DRAKEVINE June 2022
A message from the EC
Christopher Ouizeman CEO
Frank Spizzo CFO
Your Executive Committee welcomes you to the revitalised “DrakeVine” newsletter, connecting us all to share the very latest in Drake news and to celebrate our greatest asset – YOU, our people. As we reflect upon the past few months, we can not help but be grateful for the hard work and commitment shown by all Drake Australia staff. Despite adverse economic and social conditions, largely brought on by COVID-19, every service line and branch has risen to the challenge and doubled, if not tripled their efforts. For this we thank you. By the end of the Drake 2021 financial year, Drake Australia saw an impressive 118% increase in financial performance when compared to the previous year. This result is due to your hard work and resilience in what was a tough year across all measures. Throughout April and May, we had our Global Chairman, Bill Pollock, visit our Sydney and Melbourne offices. Bill has been meeting with Drake staff, as well as working alongside the leadership team and EC.
EC UPDATE MESSAGE
Nick Polimenakos General Manager Drake Medox
A message from the EC continued... For the past three years, Drake Australia has focused on raising margins, gaining greater share of client wallet, and selling OneDrake solutions. Building client relationship and being able to accommodate client demand as and when required, has reinforced Drake International’s ‘client first’ approach and reputation for dependable delivery. A lot of work has also been put into staff retention by our managers and building a performance culture with strong values at its core. More work around this is planned for the coming months. These combined factors contributed to Drake International’s improved position. All divisions have continued to execute on our strategy of driving up margins and maintaining service excellence. Our recruitment businesses have also pivoted to hybrid working models, where all service lines are now free to transact both Perm and Temp opportunities. Our focus on defined vertical markets has contributed to repositioning Drake as a specialist within high growth and higher margin sectors.
In addition to traditional recruitment, major investment has gone into non-recruitment businesses including Drake WorkWise, Drake WellbeingHub, Drake Psychological support services, Drake Student Recruitment and Drake Managed Services via Paradigm. These non-recruitment businesses are an exciting part of our solutions mix and can be used to leverage more opportunities from both existing clients and future prospects. Drake Australia is all about adding value to clients and helping them improve their own performance via the provision of well developed, high quality and relevant products and services. Clients using multiple Drake products and services become “stickier”, meaning they are easier to retain and are receptive to additional solutions. As you will read later in this newsletter, this calendar year will see the launch of Drake Australia’s large investment in new technologies including FastTrack and ENTO, which include integrated artificial intelligence (AI). This investment will achieve significant process and productivity efficiencies and will ultimately benefit all of us moving forward. Everything we are doing as a team is geared towards making Drake Australia a better and more sustainable company. With cost savings and improved productivity, come more significant staff rewards and recognition. With your continued commitment and hard work, adherence to our values “RAPID”, Drake’s investment in technology, the execution of our strategy and our drive for diversity, commencing with our Reconciliation Action Plan, Drake Australia will be recognised by all as the market leader in terms of quality and delivery. We look forward to progressing on this journey with you and together reaping the rewards which you all deserve. Thank you for all your hard work.
The EC Nicole Jones (General Manager, DI ) Leanne O’Meara (HR Manager) Bill Pollock (Global Chairman) and Nancy Chen (Regional Financial Controller)
EC UPDATE
Introducing our new RAPID values! Our values reflect our company culture and current workforce. Drake recently made a fresh change to our RAPID values, and we’re excited to share them with you!
RESPECT
ACHIEVEMENT
PASSION
INTEGRITY
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
THE
A W A R D S
With our revised values, comes a new and exciting recognition program - The RAPID Awards! This program encourages staff to recognise and acknowledge their teammates for living and breathing our RAPID values! We all know colleagues who go above and beyond and demonstrate our RAPID values daily. Let’s celebrate these phenomenal people by nominating them for a RAPID Award!
NEW NEWINITIATIVES INITIATIVES
You have been nominated for a
RAPID Award!
RAPID values continued.. RAPID Award Categories 1. RAPID VALUE AWARD
Each recipient receives a $200 e-gift card
2. RAPID TEAM AWARD
Each team receives a group e-gift card ($100 per team member)
Nominate an employee for demonstrating a RAPID value eg passion.
