Borders Marketing Coordinator, 24 year old Lina Karpinsky, was awarded the Australian Retailers Association Young Retailer of the Year award within the Corporate Category on Tuesday 18 September 2007.

This is the second year running that a Borders employee has received the respected award, with Marketing Coordinator Amanda Willimott winning the Corporate Category, Victorian and National Young Retailer of the Year awards in 2006.

We provide our employees with high-quality opportunities to address individual career aspirations and development needs. We know this investment in employee development builds the capacity for high performance which directly contributes to the achievement of business goals and growth whilst creating an inspiring workplace.

We encourage our team to build our future by providing them with opportunities to grow, learn and develop new skills. This is the essence of the Borders Development program that provides a wide variety of off job training programs and on job development opportunities. Borders Development program provides broad range of topics to develop our people both personally and professionally.

We work hard to ensure that all new employees receive the appropriate learning & development from their first day. The Induction program covers everything from Borders' history and values, business overview, sales expectations, retail compliance and training on our in-house computer systems.

Management Operational Development is a training program for people moving into management positions and new Managers. The key learning areas for management development are task and operationally driven, it's about understanding the nuts and bolts of the business to ensure the compliant and smooth running of your store.

While day to day review of performance is important in reaching this goal, formal performance review through conducting Performance Reviews is a valuable tool to ensure employees are happy with their employment and have the capability to succeed in their position.

Borders conducts a formal performance review after three months with all new employees and will continue to review all employee’s performance and effectiveness on an ongoing basis, with formal reviews conducted annually. This process provides an opportunity to provide open feedback and to develop measurable goals for the next period.

In addition to the performance review process, Borders provides employees with opportunities to receive 360 degree feedback through a number of our development programs. This feedback in addition to the ongoing daily feedback encourages our people and the business to reach their true potential.

We focus on understanding employee career goals, and through performance appraisals and management feedback ascertain strengths and development opportunities, which combined with our succession planning process, allows us to forecast business needs a for the future and develop individuals for upcoming opportunities.

Whether it's within our stores or our support office, we provide opportunities to broaden your skills by rotating employees achieving success through different areas of the business. In our stores we provide the opportunity to move between stores of all sizes and sales volumes.

There are also opportunities to work on new projects and assignments and assist with new store openings! By coordinating job rotations for Department Managers we further expand the depth of our team members experience within the store environment as they spend time in each of the core disciplines of the business – merchandise, inventory, and customer service.

We also provide these opportunities within our buying team, giving employees the opportunities to work between the different product streams, and developing skills to progress their career.