Remote Working in Recruitment: Abrivia’s Journey and Insights
Abrivia Leaders Series launched By Bobby Kerr
Abrivia, in aid of its charity partner, Aware, organised a number of talks hosted by business leaders promoting positive mental health in the workplace such as Bobby Kerr and Brent Pope during 2015/2016. The name of these charity business seminars are the Abrivia Leaders Series.
The first of the Abrivia Leaders Series was formally launched by the charismatic chairman of Insomnia Coffee, Newstalk anchor-man and founding dragon of RTE’s Dragons Den, Mr. Bobby Kerr, on Tuesday 28th July in the Sky Suite of the Radisson Hotel, Dublin 8.
In a humorous, captivating and inspirational speech, Bobby outlined his own real life experiences in regards “How to get ahead in business” and provided the audience with excellent tips in this regard. These tips included not passing any heed of begrudgers, avoiding negative people, valuing what you have in terms of health and family and taking enjoyment out of what you do in life.
Bobby also encourages networking, having integrity, setting attainable targets and continually re-evaluate what your organisation is doing and engender a culture of constant innovation.
Bobby’s infective and affable manner combined with real life examples lead to a totally enthralling presentation, providing the audience with a vivid roadmap in regards “How to get ahead in business”.
Fellow Kilkenny man and owner of Abrivia Recruitment, Donal O’ Brien congratulated Bobby on a truly poignant and memorable presentation and complimented Bobby for supporting the Abrivia/Aware partnership promoting positive mental attitude in the workplace.
Brent Pope Promotes Positive Mental Health in the Workplace
Coping mechanisms in pursuing a successful career was top of the agenda at the second of the Abrivia Leaders Series breakfast on Thursday 13th August in Dublin at which the guest speakers, rugby expert, journalist and author Brent Pope and psychologist Dr Claire Hayes, outlined the ways in which organisations can support their employees’ mental health and reduce workplace stress.
Dr. Claire Hayes, Martina Sheehan and Fionnual Edge Head up third leaders series promoting Health and Wellness in the Workplace
Abrivia, in conjunction with Aware hosted a HR Breakfast Briefing in the Spencer Hotel on March 8th. The gathering of over 100 HR professionals were treated to insightful and very thought provoking talks by Dr. Claire Hayes (Clinical Director, Aware), Martina Sheehan(Head of HR, Mercer) and Fionnuala Edge(Head of Working Together, Bank of Ireland) in regards implementing Health and Wellness Programmes in the Workplace.
Dr. Claire commenced proceedings by outlining what exactly is health and wellness in the workplace, the advantages of exercising at work, how to spot the signs of depression amongst colleagues and the advantages of having a happy and healthy workforce. Dr. Claire also outlined how Aware’s range of services can provide functional and practical support to those affected by depression and related disorders. She also discussed in depth positive mental health and resilience training in the workplace.
The second speaker of the morning was Martina Sheehan, Head of HR at Mercer, who commenced by discussing the range of innovative initiatives Mercer introduced during the economic downturn. This included employee surveys which were aimed at identifying the stresses and anxieties employees were under as a result of the economic downturn. One of these anxieties was how to maintain a healthy lifestyle. So Mercer commenced by introducing a very successful 10 week Lifestyle Challenge programme. This was later renamed the Wellness Programme which included stress management courses, motivational talks, exercise classes, nutritional advice, just to name a few of the initiatives.
Finally Fionnuala Edge, Head of Working Together, Bank of Ireland, provided a fantastic insight into Bank of Irelands “Be at your best” programme. In regards physical fitness this included the couch to 5k and trail trek with sports guru, Karl Henry. Also included in this initiative were nutritional talks and free BMI analysis and advice. In regards mental fitness, Bank of Ireland introduced a mindfulness programme and got pop icon Bressie to give a talk to employees on mental health. The third arm of the “Be at your best” programme dealt with careers and career masterclasses combined with a career portal were made available to employees along with other initiatives in this regard.
Bank of Ireland carried out a post implementation survey which found that the programme was a great success.
The seminar concluded with a passionate speech from Drew Flood of Aware, emphasising the range of services which Aware provide to assist Health and Wellness in the workplace and the excellent support Aware provides to society through a range of free programmes.
As a result of this event alone Abrivia raised over €2800 for Aware and are well on target to raise over €10,000 for Aware over the financial year.