Nominate a team for demonstrating a RAPID value.
3. RAPID EC AWARD
The highest accolade awarded to any employee or team as determined by the Executive Committee!
You can nominate a colleague or team at any time. Click here Drake will host a RAPID morning tea presentation each quarter to announce winners and celebrate everyone’s amazing achievements! For more information about our RAPID Awards program. Click here!
NEW INITIATIVES
The recipient will receive a $300 e-gift voucher or $150 per team member
Introducing Drake’s Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Committee! As a leading talent management agency, it is crucial we lead the way when it comes to best practice for diversity and inclusion. Drake is embarking on its own diversity and inclusion journey and has recently appointed a team of D & I champions to discuss, plan and advance various diversity projects across the business. Thank you to Matt, Genevieve, Leanne, Sarah, Nicole, April, Rudy, Garrett, Michelle, Ikky and Jessie for stepping forward as our D & I champions. The first exciting initiative is the development of Drake’s Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). A RAP will assist Drake with embedding the principles and purpose of reconciliation, helping us to create meaningful change in our workplace and community. The D&I team are working with Murray Saylor from Tagai Management Consultants to help support the RAP process. A huge shoutout to Matt Vido and Genevieve Tope for getting Drake’s D&I Committee up and running. All your efforts and hard work are greatly appreciated! And lastly, this week is National Reconciliation Week (27th May to the 3rd of June), a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia. Make sure you support our efforts in promoting this important week by engaging with our social media posts! The D&I team will keep you updated throughout our journey!
Committee Members Matt Vido
Victorian Trades Manager DI Melbourne
Genevieve Tope
Senior Recruitment Consultant Drake Industrial
Leanne O’Meara
National HR Manager Human Resources
April Walker
National Tender & Proposals Manager
Sarah Ross
National Marketing Manager Marketing
Nicole Jones
General Manager Drake Industrial
Garrett Overend National Tender and Proposal Writer
Ikky Khan Client Relationship Manager Workwise
Jessie Drane
Customer Experience Officer Drake Medox
Rudy Srahah Client Relationship Consultant Drake Industrial
Michelle Hillman
Recruitment Consultant Drake Overload NEW INITIATIVES
FastTrack 360 implementation Drake is embarking on several exciting new initiatives that will help us streamline and grow our capabilities. We have a new cloud base recruitment software platform FastTrack 360 (FT360) rolling out this year, which will benefit our recruitment processes with increased efficiencies for everyone – front and back office!
Why FastTrack? FT360 is an industry leading end-to-end recruitment platform providing a solid foundation for scalable growth whilst vastly improving the user experience for our staff, clients, and candidates.
What does this mean for our team? FT360 will significantly reduce cost and effort of filling orders, enabling our teams to utilise the job- ready, existing, and compliant candidates in our database. Other benefits include: • • • • •
Improving time to fill Branch compliance for both candidates and clients Promoting candidate loyalty and retention through higher utilisation, successive placements for our Drake candidates Reducing advertising costs More time on sales, less effort spent filling roles
When is the rollout?
The rollout is happening this year, with the UAT (User Acceptance Testing) happening throughout Q3. The plan is to go live in Oct Q4 with 2 rollouts. Watch this space!
Introducing: Claire Alcock - Project Lead Claire has worked in the agency space with recruitment tech for the last 20 years, running implementation projects in Australia, the UK and across the APAC region. Claire has implemented different systems across the spectrum of front office, through to payroll and invoicing. Claire enjoys helping agencies streamline and improve their processes by using different technologies, as well as supporting them through a period of significant change.
NEW INITIATIVES
Out and about with Drake!
Members of our Senior Leadership after signing the engagement between Drake and Tagai to facilitate our RAP. Frank Spizzo, Leanne O’Meara, Murray Saylor, Bill Pollock, Nicole Jones, Matt Vido, Daniel Parncutt, Christopher Ouizeman and Sarah Ross Frank Spizzo, Bill Pollock, Daniel Parncutt, and Christopher Ouizeman
Georgia Matterson, Bill Pollock and Nicole Jones Shelby Crameri, Cam Douglas, Bill Pollock and Rudy Srahah
OUR PEOPLE
April Walker, Garrett Overend and Kate Schattner
Out and about with Drake! continued...
