Allstate NI Wins the "National Big Tick Award for Excellence in Talent Management 2009"
Caption: Rose Kelly, Director of HR (left) and Joy Chambers, Workforce Solutions Area Leader represented Allstate Northern Ireland when they collected the Big Tick Award from Kieran Harding, Managing Director of Business in the Community.
Always a special evening, the event this year was exceptional. With entries up 12% on last year and over 470 people attending, the ceremony was a huge success. The standard of entries for the various award categories was phenomenal.
Business in the Community's Awards are the most influential, well respected awards for responsible business practice in the UK. They recognise and reward businesses which have a positive impact on society through a broad range of categories covering the workplace, environment, community and economy. The National Big Tick Award for Excellence in Talent Management recognises companies building the confidence and competence of employees to realise their full potential.
Allstate Northern Ireland set out in 1998 to meet its aggressive recruitment targets by growing its own talent and by providing new IT opportunities for hundreds of unemployed graduates. The vision for Allstate NI and a key society benefit was to create a diverse organisation providing equality of opportunity, selection based on principles of merit and removal of barriers to create a harmonious and equitable environment.
The Allstate NI Talent programme adopts a 'people first' philosophy which is supported by a wide range of initiatives, from careers advancement to a work life balance programme. Allstate NI has through their exemplar practices been able to recruit hundreds of unemployed and non IT graduates and develop them from within.
The Talent Manager is responsible for strategic resourcing and has closely matched all new employees in roles according to their ability, competence and personal preference resulting in high retention and low absence. Through award winning work life balance strategies, Allstate has attracted a 97% return rate for new mothers post maternity leave. In addition to ethnic and cultural diversity, Allstate NI boasts a wide range of ages and has a high representation of female employees.