Human Capital magazine issue 8.4

human capital

HC issue 8.4

Teambuilder:

Profile:

QLD Health

Charles Sturt University

e h t p u g n i Pick pieces of your employer brand

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International HR: Short-term visas The health consequences of disengagement

HRSUMMIT2010 HR Summit 2010 – Showguide

editor’s letter issue 8.4

EDITORIAL Why should I work for you?

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hose words could be spoken by any candidate, or even an existing employee.

Fortunately, it seems some employers are finally taking note and are putting serious thought into their unique selling point.

Aldi is a case in point. The supermarket chain made headlines earlier this month with an aggressive graduate recruiting campaign. The company is aiming to attract 200 of Australia’s brightest young brains to the tune of a starting package of $84,000 a year, five weeks’ holiday and a company car. Coles has a similar offer for grads. Clearly the supermarket business is more competitive than grocery prices would indicate.

Hopefully, Aldi has the presence of mind to follow through with its significant promises to these grads. Future job prospects, L&D opportunities and quality of managers and leaders are likely to come into play to retain employees, but most importantly, promises made through EVPs and employer brands need to be backed up by action.

As this month’s cover story reveals, the EVP in particular needs to be ‘lived and breathed’ and not just ignored as words on a page. It’s highly probable that many of the companies that struggled throughout the GFC and now find their employer brands shattered may have never been clear on their EVP in the first place. In that case it’s like having a row of identical laundry detergents and asking someone to pick ‘the best’; in short, a lucky dip. This is not a new phenomenon. Chandler Macleod Group’s 2008 Workplace Barometer report revealed that only 29% of enterprises had an EVP outlining their appeal to potential recruits. If current employees can’t articulate why it’s good to work where they do, that’s a worry.

Just like engagement and trust, once lost there’s no easy way to transform a brand and bring it back to what it once was. Although brands can be rebuilt, it takes time and expertise. In most cases, mud will stick – especially in a buoyant candidate market.

In the first person…

“Most experts agree: a powerful employer brand is the single most effective attraction and retention tool you can have. That’s why it’s also the hardest to acquire” – Mike Beeley, managing director, ReAgent Employer Marketing, talks brand rebuilding (page 14)

“The whole impetus behind the harmonisation was to try to remove some of the bureaucracy and inefficiency generated by people having to use separate measures across different states” – Miles Bastick, partner, Freehills, on the new OHS legislation (page 50)

“CSU has rewarded me significantly for my loyalty and contribution. I’m a ‘mail-room to boardroom’ success story” – Michael Knight, executive director of human resources, talks about his career at Charles Sturt University (page 52)

managing director chief operating officer editor journalist production editor contributors

marketing coordinator traffic manager design manager designer photographer senior web developer it/is manager sales director

Mike Shipley George Walmsley Iain Hopkins Daniela Aroche Carolin Wun Carroll & O’Dea Lawyers Chifley Business School The Next Step Chandler Macleod Group Frontier Software Anna Keane Stacey Rudd Jacqui Alexander Paul Mansfield Thilo Pulch Kevin Kim Colin Chan Justin Kennedy

Editorial enquiries

Iain Hopkins tel: +61 2 8437 4703 iain.hopkins@keymedia.com.au

Advertising enquiries Sophie Knight tel: +61 2 8437 4733 National Commercial Manager, HR Products sophie.knight@keymedia.com.au

subscriptions

tel: +61 2 8437 4731 • fax: +61 2 8437 4753 subscriptions@keymedia.com.au

Key Media

www.keymedia.com.au Key Media Pty Ltd, Regional head office Level 10, 1 Chandos St, St Leonards, NSW 2065, Australia tel: +61 2 8437 4700 fax: +61 2 9439 4599 Offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Toronto www.hcamag.com Copyright is reserved throughout.

No part of this publication can be reproduced in whole or part without the express permission of the editor. Contributions are invited, but copies of work should be kept as HC can accept no responsibility for loss.

“Anyone can demonstrate leadership behaviours – they can be cleaning floors or working in a call centre, or they can be a CEO of a company – but the empathy, integrity, the desire to encourage others to do their best can be demonstrated by anybody” – Dulise Maxwell, executive director of people and culture at QLD Health, has a refreshing take on leadership (page 44)

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this issue INSIDE

Cover story: Rebuilding employer brands

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With many employer brands in tatters following the GFC, Iain Hopkins asks the experts: What’s a reputation worth, and can faith in once-venerable brands be restored?

27 Showguide

Everything you need to know about the premier HR event of the year

Short-term travel = long-term 22 benefits

HR professionals are constantly being approached by business managers with questions relating to urgent business related travel overseas. Navleen Bhatia reports

12 Expert insight

Human Capital talks with Brett Minchington about leveraging your brand portfolio

Letters to the editor Do you have a burning HR or people management issue you would like to share with others?

