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My name is Leanne Fraser and I'm the Human Resources Manager for Drakes Supermarkets.
Drakes Supermarkets were started by Roger Drake in
1974. It was at first a three lane supermarket. It's grown in
South Australia to 35 stores now and in Queensland we have
21 stores. In 2003 we decided
to set up our own registered training organisation. We offer a number of
nationally recognised qualifications. It's very difficult for us
to compete with Coles and Woolworths. We feel that
good staff, or excellent staff can provide the best service we
have a chance to compete. These qualifications are really
vital in upskilling and ensuring that they
are able to provide the customer service that we require.
I think the best thing about working for Drakes Supermarkets is the one on one training that I get to do with my staff.
I've loved seeing over the years staff that I've had come and start
as casuals now running their own departments. We've got 21
apprentices that have moved on over the last couple of
years that we've been doing the apprenticeship program into management positions.
Drakes decided to use nationally recognised training
as a retention strategy. Every trainee or apprentice
has a mentor within the workplace so that the skills that they learn off the job
are then transferred to on the job. Applying for the South
Australian Large Employer of the Year and then going onto the Australian Training
Awards Employer of the Year was a really valuable thing for us to do.
I felt that the staff who'd done our traineeships
really needed the recognition that winning the Australian
Training Awards could give them. It's really nice to get that formal recognition
that we are doing things the way that we should. We know
that we are the best and to actually have it recognised nationally is something
fantastic for the company. In Drakes the staff are
our best asset, so it's really important for them that we've won.
I think it made the staff extremely proud to be involved in a company
that is nationally recognised in an area like this and it really has 35 00:02:08,380 --> 00:02:08,370 raised the profile of retail as a career, as a really
viable and exciting and challenging career.