- OES is committed to putting people first, to achieve ambitious goals that wouldn’t be possible without a highly-engaged and high-performing workforce.
- By placing the right people into management roles, and focusing on values-based leadership, OES continues to grow and achieve positive outcomes for our students.
It is the genuine and passionate belief of our leaders at OES that being people-focused gets us better bottom line results. It’s what gives us our competitive advantage.
OES could not deliver on our strategic plan without a highly-engaged and high-performing workforce. HR is a true partner to the business at all levels to ensure our people deliver our company’s strategic goals, as outlined in a recent Inside HR article.
Building a culture
So how have we built a ‘people-first’ culture at OES?
We have a ‘seat at the table’.
We partner with managers across the business to grow and maintain employee engagement. Together, we create goals for teams and individuals directly aligned to the business’ strategy and overall vision. At the same time, we delve into the drivers that engage each team and develop tailored action plans accordingly.
We make our workplace fun.
Whether it’s a chocolate fountain in the lunch room, yoga classes or dress-up days, we cater to our diverse mix of people so there is something for everyone. We believe people who are happy and motivated get things done and achieve amazing things.
We focus on values-based leadership.
Success lies in having an inclusive and effective management team. Getting the right people in management roles in key to this. Our managers are interviewed by their potential direct reports as part of the recruitment process. Once in the role, they receive accredited coaching training and are coached on values-based leadership.
We align rewards to performance and behaviour.
Our high-performance culture has come to the fore and delivered in both good and challenging times. We credit this to having a culture of feedback and clearly aligning reward to both performance and behaviour. The foundation for this is recruiting people that thrive in our unique culture, as well as being clear about our expectations to live by our values.
Without a doubt, strong people management has made a big difference at OES.
We have experienced rapid growth since we started in 2011, and are now the market leaders in the provision of online higher education degrees in Australia.
In six years, OES has grown from four employees and no students, to 500 employees and 10,000 students – picking up a BRW fastest growing company award along the way.
If you would like to join our team, visit us at OES careers.