Would you like to share your thoughts on the challenges you’ve faced and how you’ve overcome them? Want to kick off some debate about your industry? If so, Human Capital would like to hear from you. Send through your comments to editor@hcamag.com.

regulars 4 In Step

9 Corporate culture

6 Legal

10 HR technology

8 Training & development

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instep HR Career Experts

Page 4

What matters to HR practitioners?

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n HR professional weighs up many issues when evaluating career opportunities. While some of these are subject to an individual’s needs and preferences, others are more consistent across the wider HR population.

Some of the wider criteria that HR professionals weigh up when making career decisions were evaluated in a national research project conducted by The Next Step in our HR Viewpoint Survey.

The survey of almost 2,000 HR professionals was conducted at all levels from all sectors, across Australia.

This month we look at some of this criteria as well as some general preferences. The results indicate that there are several views that are shared across the HR profession.

Is there a preferred type of organisation?

The ownership structure of an organisation can make a huge difference to the short-term versus long-term thinking behind a company and its impact on its people orientation. The HR market has become aware of this fact over the years.

When HR professionals were asked to rank their preferences, the results were stark: 35.3% of HR professionals indicated that they would prefer to work for a large publically-listed company; (21.6% preferred Australian-listed; and 13.7% preferred overseas owned.)

At the other end of the spectrum, the HR community spoke with a clear voice. They indicated that a number of ownership structures were not preferred, as follows: • Private equity firms 0.9% • Professional partnerships 2.4% • Not for profit 2.9% • Public sector 3.2% While there has been a lot of anecdotal evidence over the years in relation to the difficulty of attracting HR professionals to some organisations in these sectors, the results of the survey clearly demonstrate that some areas have an image issue when it comes to the HR community.

What business cycle suits HR professionals?

The business cycle of an organisation can be a key indicator of what work HR will be called upon to undertake to support the organisation. This, therefore, is a key focus for many people.

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When asked in the survey what business cycle suits, most HR professionals identified with environments that are very dynamic. A combined 50% of respondents favoured growth and restructuring environments, (24% and 26% respectively). They recognise that their biggest impact can be delivered when the business is going through a substantial transition.

Interestingly, only 8% of HR professionals were interested in an organisation going through M&A activity. While the business community is in love with M&A activity, clearly the HR community is not.

Also of note, 21% of HR professionals said that they were more interested in working for a stable organisation where HR can plan and deliver programs, before the organisation completely changes shape.

What do HR professionals look for?

In the survey, HR professionals were also asked to rank some miscellaneous priorities that they considered when they weighed up different organisations and opportunities.

There was some validation of a long held belief that the leader of the organisation is the key to HR success. Therefore, there was no surprise that over 17% of HR professionals look for an organisation that is led by a CEO and management team that embraces HR as a value add to the business.

The other key things that HR professionals look for included the following: • Image of the organisation 12.4% • Ability to make local decisions 11.2% • A culture embracing professional development 11.1% • The company supports flexibility 10.1% There is, of course, an expectation that good companies would have ticks against most of the above, but it is still interesting to have the HR community validate that they do value these forward thinking approaches.

The wrap up

While there will always be individual organisations that offer HR practitioners the right mix to suit their personal preferences, it is still interesting to note the overall ‘turn-ons’ and ‘turn-offs’ in the market.

Clearly, there are some industries that have a lot of work to do on their HR brand. Organisations in some of these industries would do well to distance themselves from the general perceptions when recruiting HR professionals.

It is also good to quantify the priority that HR professionals place on working for an organisation that is led by a strong HRoriented management team, with a strong brand, and the ability to make local decisions. The survey definitely indicates that if a local public company displays these three factors, then they clearly have a competitive advantage in recruiting HR talent.

Craig Mason is a Director with The Next Step, a specialist consulting practice in the human resources market.

For information call (02) 8256 2500 or email cmason@thenextstep.com.au website: www.thenextstep.com.au

Recent HR Market Moves supplied by The Next Step

George Weston Foods has recently appointed Wendy Lenton as HR Director. Previously, Wendy was People Director at Vodafone Australia, and she also held senior lead HR roles at AMP and CBA.

Parramatta City Council recently appointed Ian Fitzgerald as Head of HR. Previously Ian was with Westpac as Head People and Performance, Business Banking, Finance and Risk.

Jo Blackwell has joined Goodman Fielder as Director of HR –

Annette Mitchell has recently been appointed HR Manager

Dianne Fahey was recently appointed Head of HR Virgin

Mobile. Previously Dianne has worked with Lloyds Banking Group Alphawest and Singtel Optus.

Morris Corporation has appointed Gary Bartlam as GM Human Resources. Previously Gary was Group General Manager – Human Resources, Safety, Environment and Quality with HMG.

Mirvac recently appointed Phil Rutgers as Group Remuneration Manager. Previously Phil was Head of Remuneration – AFS and Group with AMP.

ANZ recently appointed Alison McLeod as Divisional Recruitment Relationship Manager. Previously Alison was National Recruitment Manager with Ernst & Young.

