At a time when banks are shedding IT roles by the dozen, it seems counter-intuitive that 83 per cent of the nation’s chief information officers should report they are confident about the future of their business to the extent that 45 per cent expect to hire IT staff in the first six months of the year. The question remains – is this a dead cat bounce?
read moreThursday, 24 June 2010 11:47
Altis Consulting, an Australian-owned consultancy offering specialist expertise in data warehousing, business intelligence and information management, has been named today in Business Review Weekly’s annual listing of “The Best Places to Work” in Australia.
The Best Places to Work flagship edition uses peer analysis to find the companies held in the highest esteem by their competitors and customers.
“As we compete in a specialist market with a limited number of capable skilled resources, it is vital that we provide a work environment that is conducive to long term employment. This accolade is a tribute to our thorough selection process, the level of engagement and empowerment provided by the leadership team and, most importantly, our strong family ethos that permeates the entire business. Happy engaged staff drives robust customer relationships and ultimately company success,” said John Hoffman, CEO, Altis Consulting.
In 2007 Altis Consulting set itself a goal of “being recognised as an employer of choice”. Over the past few years, the company has developed a unique ethos focused less on maximising returns for the shareholders, but rather developing a culture focused on building an environment where the team enjoys going to work every day.
“Geographically, we service clients in New South Wales, Victoria, ACT and New Zealand. Contrary to most other professional services firms, we focus only on these regions and the major cities within them. This is to reduce travel time away from home and family as well as ensuring that we have the right resources available to create winning customer relationships. At the same time, we have recently turned back a significant piece of consulting work because it was clear our team would be treated very poorly. This is an example of where happy engaged staff outweighs near term profits,” says Hoffman.
An inspiring aspect of Altis Consulting is the company’s growing commitment to the environment which is driven by the staff as well as industry recognition of its customer relationships.
Specific highlights that have made Altis Consulting a best place to work include:
* Staff Ownership of training and employee engagement programs. During the company’s tenth anniversary in 2008, staff donated money to buy trees to offset their carbon footprint and provided this as a surprise gift to the management team. Indeed, Altis Consulting commits to being carbon neutral and spends a premium of 50 per cent to purchase all its energy as certified green energy.
* An annual anonymous annual employee satisfaction survey is managed by Custom Insight which provides a benchmarked result along with all the written feedback.
* A ‘Connecting with Courage, Heart and Insight’ award. During the course of the year, Altis Consulting encourages all employees to nominate individuals for special recognition, and at each Altis-wide team meeting the awards are presented.
* Rewarding loyalty with extra annual leave. After two years, one extra day is granted, and this increases each year to a maximum of five days extra paid annual leave.
* Staging offsite team events every two months.
* Supporting all Altis Consulting employees with a performance leader who acts as their mentor.
* Providing extensive ongoing training program. Even though Altis Consulting competes in the information technology industry, a significant amount of the formal training and skills development opportunities are in the soft skills area which the company believes provides it with a competitive advantage.
* Giving staff the opportunity to volunteer for a variety of roles that are not project related. For example, Altis Consulting has a “Green team” with a representative from each office who drive green initiatives in each office including a quarterly newsletter. Another example is the company’s employee satisfaction team where again each region nominates a representative who facilitates workshops and provides feedback to the management.
“Our technical offering will change over time but our commitment to connecting with courage, heart and insight with our customers, fellow team members, and partners will not change. We are delighted to be included in this year’s annual Business Review Weekly listing of “Best Places To Work”,” said Hoffman.
About Altis Consulting
Established in 1998, Altis Consulting is a 80 person privately-held Australian company offering specialist consulting expertise in all aspects of data warehousing, business intelligence and information management, including data quality and master data management. The company’s services include strategy, planning and architecture, solution delivery, and managed services.
While the company has experience in almost every industry sector, Altis Consulting has particular expertise in telecommunications, government, logistics, financial services, health services and utilities. Clients include, Allens Arthur Robinson, Sydney Airport, Department of Health and Aging, Lend Lease, Macquarie Bank, Reece, Independent Liquor Group, Suncorp Metway, Optus, Qantas, Telecom New Zealand, , and Vodafone.
Altis is also the Australian New Zealand partner for the Kimball University the foremost authority on data warehousing. Altis Consulting has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Auckland. For further information, visit www.altis.com.au
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