When Dubliner Yseult d’Estelle Roe returned to Ireland after almost 15 years in Australia, where she helped grow a leading international recruitment agency, she knew two things. First, she missed “the craic and culture” of home. Secondly, she had an opportunity to take up a senior position, as director of commercial operations at Engage People, a multi award-winning recruitment agency based in Dublin whose values aligned with her own.
Engage People was set up in 2016 by experienced recruiter Paul McClatchie. It specialises in sourcing talent across a range of sectors, including accounting, banking and financial services, insurance, real estate and property, and technology.
From the very beginning it had focused on indigenous Irish businesses with ambitions to grow. Now in its 10th year, its success can be attributed to its ability to help clients develop the agility they need to scale, by delivering mission-critical talent.
It has proved to be a winning formula, whether measured in terms of a growing client base, revenue growth or a slew of industry awards. Most recently, these have included a best in practice – accountancy and finance award from the Employment and Recruitment Federation (ERF). Engage People is also a finalist in the Small Firms Association National Small Business Awards 2026, in recognition of the quality of its workplace wellbeing practices.
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As well as being attracted to the firm for its purpose-led approach to recruitment, its own scale up ambitions and its position as a trusted partner for Irish and international businesses, d’Estelle Roe was particularly impressed by its commitment to workplace wellbeing.
A strong workplace wellness culture has been a key contributor to Engage People’s impressive staff retention rates.
Having worked in Australia for more than a decade, a country that is an international leader in relation to work-life balance initiatives, she understood its value, with dividends that flow not just to employees but to clients.
‘If you insist on five days in the office, you risk not finding the best [talent] in the market’
Recruitment is too often characterised by staff churn, says d’Estelle Roe, a situation that leaves clients having to “start over” with new personnel.
“In recruitment the worst thing in the world for clients is when they hear, ‘Mary’s gone, now you’re dealing with Brian.’ But it’s painful for the leadership team too, and for employees as well,” she says. “But while the recruitment industry can be a bit of a boiler room, by working with my boss in Australia we had managed to get to a point where we had really high performance and really good results, but we did it in a really nice way in so far as we hired great people and we looked after them.”
That chimed with what she saw at Engage People, where the focus is not so much on working hard as on working smart. It’s less about long hours and more about offering people the flexibility to comfortably balance both work and life.
“Of course it’s about keeping standards high in terms of output, the work that people do and the care they take of clients. But it’s about being present when you’re present and balancing that with allowing people to say, ‘I’ll be late in because I’m going to the gym’, or, ‘I’m leaving early to collect the kids’, and, ‘I’ll be back online at eight o’clock to finish off a few bits’. What we have found is that such flexibility attracts people who are more serious about their career.”
Engage People operates on a hybrid basis, with Tuesdays and Thursdays its anchor days for office-based work in their state-of-the-art building on Hume Street, in Dublin, where colleagues enjoy perks such as free continental breakfast and unlimited coffee, treadmill desks, a wellness room and standing desks.
It uses these as opportunities for learning and development, running workshops for staff on topics ranging from mindfulness and resilience to practical tips for business development.
On Thursdays it hosts weekly gym sessions, followed by lunch for the whole team. It also invests in frequent away days and off site events, including, on one occasion, an all-hands trip to Barcelona.
D’Estelle Roe believes this focus on workplace wellbeing – which includes financial wellness (the company provides income protection insurance, life assurance and pensions for staff) – creates an important foundation to support its future growth plans.
It employs 18 people, up from 12 when she joined a year ago, and recently launched two new recruitment divisions, property and real estate, and executive search.
In all its divisions, each member of staff recruits in areas in which, as specialists, they have deep experience. They understand both the technical specifications and the strategic implications of every hire. As a result, rather than be swamped by potential candidates, clients simply have to “choose their favourite” from a shortlist of three for interview, she explains.
A signature characteristic of the agency is that staff are encouraged to get out and meet people face to face as much as possible, which leads to much deeper, and ultimately more fruitful, relationships.
That goes for both clients and candidates, with effective networking having proven a key contributor to its success. “Clients pay the bill but having good candidates is the most important thing,” she explains.
In a tight labour market in which competition for talent remains intense, she advises employers to avoid being too dogmatic about return-to-work mandates.
Remote or hybrid arrangements will give you a much deeper talent pool to tap into. “If you insist on five days in the office, you risk not finding the best in the market, so keep an open mind,” she says.
Engage People has continued to record year-on-year growth. It’s a clear indication of a winning formula, one which includes hiring top notch people and treating them well
Rob Cullen, Engage People’s insurances and mortgages recruitment manager, won the ERF’s consultant of the year award in 2025, for permanent staffing.
It’s a terrific accolade for someone who is a relative newcomer to the industry, after having spent more than a decade at Dublin Chamber of Commerce, where he was head of membership and events.
An experienced networking and communications trainer, his success is proof of the value of building deep relationships, particularly in a world of online platforms. “Recruitment is a contact sport,” he says.
A huge part of why he chose to join Engage People was because he was familiar with both its culture and its success. While some other recruitment agencies struggle with the impact of artificial intelligence, tech sector cuts post-Covid, or geopolitical uncertainties, Engage People has continued to record year-on-year growth. It’s a clear indication of a winning formula, one which includes hiring top notch people and treating them well.
“I’d always followed Engage People on LinkedIn,” he says, “so I knew how often they were away on annual trips or at conferences and I could see they were always learning and developing.”
He noted its active corporate social responsibility programme, which appealed to him too. “I could see the amount of work they did for charity. Since joining I’ve done everything from abseiling to pulling fire trucks for charity,” he adds.
Practising what they preach enables Engage People recruiters to add significant value to clients, building out the kind of employee value propositions that differentiate them in the marketplace, he explains. That’s what attracts good people to come – and stay.
“We always say it’s very hard to get into Engage People but even harder to leave – in a good way,” he smiles.
Find the talent to drive your business’s success at engagepeople.ie