Patricia Ribeiro from Drake Student Recruitment at an Australia Pacific College networking event! Karen Chittick, Vanessa Drysdale, and Michelle Kaiwai with guest Suzi Crispino at a Women in Business Lunch run by Whitehorse Business Group.
Brisbane Medox Team: Kristina Deverell, Danella Williams, Brinda Jamnadas, Alana Blandford, and Jessie Drane
Sydney Medox supporting the Sydney Swans! Troy Poposki, Tegan Andrews, Anita Polimenakos, Elizabeth Gois and Nick Polimenakos Nick Polimenakos and Troy Poposki visited the Melbourne office and went out for lunch with Bill Pollock and Jenny Bassett
OUR PEOPLE
Congratulations
OUR PEOPLE
Congratulations to Isabella Evans and her partner Riaz, from Melbourne Medox, who recently gave birth to her beautiful baby boy, Ezekiel.
Congratulations to Genevieve Tope on the birth of her beautiful baby Ella Kate Lotter. Welcome to the Drake family!
Congratulations to Kevin Tuano, from DI Adelaide, who recently married his partner, Ria!
Congratulations to Valerie Muscat from DI Melbourne, who recently got married!
Milestones A huge congratulations to Alisa Patterson on 15 years at Drake! To celebrate this milestone, her colleagues have shared some words of congratulations!
“
Congratulations on 15 years of service to Drake Alisa. Such a wonderful, fabulous, sensational achievement! - Tanya Anderson
“
What a milestone with many stories to tell on the way! Well done, it is a massive achievement, and we are all so lucky to have you as part of the Drake family. Here’s to another 15! – Lucinda Gamboni
“
It is a pleasure and privilege to work with you, especially during the incredible times of COVID. Your resilience and strength should be something you look back on with pride. Thanks for all the laughs during the hard times! – Nicole Jones
New starter spotlight Abbey Blenkinsop
Role: Client Relationship Consultant Branch: DI Southport
1. Who is someone that inspires you? My Mum. She passed when I was 15 but I think about her every day. As a Sign Language Interpreter, she had a truly unique job where she was able to help so many people. She was always going above and beyond for her Deaf clients by helping them fix up their resumes, look for jobs, enroll in university, find housing, etc.
2. Why are you excited to join the Drake Team full-time? I’m thrilled to officially join the Drake team after being a casual for over 2 years, which was great for giving me flexibility when having my first bubs. It’s amazing now to finally take that last step in joining the Drake Fam! Also, if I never have to fill out another timecard for myself, it’ll be too soon!
3. What is your go-to snack? My go-to snack is one of Mel Cumming’s caramel slices (if I can get my hands on one!)
4. Do you have a favourite podcast to recommend? I don’t listen to podcasts, but I do LOVE listening to books on Apple Books. If anyone needs a recommendation, I got you!
5. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? I would travel to South Africa. I’ve always dreamed of doing a Safari and going cage diving with Great White Sharks!
OUR PEOPLE
Client success stories Supported employment carers program In Partnership with Neighbourhood Houses and Carers Victoria – our DO Melbourne Team and Solutions are delivering valuable Job Coaching skills across Victoria! This program assists unpaid carers in Victoria, including those from multicultural and Aboriginal communities, to gain confidence in securing work. Tanya Anderson and Gonca Sobaci are part of a Monthly Neighbourhood Houses/Carers Victoria/ Drake – Community Forum. Neighbourhood Houses have started referring Carers who need job coaching support and the The Drake Overload Melbourne Team will be doing a road show in coming months to promote the program and meet with Carers in person across Victoria at the 10 Neighbourhood Houses involved. This is a Pilot Program, and if successful, it will be rolled out across Victoria and potentially across Australia.
