Our IiP Assessor was on site with us between 29th October and 2nd November.  He conducted interviews with 48 employees during that time, including all of the Creyf's employees. 

Aptus was initially recognized back in 1997 and this was the 4^th assessment for Aptus Personnel.  This was Creyf’s first assessment and the Assessor believed that the integration of Creyf’s and Aptus had been successful.

What do we do well?

§         The introduction of Managing Director Lunches

§         The adoption of a competency based approach to staff selection & recruitment

§         The team culture of ‘working for each other’

§         The induction & initial training of new staff has an excellent structure

§         The introduction of desk meetings

§         ASPIRE & sales platform training

Opportunities for Development

§         Potential to further develop managers as coach/mentor

§         Adoption of performance management to enhance performance

§         Build on the success of desk meetings through continuous improvement

§         Provide operating procedure flow charts

§         Refresher training on software

The main problem with market research is knowing where to start, and how to structure the final report.  It’s essential to have really clear objectives, else you can end up a month later with no clear recommendations to give.

So in this case I did the following….

Events that run over a long period of time can be used to great effect as a reason for keeping in touch and building relationships with client’s and prospects, and are also a great motivator for consultants and clients alike. 

In January this year a recruitment consultant from the Aptus Norwich branch asked if the company could do an incentive based around Formula 1. What a great idea it turned out to be; frequent opportunities to win, the glamorous nature of the sport along with the introduction of Lewis Hamilton, make this a popular event with both branches and customers.

The premise behind the competition was quite simple.  Each client/prospect could pick any six drivers from the championship, they then collected the points that each of their drivers scored in each race.  The highest scoring participant in each month (per branch) won a driving/motor sport related prize.  The highest scoring participant in each branch at the end of the championship wins a Ferrari Teddy Bear, with the highest scorer across the company winning a Driving Experience.  The Aptus branch showing the highest number of conversions across the prospects wins a prize as well (a great way of motivating the team to promote the incentive).

After each race the branches were given a newsletter telling them the race highlights, scorers and current client positions.  To add a little fun a photo of Teddy (propped with the relevant country stereotypes) was included each time.  This gave the branches a reason to call/visit their participating clients & prospects, without having to make yet another obvious sales pitch.

We have over 200 of our clients & prospects participating in the incentive; with the final race approaching excitement is mounting to see who wins the final prizes.  In several branches the results are very close – the last race will decide more than the F1 World Champion!

Friday Fun – could you be a vampire?  Apparently the thing I would hate most is blood-stained teeth!

The reason I joined Aptus was to gain more generalist Marketing skills, the last couple of weeks have brought that in bucket loads – who knew that recruitment marketing could be so varied!

Last Wednesday I went to a Microsoft Seminar at the Space Centre in Birmingham.  I’m looking for ways to upgrade our use of mailing lists & customer relationship management – the Microsoft tool uses Outlook which would fit in nicely with our existing software.  Networking is a key part of these events, an attendee from a local business just happened to mention that he needed both a perm vacancy & some  temp vacancies filled – it goes to show that you never know where you’re going to pick up new business!

The next day I was observing at a training session being held by our sister company Creyf’s.  The sessions were about understanding candidates motivations & concerns, then learning how to spec out candidates effectively – some really good role playing took place and the consultants seemed to get a lot out of the days.  Then it was back to the office to plan not only the next Driving Desk meeting in  September but a Permanent Placements Conference in Nov.  The Driving meeting is going to be focussed on the use of foreign drivers, should be an interesting day!

Earlier this week I spent a couple of days at the CIPD conference in Harrogate, picking up some great ideas not only on consultant time management, but also new possibilities for recruitment advertising & potential new products for our managed services division.  My car was weighed down on the way home, conference exhibitors like to give out free pens!

Yesterday I drove to our Croydon branch, who have recently moved to a different location near the new Tesco Express.  The new shop front was installed whilst I was on holiday, so I wanted to see how it looked.  It’s turned out really well, the design is similar to windows we’ve done recently at Wembley & Sale – it’s really nice to see the corporate identity coming through.  I also talked to the branch manager about e-shots; we have developed some new email templates and I’m looking for a couple of branches to try them out with - Croydon would be a great place to start as they do a mix of perm & temp and different sectors (care, driving & industrial).

A key marketing role at Aptus Personnel is to ensure best practise and return on investment for branch advertising. Whether through national/local press, direct mail or the intranet, the same key principles apply to ensuring the most impactful advert possible, whilst sticking to the basic rules of decency, honesty & truthfulness.

The AIDA Principle

• First attract ATTENTION
• Then stimulate INTEREST
• Next create a DESIRE
• Finally invite an ACTION

Attention

Choose a banner of headline that makes a benefit promise or is a clear factual statement.

Interest

Build information in an interesting way, relating closely to what the reader is likely to think about the particular issue.

Desire

Relay job appeal and rewards to the reader so that they will aspire to them and want them.

Action

Give them a number to ring, a place to email a CV, or an application form to download.

Adverts have about 1.5 seconds to make an impact on readers, so keep it simple.  Use bullet points where possible, use white space (less is often more!) and mirror the language that you reader uses.  Look at the newspaper/job board that you are targeting and match the vocabulary that they use.

Above all, put a code on your adverts and ask respondents to quote it when they apply/phone; always ask your applicants & clients where they heard of you.  Track your results and act on them – what is the point of advertising if you don’t know what has worked?

A final note – make sure that the job title you quote is really clear.  We once advertised for “Perms Consultants” and received loads of applications from hairdressers!

Quiz of the Week

On Tuesday I went to our branch in Leeds, to talk to the consultants about testing some direct mail campaigns for them. The plan is to track the results of a variety of different mailers, to see which is most effective and gives them the greatest return on investment.  I’ll post the results here once we have them.  Thursday I spent 4 hours in a huge queue on the M1 – looking on the bright side I did receive a free pack from the traffic officers including an atlas, pen & game – perfect for a Marketing girl!

Wednesday saw the first Permanent Placements Desk meeting for the company.  It was held at our head office in Leicester, and involved our Perms Consultants from as far apart as Slough & Inverness.

Desk meetings are a new strategy for Aptus, and are being held to : 

• pass on customer & sales intelligence
• set national standards
• recommend desk policies and strategies
• provide one point of contact for desk issues
• broaden consultants views on type of applicants/business to chase
• champion best practice between branches
• clarify goals/strategy for the desk

We now have a greater number of dedicated permanent specialists than ever before,  the purpose of this first meeting was to enable them to establish a strong network between themselves and share best practice.  We had a great deal of debate on the pros/cons of “narrow sectors” vs “scattergun sectors”, and all of the consultants left the meeting with a strong idea of the direction they wanted to take their business.  Sharing the challenges of different locations turned out to be illuminating, with one branch having over 150 local competitors!  The meeting was a useful forum for deciding how to overcome such obstacles and drive the business forward in each location.

Aptus have a well developed intranet site, and talked about how to use it to our best advantage, including the use of our discussion boards/forums as a way of keeping in touch.  The consultants agreed to take ownership of their part of the intranet, taking turns to contribute articles & expertise.

The importance of pipelines in permanent recruitment was a strong theme throughout the day, to ensure that there is always enough business coming through.  We also took an in-depth look at advertising in all it’s forms – from traditional press, posters & direct mail to internet job boards, social networking and blogs.  I’ve put a list of free job boards & free trials below – feel free to try them out.

All in all the meeting underlined the importance of networking to share best practice and overcome obstacles.  The next step will be to keep the momentum going with future meetings, intranet forums and conference calls – led by the company Perms Champion, Marco.

FREE TRIALS ON JOB BOARDS