Retention and Team Building

Here at Benchmark Recruit we are committed to helping you utilise and retain the talent of your new employee, we helped you find them and we want you both to enjoy a long term relationship. It is crucially important that you take the time to sit down with your new employee, explain what the company expects from them and find out what they expect; it's a two-way thing that comes back to ensuring they feel valued and creates the right first impression for your new employee.

We are always on hand to help out so if you need us, just give us a call. We have prepared a range material for all clients that use our services to help get you started

• Induction Plan for the first day
• Learning Styles Questionnaire (helps you understand how your employee learns most effectively)
• Week One Review
• Week Two Review
• Coffee & Chat for end of Month One, Three and Six

Team Building

Benchmark Recruit has joined forces with Exposed Magazine and Whirlow Hall Farm to bring you South Yorkshires 'Office Wars' 2008

This is your opportunity to pit your office against like-minded Sheffield companies to find out which of you is the most talented, agile and downright competitive! There will be fifty teams, four zones but only one winner: so let the games begin!

The event is taking place on August 16th 2008 from 12pm onwards and will be held at Whirlow Hall Farm on Whirlow Lane is Sheffield. In addition to the office games there will be an all day BBQ, licensed bar, face painting, bouncy castle and farm tours for the kids as well as a presentation ceremony for the Office Wars winners!

The cost to enter is £30 per person (or £350 for a team of 12 people) and all proceeds will be going to charity. You can get sponsorship for the funding, either through your organisation or personally through family and friends and don't worry if your office team is on the small side; you gain strength in number by buddying up with other companies in the same boat!

To enquire about a scaled down and personalise team building session, e-mail us or call us 01142 792879.

Personal Development & Networking Seminars

We like to encourage business relationships amongst our clients and host regular networking sessions; we combine these sessions with a topic that will aid personal and professional development. For our last seminar we joined forces with Jon Colman from Training Providers Red Vanilla to host a 'Goal Setting 'session to help attendees prioritise their work and personal life, and realise what they want to achieve in 2008!

The session was informal, interactive and more fun than most workshops you will have attended! There was an informal networking session afterwards and guests stayed for drinks and the live jazz band afterwards in the newly renovated Quarter Bar (formerly Sola) in the city centre.

To receive information about future personal development events which are hosted on a quarterly basis please contact louisa@benchmarkrecruit.co.uk. We'll see you next time!

Assessment Days and Bespoke Recruitment Drives

We have recently extended our client services to include assessment days for higher volume recruitment and bespoke interview days for higher salary positions.

Following the success of a specialist recruitment drive that we facilitated for a local business man as part of a television documentary, we felt that there was a need to offer more in-depth, hands on 'interview' process away from the standard face to face question and answer session.

The South Yorkshire Apprentice was a unique recruitment process designed and facilitated by Benchmark Recruit to find someone with the drive, determination and vision to take on the Managing Director's role of a new business venture and run that business as their own.

At the first stage the candidates had three minutes to impress the panel with a Dragons Den style elevator pitch. The strongest candidates were then selected and invited to take part in our second round; a challenging outdoor event day at Whirlow Hall Farm.

We coordinated range of team and individual activities designed to expose core competencies in our hopefuls. Tasks included a sales marketing and fundraising task which was prepared by candidates before the big day individually, and presented to the panel and in front of other contenders. Hands on activities included 'diffuse the bomb' and 'chariot racing' where applicants had to work together in teams, lead, delegate, organise, problem solve and communicate effectively.

Following the assessment day the three strongest candidates were chosen for the final round of extensive interviews and psychometric assessments. They faced a grilling from a team of business experts in a scenario very similar to that of Alan Sugar's Apprentice! After much deliberation and a sleepless night the final decision was made and Catherine Smith was appointed the worthy winner.

The process was fascinating and insightful and gave food for thought about the standard CV selection and face to face interview process. Catherine would not have been selected for a standard interview on the strength of her CV, she was working part time as a secretary at University. She excelled in all of the tasks and psychometric assessments and was clearly the strongest candidate.

If you would like to discuss a bespoke interview day contact us or call us on 01142 792879.