Medox client qualifies for National Boccia Championships We are thrilled to share a story of Brisbane client, Sam Thorne, who recently won GOLD at the NSW State Boccia Championships! Sam was supported by his Ramp Assistant, Matt, who is a Medox Support Worker. Sam and his parents, along with his amazing Medox care team, all travelled down to Penrith for the event. Sam’s parents Jane & Craig, have commended Sam’s care team, saying all staff put in long hours and worked so hard to ensure the trip ran smoothly. Sam is off to the National Boccia Championship in a couple of months, and we can’t wait to hear how he goes! Congratulations to Sam, and all the amazing Medox staff who have helped make this happen!
Gold Medal Winners: Sam Thorne & Matt Jeffery
OUR SUCCESS STORIES!
Candidate success stories Milo As recruitment consultant, there is nothing better than securing a candidate into a new position, with all parties thrilled with the result. Meet Milo, who was recently supported by Karen Chittick from DO Melbourne to gain full time employment at the Crown Casino as a Guest Services Advisor.
Milo and his dog, Cadbury
Here’s what Milo had to say about his experiences working with Karen: “I just wanted to thank you for the help and in trusting me for the contract position. I honestly appreciate the help and chance you have given me and am extremely grateful for everything.”
Edmond Edmond was one of many impacted by the pandemic when he lost his job at Melbourne Airport. Edmond came to Drake with the attitude “I will do anything”. Drake found him a home at Etex - our major supplier of plasterboard. He learnt new skills, adapted to an environment he hadn’t been in and now has been transitioned from temp to perm!
Edmond
Edmond is now earning an extraordinary 6 figure salary and moving up the corporate ladder. This has changed his life forever! The DI Laverton Team is so proud of him!
Wayne Wayne recently relocated to Townsville and within a week the DI team
had an interview for him at Linfox.
At the time, Linfox had no capacity to offer him an ongoing role, however, they were able to offer him some casual “hand unload” style work. After a few days in this role, Linfox advised they wanted to keep Wayne on and create a role for him! Wayne
OUR SUCCESS STORIES!
Wayne is happily working at Linfox and excelling every day. Linfox are looking to convert him across permanently and he has become one of their agency superstars! Drake attended the Linfox site for a morning tea with Wayne and other casuals, where Mel Cumming provided some home baked treats!
In the spotlight: Drake Medox services How would you describe Drake Medox’s services? Who is your customer? Drake Medox supports people with disabilities live their best lives. Our care teams work with clients who have complex care needs. We also aim to build careers and a workplace for our care teams to develop and learn.
What do you think the key selling points are of Drake Medox for a potential customer? Our biggest strength is our people, and the passion they share in making a difference in people’s lives. Another major selling point for Drake Medox is our person-centered nature of our care services.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced and how did you overcome it?
Danella Williams, Nick Polimenakos and Jessie Drane
The biggest challenges facing our industry is the shortage of staff. Through our innovative marketing efforts and creative consultants, we have made inroads. We are executing a series of candidate retention strategies including: • • • • •
Regular newsletters Birthdays/milestones acknowledgement Champion of the Month awards Candidate events Free training through the Drake Medox Training Academy.
These initiatives, along with regular work, help reduce turnover and improves our service delivery.
What are the future plans for Drake Medox? To continue to develop as a leader in our industry, attract new people into the sector, advocate and raise awareness for people with disabilities and develop our people internally to be the leaders of tomorrow.
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT
Mikayla Papastamatis and Marine Rambert
To find out more about Drake Medox, visit www.drakemedox.com.au
Marketing update The Marketing team has had a busy year so far, with a strong focus on digital marketing across all of Drake’s brands. We share with you some of our mid-year highlights! Hitting record high numbers with our Google Ads Marketing run several Google Ad campaigns each month for every brand for clients and candidates. Our Google Ads helps us to: • • •
Get more calls to our business Increase visits to our website Helps us appear on the first page of Google searches
Quick stats on Google Ads: Our Google adverts were shown
1.6 million times (395% )
We had
62,033 clicks on our adverts
(132% )
We had
24,264 calls or visits to our website (107% )
Lead generation up across key metrics One of the key goals for Marketing is to drive leads to each business we support. We use multiple channels including social media, Google Ads, sponsorships, Eblasts, newsletters, events, and public relations. Our main funnel for leads is to the website or direct to each branch. When we compare YOY results, we are producing some of the strongest results seen in a decade.
