INSIDE WORKSTAR 

During early 2000, Gerard Manion and Bill Moss were responsible for training employees at the Australia’s largest sporting goods retailer, Rebel Sport.  They identified a challenge within the sector:  how to cost effectively and consistently recruit and train people across a large distributed workforce in a quality manner and provide management information on skill and knowledge gaps so that training plans could be adjusted to improve business performance. Workstar was founded in 2002 to address this pressing need. 

From 2002, the business quickly grew as other retailers saw the power and value of online recruitment & training. In the initial years Workstar provided training & recruitment solutions to Angus & Robertson, Thrifty Car Rental, Downtown Duty Free, Kitchen Connection and McDonald’s Australia. 

Since then, the company has broadened its client list to include leading brands such as Elizabeth Arden, Michael Hill Jewellers, Westfield, Bunnings, Europcar, Electrolux, NSW Health, Department of Defence and more.

In August 2008, Mike Erlin, an American executive with 10 years of international experience with US publicly traded companies providing online training solutions to corporate, government and higher education sectors, took over as Workstar’s CEO. By the end of 2008, Mike and his new management team refocused the company on its core strength of training and communication resulting in the release of a world-class solution in the Orion platform.  Support for the Versity Recruitment tool remains a priority.

Mike’s team recapitalised the company under a new Board of Directors chaired by Peter Ritchie AO, founder of McDonald’s Australia,  Phil Kiely, former CEO of Oracle Australasia and Richard Norgard, CEO of Jigsaw Capital serve as the other Board members.

Workstar gives clients world-class training solutions that are easy, quick and inexpensive to implement so that employees are trained to perform their jobs at the highest level.  Additionally, the Orion online training system measures training performance providing visibility to management on what needs to be done next to drive business performance.