Excel at Growth - Attracting and Retaining Talent Programme

About the Programme

In September 2019, Enterprise Ireland launched the Attracting & Retaining Talent workshop, having recognised the increasingly competitive employment market and the need to support our client companies to become more innovative and flexible with how they attract and retain key skills.

In March 2020, Covid-19 triggered a major change in the way we work. The pandemic brought about many unintended challenges as companies around the world were thrust, unprepared and at short notice, into transitioning to a predominantly remote-working workforce. This has had a significant impact on how companies manage and engage their employees. Even as we learn to live with Covid, we are also finding that attracting and retaining the right skills to grow the business remains a priority, with many CEOs citing retention and upskilling of employees as a critical challenge for 2021. (IBEC, January 2021).

Our work with client companies over the past year has revealed that the fundamental principles of sourcing and retaining skills have not changed. What is now required of business leaders, in order to recover from the impact of Covid and continue to scale, is a more nuanced approach to talent management that enables SMEs explore and understand the benefits they can offer as employers and package and market them in an attractive manner to engage candidates. The programme therefore continues to focus on supporting companies attract and retain the best talent for their business within the new normal.

The overall objective of the Attracting & Retaining Talent Programme is to help you build a bespoke Employee Value Proposition (EVP) to support you in the following areas:

• Build a structured and robust talent management process to attract and engage key talent into your organisation.
• Enable you to compete effectively for skills and engage with the right talent for your business.
• Help you identify, implement, and manage an appropriate recruitment strategy within your business.
• Build understanding on how to retain your key talent once they join your business

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the programme and follow-up session you will be able to:

• Develop an Employee Value Proposition for your business, outlining the benefits of working for your company.
• Be comfortable to use a variety of communication methods and tools to reach prospective candidates.
• Develop clear job descriptions with key role responsibilities, deliverables, functional and behavioural competencies.
• Screen and assess candidate fit for roles.
• Put in place appropriate initiatives to engage employees across the business.

Training Provider

The workshop will be delivered by Conscia - a specialist recruitment and talent management agency focused on supporting companies to attract, retain and engage the best talent.

The Conscia team, led by Ryan Williams, Graham Morris, combine over 50 years’ experience helping companies understand, build and deploy winning Employer Value Propositions across Irish, European and Global markets.

Format

Pre-workshop: You will be asked to complete an online Talent Diagnostic Assessment in advance of the workshop to help us tailor the content to your needs.
Workshop (1 full day – in person): highly interactive, engaging sessions delivered in a one day workshop, that provides a clear direction on how you can attract and retain skills within your business. Conscia will share a variety of tools, templates and case studies allowing you to shape the workshop content to suit your business needs.
Post-workshop: Each participant company is offered a follow-up one-to-one session with Conscia to review your employee value proposition and support you to develop appropriate and practical recruitment/retention strategies and initiatives.  The session will last approximately 2 hours and enable you develop an action plan for addressing key talent attraction and retention challenges.

To get the most from the programme, we strongly advise that you:
a) Bring senior colleagues who have responsibility for recruiting and developing employees.
b) Complete the pre-workshop diagnostic and/or reading requested by Conscia.

Who should attend?

This programme is targeted towards Founders, CEOs, MDs, HR Managers, and other senior managers responsible for recruitment, employee development and engagement.

Please note that participants will be required to undertake preparation work in advance of the workshop and between the workshop and follow-on implementation sessions. Details will be provided to participants both on registration and at the workshop.

Programme Cost 

Enterprise Ireland supports the overall costs. Companies pay €300. Companies are welcome to bring more up to three members of their senior management team to support the implementation of the learning in-company.

Programme Dates 2023

• 18th May - Limerick
• 15th June - Dublin

Registration

Register here for May

Register here for June

Expression of Interest

If you are unable to attend event dates outlined above but wish to attend the programme in the near future, please click on the button below to register your interest:

Expression of Interest

More Information and Contact

Download Attracting and Retaining Talent brochure

Contact

For further information, please contact:

¹CIPD (2017) HR Practices in Ireland.
²ISME (2016) Ireland – 2016 SME Sector Recruitment Report.
³Lincoln Recruitment Specialists (2018) Maintaining competitiveness in a talent-driven market. Salary & Employment insights 2018.

Back to: Excel at Growth Workshop Series