Author: logical_control

Today, as I write this, is the final day of my 30’s. A time of reflection, setting priorities and more than ever, understanding what’s important and where I want to spend my time.

As much as age is just a number, birthdays are a reminder that we don’t have an infinite amount of them! We all have responsibilities in life, weather that’s having a mortgage or rent to pay, a family to provide for or staff to keep in jobs, but if we’re waking up every day with a sick feeling in the pit of our stomachs at the thought of another day pushing widgets out the door, what’s the point?

Someone once said to me “If you’re saying yes to something, always think about what you’re saying no to” …… Just let that one sink in for a bit.

This morning I read that Monash University have conducted one of Australia’s largest surveys of teachers, revealing that 71% of educators feel underappreciated in the classroom. 71%!! There’s a lot wrong with this! Out of 2444 teachers surveyed, that’s 1735 people in a single profession who start their days feeling overworked, underappreciated and disrespected.

High levels of job dissatisfaction are not isolated to education. There is an on-going theme in Australia. Back in July of 2019 Hanover Research revealed that 38% of Australian workers are unsatisfied with their current job. Issues with salary or pay (41%), job security (37%), and uninteresting work (33%) were identified as the main drivers for workplace dissatisfaction.

Now, before you throw your laptop out the window and head home to begin your life as a yogi, stay with me to the end and let’s see if we can work through this.

• Assess Your Situation: Self-analysis likely isn’t the super actionable first step you were hoping for but, this will lay the basis for you to attack the next steps with a clear head and a laser focus
• Tough Conversations: Take initiative to speak up. If you’re not going to who is right! And who knows, you and your manager could come up with some great ideas to address your situation and increase your happiness!
• Switch Your Perspective: It’s a little cliché but instead of looking at each workday as another time slot where you need to pay your dues, approach it as an opportunity to continue refining your skills and conquer new challenges.

Failing this, get a move on! Life’s far too short people!

You are the only person who can change your situation. Proceed with care for yourself and respect for your employer. We don’t always have to love work, but my birthday wish for you all is that you don’t hate it.

JD

The Australia day long weekend means different things to different people. For some, a little bit of time off to enjoy the company of family, friends and maybe a BBQ. For others it brings undertones of past injustices (no political statements being made here…. I can’t even vote!).

For me it’s a time to reflect and be thankful for the opportunities this country has provided for me. Now granted, I’ve only migrated 4 hours west from across the dutch brewwww, but this whole moving countries thing and starting again isn’t a walk in the park, especially if you don’t have the privileges that us Kiwis get here in Straya.

It seems to me that for every success story, there are 3 without a happy ending. In the various roles I’ve played in and around the recruitment game, I’ve seen many an immigrant struggle to find their feet and gain an opportunity to showcase their skills. Often these people come in way overqualified for the roles they are applying for but are willing to take a step back in order to gain some local experience.

theconversation.com conducted a survey of skilled migrants in South Australia and found that 53% of immigrants who fall under the skilled migration program, felt they were not utilising their skills and abilities, with 44% working in a job different to what they nominated in their visa application. About 15% reported being unemployed at the time of the survey or for most of their time in Australia – double the South Australian jobless rate. This was despite having skills deemed by government planners to be in short supply.

So, what’s the deal? Is the widely held view of immigrants that Australian employers discriminate against hiring anyone who doesn’t have local experience accurate, or do these jobs simply not exist? In my experience I’ve been unfortunate to witness on far too many occasions where the perfect candidate is turned down based on experience in Australia.

So, I ask you this – Is the skilled migration program working, or does the whole methodology that underpins the program, with state and territory sponsorships that implicitly encourage aspiring migrants, need to be revisited?

Enough of this serious stuff! This Kiwi lad is off to watch a fair dinkum Aussie hero beat up the world tennis number 1!!
** That didn’t go well did it.

JD

We spend a lot of time at work and as a consequence, a lot of time with colleagues. With that in mind, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that a survey produced by job site Vault.com found that 58% of employees have engaged in a romantic relationship with a colleague.

Full disclosure here. I am NOT part of the 58% and have always lived by the rule that we shouldn’t fish off the company pier, dip your pen in the company ink, or however you want to describe it. But I have seen instances where love, or some form of, has blossomed in a workplace and had both positive and negative effects on the culture.

