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Entrepreneur: Therese Rein, Founder and CEO
Company: Ingeus (formerly Work Directions)
Business type: Helps injured workers and the long-term unemployed get back to work
Founded: 1989
Employees: 550 staff in Australia, 60 staff in London
Turnover: (2000 - 2001) $45M
Contact details: +61 7 3232 5555
The Ingeus Story
The homeless have bedded down not far from Buckingham Palace in London for decades. Now, some of these people - the long-term unemployed - are being helped back into the job market by Ingeus, a small Brisbane-based company. In early October 2002, Ingeus’s chief executive, Therese Rein, signed a contract with the British Government - worth $75 million over three years - to help the long term unemployed to find jobs.
For Ingeus, the new contract is an important phase in the company’s growth. But Rein’s other key task is to restructure her company. Her aim is to maintain the company’s strong culture, values and high quality of service as it rapidly expands. Rein says: “Once a company crosses the 400-people barrier, you start to get splits in divisions and people feeling like they don’t belong. It is crucial this doesn’t happen.”
Rein, a psychologist, started the business in 1989 with $13,000. She had a very personal reason for wanting to help people who were unemployed through injury. Her father was an RAAF pilot who became a paraplegic after being shot down in World War 2.
Rein saw an opportunity to combine the various professional services that are used by injured workers, their employers and insurers. She provided consultancy, support and counselling services, assisting injured workers to get back to their jobs or another job as quickly and cheaply as possible.
In 1992, Rein diversified into helping the long-term unemployed back to work with job-matching and training services. By 1996, the business had 200 staff and Rein faced the problems that challenge any entrepreneur of a fast-growing business. The increasing size of the company threatened to dilute the company culture and affect the quality service.
Rein dealt with the problem by focusing on the core values of the business. She added another layer of management but made sure there was strong leadership by regularly communicating the vision and values of the business. She says: “We kept people in small teams so they had a sense of belonging. We also put in quality managers whose sole focus was on quality.”
By 2000, Rein decided to try for some international contracts. It was part of her ‘think big’ approach to the company’s future. She went to London for a week and researched the services being offered to help the long term unemployed back to work. She put in a tender and says she thought she might win one contract. But in October 2002, Rien signed two contracts - for the Central and Western London areas. Her company is now the equal largest provider of private sector employment services in Britain.
To maintain an innovative culture and high service quality after reaching the 400-staff level, she created a new parent company called Ingeus. It comprises four businesses: Work Directions, which provides employment services; Inergise, which offers injury-management services; Invisage, which sells corporate and vocational training services; and a new acquisition, Clements, which is a recruitment and labor hire service. Rein says: “We will allow each business to have its own culture while keeping the same values, standards and vision throughout company.”
By early November 2002, Rein had employed 60 staff in London to fulfil the contracts that begin in November. Ingeus’s revenue, which was about $45 million in 2001-2002, is expected to increase to $100 million by 2003-2004. Rein says that by 2007 half the company’s revenue will come from overseas.
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Key learning points:
- Strategic planning - Once a year, for two days, Rein gathers together the key stakeholders of the business. These stakeholders include people who can see beyond operational issues and effectively implement new ideas. The stakeholders start the planning session by imagining what the company could be. They dream about how big revenue could grow - and how long that might take. Rein says their dreams include imagining new growth paths: in new countries, new markets, and by diversifying revenue sources.
- Mission statement - Rein says that new growth plans must conform to the company’s underlying values and mission statement. Ingeus’s mission is to be in a business in which people - from staff to clients - can realise their true potential. Rein says that if the employees can be kept focused on the company’s mission, it is much easier for them to remain entrepreneurial - no matter how big the company grows. Such a focus helps them to learn, to change, to cope with stress and to remain passionate about their jobs.
- Action plans - Plans that fit with the mission statement are developed in detail, with clearly itemised critical success factors. The plan and its aims are explained to staff in a simple and direct manner. This might be done using a one-page document that is distributed to all staff and pinned to walls. The document includes the key performance indicators. Road shows are also held.
- Business adaptation - At every board meeting, the chief executive and senior managers discuss events that could affect the business. For example, with the focus on terrorism and Iraq, it is likely that governments will change their priorities, paying more attention to security and less to the unemployed. What will that mean for the Ingeus business? By using general knowledge and intelligence gathered from managers, the business is quick to adapt to changing circumstances.
- Quality control - As Ingeus grows and layers of management are added, Rein keeps restating the company’s mission and values. She keeps people in small teams so that they maintain a sense of belonging and the quality managers focus solely on quality. Rein goes to inductions of new staff and speaks to them about the higher purpose of the company, which is to make a difference to people’s lives.
- Entrepreneurial staff - Large companies can develop excessive bureaucracies. Ingeus controls this tendency by employing people who are entrepreneurial and who will resist having to fill in too many forms.
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