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It’s been a story of redemption for Flight Centre Travel Group as in a matter of years they’ve gone from forced redundancies in the height of the pandemic, to winning the Talent Acquistion Award at the NZ HR Awards.
The travel retailer won the highly sought after award last week after doubling their headcount during a worker shortage. In twelve months, the company recruited 180 team members from outside the travel industry to join their stores. This is alongside 138 former team members brought back into the company through their alumni network.
People and Culture general manager Melanie Barnett says it’s been a tumultuous time in the travel industry due to prolonged border closures and then a surge in demand that no one could have been prepared for.
Despite this, the team have been able to develop initiatives that have not only helped rebuild the company at pace, but also ensure Flight Centre Travel Group continues to be a workplace that embraces diversity and inclusivity.
Melanie says they focused on several key initiatives to achieve this.
“We created a website dedicated to staying connected with a network of 400-plus alumni, produced more resources to promote internal career pathways, overhauled our job advertisements to resonate with a larger, more diverse pool of candidates, and revamped the way we communicate with candidates.”
Melanie says with these initiatives, not only do they have more candidates applying for jobs, but also staff retention rates have increased to 85 per cent, up from the pre-pandemic retention rate of more than 70 per cent.
“Even amidst recent challenges, our most recent engagement survey reveals 96 per cent of our people are proud to work for Flight Centre Travel Group New Zealand. While 92 per cent feel a sense of purpose when they come to work. This is incredibly humbling and makes me immensely proud of the people-focused workplace we’ve all worked so hard to maintain.”
Feedback from the award organisers said these talent acquisition initiatives, “showcased exceptional leadership, thorough problem analysis, and solution development. These efforts led to a substantial increase in their candidate pool and a more efficient hiring process, demonstrating their commitment to innovation, HR leadership, and fostering an inclusive workplace”.
