Custerian

Talent retention is critical for employers wanting to increase the strength of their company’s talent pool. A decrease in employee retention leads to a hike in recruitment costs, a loss in productivity and decreased engagement overall. The RADAR Talent and Skills strategy at Sci-Tech Daresbury has been working with companies across its campus to support the acquisition, development and retention of talent. Support which, according to Claire Hastewell, Business Services Manager at Custerian, has been crucial in upskilling the team in support of delivering successfully to customers.

Custerian are customer strategy practitioners, with the company working across all sectors, refining business processes for their customers. For six years, five at Sci-Tech Daresbury, Custerian’s 8-10 strong team has worked with its customers on service design, large transformation programmes to customer/employee journey mapping their businesses, aiming to improve their current service offering and work with them to provide a strategy fit for the future.

Introduced to the programme two years ago, Claire was keen for Custerian to engage with the talent retention and development skills strategy, which helped Sci-Tech Daresbury companies implement ways to bolster their employees’ skill set.

She said: Working with our central skills broker, has allowed us to support and fulfil each employee’s personal development plan fully, as well as develop a joint one for the company. We look at what the goals are for the business, but also what the personal aspirations are for the individual in terms of personal development that supports them, us and our programme delivery.

Custerian now has a full suite of programmes which their employees aspire to attend, whether it be soft skill, professional or technical, and this has also now been incorporated as part of the onboarding programme of new employees. Through programmes like advance Excel or power BI, right through to professional qualifications in areas such as project management, the company is able to upskill and cross skill their workforce, driving productivity and encouraging longevity of employees.Claire said: Through the scheme, we have been introduced to companies we know we can go back to for specific module training and any soft skill training.”

The company underwent significant changes last year, with three staff members moving on to progress their careers and moving from an SME to a corporate environment.

“Having upskilled some of the team through the talent retention and development strategy it has potentially supported these individuals to progress their careers in the roles they went on to fulfil.

“However, although we lost those employees, we were able to utilise the team’s cross training and upskilling in order to reduce the risk of lost productivity. We have new team members now and we are able to put them through the same training with the companies we access through the skills team.”

Talent and skills support is an important element of the many support functions on campus at Sci-Tech Daresbury and is open to all. For more information click here