The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) has launched a bespoke mentoring programme for its members designed specifically for the recruitment sector in order to support retention and engagement across the profession.
EmpowerMe is a six-month personal development scheme which provides staff at every level with external guidance, motivation, emotional support and a personal development programme designed to help leaders support and enhance their staff at every level. Mentees will get access to inspirational mentors all of whom are industry professionals from within the recruitment sector and who have a wide range of skills and knowledge drawn from their own recruitment careers.
The programme is powered by a sophisticated SaaS platform which enables smart matching of mentors with mentees. The platform creates a web-based community and also enables monitoring and reporting capabilities, goal tracking tools to measure and manage relationships, as well as discussion forums to support mentees.
“Mentoring is a proven approach to driving learning and development for all parties involved,” commented Ann Swain, CEO of APSCo. “For the recruitment sector, EmpowerMe will provide staff with the external support to better understand themselves, their goals and how to get there, while individual recruitment businesses have the added benefit of increasing employee engagement and retention while at the same time demonstrating that they are investing in their staff and helping to drive performance by helping people develop in their career.”
Hattie Duffield, permanent consultant, engineering and innovation at Huxley Engineering, and one of the first mentees to join the EmpowerMe programme, added: “Recruitment is a career that has its own complexities. The process is straightforward however, human beings are not! I feel mentoring gives you another perspective – you are put in a safe space where you feel empowered and I feel it has even more of a positive impact to have a mentor outside your own organisation.”
“The mentor benefits from a programme like this as well,” said Lysha Holmes, owner, Qui Recruitment, and one of the EmpowerMe mentors. “It makes you realise how much you have to give – no matter what background you’re from or what size business you run. I’m proud and honoured to be involved in EmpowerMe and I’d encourage anyone with a length of experience in recruitment to consider mentoring – it takes just an hour a month of your time, but the outputs are immense. To see a young person grow personally and professionally is a huge reward that everyone should have the chance to experience. Having it run by a trade association that operates under an ethos of driving best practice in the recruitment sector and has no financial interest in the programme means that you know there’s real credibility behind it.”