The endless gossip, resentment along with the ugly breakups (granted, not in all cases) translate into an absolute HR disaster. Think about how easily workplace romances gone south, can become sexual harassment cases. It takes but a single foolish action from a scorned lover for a seemingly innocent situation to turn into a visit from Fairwork. Or consider that one in six workplace relationships involves an affair where at least one of the people involved is married or in a relationship, adding a whole new layer of negative effects and hurt feelings.

However, it would be naive to imagine that bunging red blooded humans together for 40 hours per week (and the rest) wouldn’t result in people forming romantic bonds. So, if Cupid strikes and you find your team in the throws of a Mills & Boone novel, the best way forward could be a combination of the following:

• The more senior an employee is, the greater the expectation to report all sexual, romantic or other close relationships with other employees. This is because generally the more senior the employee, the more likely they are likely to be involved in decisions that affect the other employee in the relationship.
• Have a disclosure policy in place requiring employees to outline any conflict of interest (or perceived conflict of interest) that a possible relationship between the two employees may cause and their plan for mitigating the conflict.

As leaders we cannot afford to be naive to the consequences. We must be proactive when it comes to workplace romances; make sure your people know what they are in for before they start getting jiggy with their colleagues.

JD

Let’s assume that your organisation is ready for growth. Bringing on board the right talent at the right time is critical to maintaining consistent development of your brand, however there are a number of contributing factors to making this process a success. More often than not, we subconsciously spend our time stood beneath the funnel instead of understanding how to build, maintain and improve it to manufacture consistent success.

This mini-series will look at how the modern HR function is evolving faster than ever at an enterprise level, but how smaller business can equally benefit from technological and service advancements – but with a fraction of the overall investment.

Priority 1 – The Checklist

The points below show my basic checklist for the necessary ingredients to build a successful talent management programme for a growing brand. The pros and cons to each of these will be explained in more detail throughout the series. Be honest – if you can’t confidently tick off the majority of these then you are likely to face recurring issues within the growth process.

• Do you have an internal talent management system to profile all new and historical candidates into your own internal talent community?
• Do you segment your candidate pool into role specific / skillset specific / salary specific verticals?
• Do you communicate regularly with your Talent Community? If yes – how is this delivered? (feedback / progress)
• Is your department creating a range of talent or culture specific content to be released via social media channels?
• How do you plan for succession?
• Are you collecting feedback from new starters and analysing workforce trends?

These are the basics. You can always optimise these elements, however in my experience, too many small to medium enterprises believe an integrated talent management programme to be costly, lacking in value and time consuming in comparison to other perceived “business critical” HR services.

Priority 2 – Piecing the puzzle

The basic systems required to run an effective talent programme exist in a number of forms and no longer require a majority of the company’s budget to implement.
Talent management software, ATS platforms (applicant tracking systems) and HCM systems (Human Capital Management) are so numerous in today’s world that there is literally a solution to any common business challenge.

The question is, what solution is a best-fit to enable growth, retention and an efficient talent strategy?

Whether your company employs a standalone internal recruitment team, or whether this is an added responsibility for a generic HR function, too many businesses prioritise a ‘CV vs role’ approach and don’t think about the bigger picture.

How is the business perceived within our own vertical? Is our content encouraging a higher quality, potentially passive candidate to engage with us directly? If a key staff member suddenly left the business, do we have the resources to make an immediate replacement?
More often than not, a business will spend a small fortune across a range of advertising mediums, agency searches and assessment centres.

The alternative however is a more efficient solution generating higher brand visibility at a lower cost!

Integrating a cloud based ATS platform at a cost per user basis will not only control cost but also allow greater visibility into the talent community your business creates. Working in tandem with internal marketing teams.

Priority 3 – deployment and execution

The relationship between People, System and Process is critical to ensure everything runs according to plan.

The aim of any talent function should be to drive company growth through the attraction of high performing individuals who share the same cultural goals as their organisation.

Every step of the journey should be reviewed, especially in the early days to make sure a solution really is a ‘best-fit’ for the end-goal. Whether implementation is carried out in-house our outsourced, the value is in the data!

What trends can we identify? Are there any common themes we can pick out on the back of previous successful hires? How does out talent community react to our engagement, and what steps to we need to implement on the back of this?

Our next article will cover the do’s and don’ts of candidate attraction and how to optimise engagement from a new target talent community.