managers to be able to cope with the additional pressures this would bring.  At the same time, they were also keen to promote from within and wanted to identify those individuals with the potential to progress.

The Solution

The idea of a training Academy was born from early discussions with Hays plc and Hemingway was charged with the role of designing and developing an appropriate programme in line with the competencies and values of the Company.

As is well know, even after the most thorough training programme, much of the learning is lost and the transfer of learning to the workplace does not take place.  This key issue was uppermost in Hemingway’s mind and so an on-going programme was developed.

Before the programme commenced, a 180 degree feedback was completed by the trainees and their managers to be revealed at the commencement of Stage 1, which was to then be revisited at the completion of the Academy as a key measurement criteria.

The Academy comprised three Stages:

• Stage One was a three day residential programme looking at the three key areas: Managing Self, Managing Teams and Managing Performance. 
  

• Stage 2 comprised a series of conference calls, approximately one a month, where delegates, working in teams, worked on a major assignment as well as fulfilling their own individual action plans.  They were supported in this by an in- house Mentoring programme.  Progress was reported during the conference calls and also any problems resolved.  This also served as an excellent opportunity to share success stories as well as to solve problems.
  

• Stage 3 comprised a two day residential workshop where the assignment was competed and the focus was on organisational awareness and forward thinking.  The workshop ended with each group giving a presentation to a senior board member followed by a question and answer session which was very successful.
  

Though this comprehensive programme, delegates were encouraged to put into practice all that they had learned on the workshops.

Where is it today?

After the initial successful rollout of the Academy, The Hemingway Corporation subsequently designed a handover course to the Hays training team. This course continues to be implemented across the whole of the international business by Hays own team of professionally trained and supported trainers.