Click here to view the photos from the Leaders Series HR Breakfast seminar
Branding Leaders Evening a huge Success
The Abrivia Summer Branding evening, which took place in the Harbourmaster, IFSC, on the evening of June 23rd turned out to be a huge success. Recognised leaders in the branding industry, Paul Hughes and Bob Gray, of Wild Atlantic Way fame, kicked off proceedings by explaining how branding is much more than a company logo and how your brand essence, once uncovered, becomes the source of all your branding activities. The core question a company should continually ask itself, according to TEDx speaker, Paul Hughes is “If you had the attention of the world for thirty seconds, what would you say?”The next speaker needed no introduction in that it was the passionate employer branding enthusiast, Johnny Campbell, of Social Talent fame. Johnny’s presentation started by focussing on the main motivators which inspire people to move jobs and how these motivators or purposes should be reflected in a company’s messaging, job ads and employer branding, especially on social media. This could refer to a good work/life balance, giving back to society or in the case of computer programmers, learning a new exciting computer language. The above examples are endless. Johnny then quoted leadership guru, Fred Kofman who stated that “your job is not what you do, but the goal you pursue”. These individual goals should be reflected in job ads in order to increase your response and ultimately your conversion rate. In essence the core theme of Johnny’s fascinating presentation is “how to become a better recruiter through effective employer branding”The Branding Leaders Evening was the fourth instalment in the Abrivia Leaders Series. Other speakers in the Leaders Series included Brent Pope, Bobby Kerr, Dr. Claire Hayes, Martina Sheehan and Fionnuala Edge. The fifth event in the Abrivia Leaders series is scheduled for this Autumn. Details to be confirmed shortly.
Please click on the link below to view some photos form Abrivia’s latest thought leadership event>>>
Salary Survey Breakfast Briefing Highlights
“Gorgeous venue for launch of Abrivia Salary survey with Brian Lucey fascinated that 63% of employers have difficulties managing millennials”..Director of real estate company based in Ireland
How to Instil a High Performing Culture Seminar
L-R Dr. Na Fu, Donal O’ Brien,Dr. Amanda Shantz, Dr. Claire Hayes
Abrivia, in conjunction with Trinity College and Dr. Claire Hayes, hosted a HR and Management Breakfast Seminar in the newly refurbished Alexander Hotel, Dublin, on October 19th. The gathering of over 60 HR and management professionals were treated to very thought-provoking presentations by Dr. Amanda Shantz (Associate Professor of HRM TCD), Dr. Na Fu (Associate Professor of TCD, HRM) and Dr. Claire Hayes (author and clinical psychologist).
MD of Abrivia, Donal O’Brien, commenced proceedings by discussing how getting the right cultural fit is essential for high performing companies and studies have shown that companies who source employees who are culturally compatible to their organisations witness in excess of 144% increase to their bottom line.
Dr. Amanda Shantz discussed the “why” of human resource management. How can HR and line manager partner to lead people to understand events in the same way to become true HR architects and create a high-performance culture? The answer is to ensure that HRM practices send a consistent message to employees so that employees share in the same vision of why the company exists. Employees are clear in regards what is expected of them and what they can expect in return. This of course means that line managers need to be properly equipped to deliver HR messages and implement HR practices in a consistent manner. For example, if each line manager carries out performance reviews in a different manner and the level of award is different from department to department, this is bound to cause conflict in the organisation.
HR departments and employees need to share the same outlook in regards why HR practices exist in organisations to instil a high performing sales culture. HR practices could exist to increase employee performance, to ensure high levels of productivity, to generate a high performance or to reduce organisational costs.
Dr. Shantz exemplified that if employees are neutral in how they view HR outcomes, this is the same as HR outcomes being viewed negatively. This is caused by an interpretation gap between employees and HR professionals which can be remedied by consistent and clear equivocal messages through HR practices.
HR needs to ask employees “why are we doing this” in order to prevent misinterpretation. Also, line managers need to be consulted to ensure HR initiatives are implemented as intended and they are also clear and consistent in communicating how HR practices will produce positives outcomes for the employee so everyone clearly understands the “why of human resource management”.
Dr. Na Fu discussed how line managers need to be motivated to achieve high performing teams. Many line managers are not aware of the benefits of effective HR practices and have a different interpretation of the corporate culture/values of the organisation.
The main components of effective HR implementation by line managers is Ability, Motivation and Opportunities. All line managers need to be consistent in their message to encourage responsiveness in employees to create high performance culture.
Individualised based competition in teams creates a paradox in that someone always gets hurt. It is much better to encourage team based competition for a high-performance culture. Dr. Na emphasised that to create a high performing culture. HR departments need to focus on line managers ability to implement HR and focus or creating a cooperative and collaborative culture in your respective organisations.
Dr. Claire Hayes talked about how a high-performance sales culture may cause employee anxiety. She posed the pertinent question “if the culture is to stay to 8-9pm at night, how much is actually being done?”.
Many line managers do not feel equipped to deal with employee’s mental health issues.
Language is key when dealing with employees experiencing high levels of stress and is effecting their performance. Never ask “how are you feeling?” as employees rarely open up to this type of question. A better way is to frame the question “I feel concerned as I feel you struggling?”. This is more likely to get a more open and honest response from employees. In regards finding out the real culture of an organisation, as opposed to the advertised one, culture can be defined as “what the organisation is doing when no-one is watching”.
The seminar concluded with an excellent Questions and Answers session and a brief speech from Drew Flood of Aware, emphasising the range of services Aware volunteers provide for people suffering from anxiety and/or depression.
To view photographs from this event, please click here>>>
https://www.facebook.com/pg/Abrivia/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1506872519434098
The next event in the Abrivia Thought Leaders series is the Salary Survey breakfast briefing in Trinity College Dining Hall in early January 2018.
