It was great fun hosting the Starlight ‘Sparklers’ team building session for the ‘Young Guns’ at Laing O’Rourke whose talent, energy, enthusiasm, and passion quite literally sparkled!

Thanks to everyone for being so creative and generous with what you shared and the amazing Sparkle packs that you put together for sick kids that our charity partner Starlight Children’s Foundation Australia will pass on to you.

The company’s ‘Young Guns’ program is a great example for corporate Australia of the importance and value of investing in your people and cultivating their talent. The program is run internally with external facilitators to help foster the leadership skills of up-and-coming talent across the company. To get onto the program, staff has to submit an application motivating for their selection and the final group undergoes an intensive series of workshops and training sessions, culminating in a six-month team project to develop a pro-bono business strategy for a chosen charity.

Programs like these tend to be found more commonly in the bigger companies that have the budget, HR capacity, and vision that can support such an investment. There is no question that the investment is a worthy one and the results tend to speak for themselves as the alumni grow, network, and progress within the company. The challenge with any program like this one is that the real trick is ensuring that the culture, remuneration and working conditions match the aspirations that such programs foster in order to retain such talent. Furthermore, they work particularly well with organisations that are big enough to offer a variety of new opportunities locally and even internationally to spread their wings rather than hit a glass ceiling only to leave the company to perch elsewhere for their next job.

Given that Laing O’Rourke also run a ‘Guns’ program for more senior staff, also sponsored by the same named partner, we suspect that the company will enjoy the fruits of their investment with these talented individuals and see a great short, medium, and long-term return from them and that the program will foster growing interest elsewhere in the company as other staff hear about the benefits of these two programs and seek to be nominated to be included in future cohorts. Thus programs like this one also serve as a great example and foundation on how people development can foster staff loyalty, pride, and productivity.

Thank you Laing O’Rourke for the opportunity to be involved.

We’re so pleased that our team building session helped bond the group further and served to bring out their sparkle!