Quick stats on leads from the Drake website: The number of
Staff Order Forms (145% )
MARKETING
The number of
Contact Us Forms (102% )
The number of
Branch Page (83% )
Marketing update continued... We are moving towards specialists and key verticals As part of our marketing strategy, we are moving towards aligning our brand with key growth verticals. We have successfully launched several sub brands over the last 6 months including Trades & Technical, Drake Office, Drake HR and Drake Warehousing. By proactive marketing in key verticals, we build awareness to our desired target markets from a candidate & client perspective. The next set of sub brands launching are Drake Retail, Drake Customer Service and Drake Manufacturing!!
RETAIL
We have a range of new digital assets to help amplify the brand: • • • • • •
Landing pages (mini website) Editable job tiles Email signatures Flyers Banner ads Job banners (for SEEK)
All assets can be found at Drake Insight, under Marketing. We encourage you to support the new brands by exploring the tools you now have available, to raise the brand awareness in your specific brand/area. Make sure you join us in our first LUNCH & LEARN on the 9th of June where we share with you all the digital marketing assets available to you and where to find them on Drake Insight!! Contact marketing for details!
MARKETING
Marketing update continued... Medox re-marketing campaign driving results Re-marketing serves targeted ads to people who have already visited or taken action on the Medox website. Our adverts are popping up across the internet whenever they log on, and we are seeing some great results!
Quick stats: Ads were viewed 2.5
million times Ad was clicked on 11,151 times We have received 128 client enquiries 57 jobseeker link conversions Medox has also hit the highest number of website visitors ever in April.
Drake WorkWise wellbeing events hitting some highs We continue to amplify our wellbeing brand through event marketing each quarter. To kick off 2022, we ran our first event ‘De-stigmatising mental health in the workplace’. We had 366 registrations for the event and fantastic feedback post-event. We have just gone live with our Q2 event ‘Refocusing After Setback’ - if you haven’t yet registered, please click the link below!
Refocusing After Setback Thursday, 2 June
Register Now
MARKETING
AEST 12:00pm
Website traffic is up Our website continues to gain traction, with significant site-wide uplift (YOY for Q1 with visitors up by- 14.51% increase. We received an impressive 1032 conversions in 2022 to date: a combination of form submissions (both client/customer enquiries and new customer enquiries) as well as calls.
Employee wellbeing All Drake employees are entitled to free counselling via Drake WorkWise This employee benefit allows you to talk, and problem solve with a qualified health professional in a confidential setting. This can be on matters related to work (e.g., conflict with a colleague, difficulty balancing work and home commitments) or personal life (e.g., relationship issues, drug and alcohol problems, parenting difficulties, weight and diet concerns, legal problems).
Please reach out to our professional and friendly intake team on
1300 135 600 and www.drakeworkwise.com
Mental wellbeing practical tips and tricks
Grounding Exercise Grounding is a technique that helps keep you in the present and helps reorient you to the hereand-now and to reality.
4-4-8 Breathing The 4-4-8 Breathing technique can help to calm the nervous system, clear the head of distractions, and reduce stress.
EMPLOYEE WELLBEING
Competition corner Are you a knowledge whiz when it comes to Drake International? Try your luck and complete our Drake quiz! If you answer all questions correctly, you’ll go in the draw to
Click here!
Win a $50 e-gift voucher!
Tip – Most of the answers can be found in this newsletter!!
Push-Up challenge The Push-Up Challenge is starting June 1st 2022 and is a great initiative to get fit, have fun, and push for better mental health! We thought it would be an awesome opportunity for Drake staff to participate in a little healthy competition and support an important cause! We have created Drake teams for all staff to join. Simply register yourself, choose a team, and get started on those push-ups! Drake Medox:
Click here to register Wordle challenge Try crack our Drake Wordle! The aim is to crack the 5-letter word in 6 guesses. After each guess, the colour of the tiles will change to show how close your guess was to the word.
Play now! Correct answers go into the draw to
Win a double movie pass! Submit your answer here COMPETITION CORNER
Drake International:
Click here to register
Example: