8th November 2013
By TheCork.ie
news@TheCork.ie
More than 110 HR professionals and business people in the Cork region attended the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) Southern Region briefing at The Clarion Hotel, sponsored by Fastnet Recruitment and chaired by Liam Linehan, Honorary Chairman (South Region).
VMware Vice President of Global Technical support, John Dolan presented his insights on how to get best talent for your organisation. With over 700 employees in Cork, the VMWare story in Ireland is a huge success and Dolan attributed this in some part to the government internship initiative, JobBridge.
“The Cork operations centre has a superb reputation globally for high achievement; from our perspective it’s the people within our organization that make the difference – our passion is our people”, said Dolan, who heads up the global support organisation.
“We were interested in JobBridge initially because it provided a very interesting option to build a competitive pipeline of technical support specialists that were laser focused and trained on the needs of our business. We invested heavily in the programme and the people participating because we believed in the internship model of training people, giving them a chance, and helping them to grow and develop to their full potential”.
The team at VMware have now recruited over 100 JobBridge candidates, with varied education and qualifications and facilitated a 3-month intensive ‘bootcamp’ training programme, followed by a 6-month work placement. Sourcing candidates from diverse backgrounds such as graphic artists, musicians, archeologists, farm managers and bankers, John and his team at VMWare have created a winning strategy to creatively address a tangible skills gap and to grow and develop a highly capable talent pool. Of the 100 JobBridge candidates, the company has made 85 full time hires, and states that the drop out rate is very low on the scheme, while loyalty is high. “It’s a win-win”, said Dolan.
“We are keeping the attrition rate low as a result of JobBridge also because the people that we have invested in are incredibly loyal and want to be part of our team going forward. We believed in them, and now they believe in us. The right attitude is everything and we work hard to make it easy to do business in Cork”, added Dolan. “At VMware Cork we drive to excel as a team”
Niamh O’Driscoll, Managing Director, Fastnet Recruitment and event sponsor, quoted the recent IMB report, which saw Ireland rise 3 places in overall competitiveness and placed Ireland in the Number 1 position for the Flexibility and Adaptability of our workforce.
“We have a lot to be optimistic about; Ireland is one of the best places in the world to do business. International surveys consistently place us in the top half dozen locations and, more importantly, corporations which have invested here strongly endorse that view”, said Niamh O’Driscoll.
“There is no doubt that creative talent acquisition strategies, and innovative programmes such as Springboard and JobBridge are giving Ireland a competitive edge, and with inspiring examples like VMware, we can all learn how to maximise opportunities from such initiatives and create employment, career transition and economic benefits for all”