Sharon Kuhn has recently been appointed Director of Human

Claire Brown has accepted the role of HR Manager with

Westpac Bank recently appointed Debra Tagg as Head of Organisational Development for Institutional Banking. Most recently Debra was with Lloyds International as Program Manager – Organisational Change.

Maria Mouskos has joined NAB as Change Manager, Wholesale

Fresh Baking. Previously Jo was with Orica Mining Services where she held the role of Regional Human Resources Manager, Asia.

Resources with Macquarie University Hospital. Previously Sharon was with Deloitte where she held the role of Senior HR Manager.

Craig Shiel joins Sinclair Knight Merz as Remuneration Manager.

Previously Craig worked with Fujitsu, Roche Products and Eli Lilly.

QLD with CB Richard Ellis. Annette has worked with The Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland & CGU Insurance.

Armaguard. Prior to this Claire was Human Resources Manager with Maurice Blackburn Lawyers.

Banking. Maria developed her change management career with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu in both the UK and Australia.

Domain Principal Group recently appointed Miranda Shtein as Learning & Organisational Development Manager. Miranda was previously with KPMG in senior L&D roles.

By supplying Market Moves, The Next Step is not implying placement involvement in any way.

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Legal Experts

Page 06

OHS: looking to a fairer future?

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ost employers will be aware of the strict obligations they are required to meet under occupational health and safety (OHS) legislation, particularly those employers operating in NSW. Over the past two decades, the NSW regime has earned the reputation for being the toughest in Australia. Unlike the system operating in some other states, the NSW Act imposes on employers virtually automatic liability for alleged OHS offences.

The Act requires employers to ‘ensure’ (taken to mean ‘guarantee’) the health, safety and welfare at work of all employees, an obligation that is far more demanding than the common law duty to take reasonable care for workers’ safety.

Historically, it has been extremely difficult for prosecuted employers to mount a successful defence to a charge under the Act. In contrast to the burden of proof in mainstream criminal cases where the prosecutor must prove an offence beyond reasonable doubt, the NSW Act imposes a ‘reverse onus’ on employers (and other duty holders, such as manufacturers and suppliers of plant) who, once the prosecutor has made out a prima facie case, must establish that it was not reasonably practicable to comply with the relevant provision of the Act or that the offence occurred due to causes over which the employer had no control and which the employer could not ‘practicably’ prevent.

The high incidence of convictions in NSW OHS matters is likely to change following a recent decision of the High Court.

In Kirk’s case, both Mr Kirk and the company of which he was a director were prosecuted by Workcover NSW following a fatal accident on a property owned by Kirk Group Holdings Pty Ltd. An experienced employee, who was responsible for the day-to-day management of the property (in which Mr Kirk took no active role), inexplicably drove an all-terrain vehicle down the side of a steep hill on the property instead of using an established road.

In doing so, the vehicle overturned, killing the employee. The employing company was prosecuted for allegedly breaching the OHS Act. Mr Kirk was also prosecuted personally in his capacity as a director of the employer: where a company has breached the Act, each company director is deemed to have also breached the Act unless the director can satisfy the Court that s/he was not in a position to influence the company’s conduct in relation to the offence or, alternatively, used all due diligence to prevent the breach from occurring. As has been customary in OHS prosecutions for several years, the charges against the company and Mr Kirk did not fully detail the manner in which they were

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said to have breached the Act, an approach that the High Court considered unsatisfactory. For example, there was no attempt to identify the measures that Kirk Group Holdings could have taken to prevent the accident.

While the High Court’s decision deals with several legal issues, relevantly the Court upheld Mr Kirk’s appeal and quashed the convictions (and substantial costs orders) recorded against him and his company. The Court was particularly critical of the way in which Mr Kirk, being accused of a crime, was permitted to be called by the prosecutor to give evidence against his company, contrary to the rules of evidence applicable to mainstream criminal cases.

The High Court’s decision was a clear message to the Workcover Authority to pay careful attention to the way it investigates and prosecutes OHS matters in NSW (and Workcover is likely to change some of its practices, particularly in the way charges are laid). It was also an undisguised criticism of the approach taken by the NSW Industrial Court (the specialist NSW court that deals with these matters) in certain aspects of the procedure it had adopted when hearing prosecutions.

However, it is important to remember that the legislative obligations on employers nevertheless remain the same. Those obligations will not change until the ‘harmonisation’ of the federal and various state OHS statutes occurs, when all states and the commonwealth will adopt identical OHS legislation which is due to commence on 1 January 2012. Employers’ obligations will thus be uniform across the nation, a welcome reform for employers who do business in several states. The model Act currently being circulated to stakeholders significantly re-casts the duties owed by employers (and others) in a way that will ease the current burden on NSW employers.

If you have questions about discharging your obligations under the current OHS Act or wish to enquire about the provisions of the new Act, please contact our office. www.codea.com.au Janine Smith Employment and Industrial Relations Group Carroll & O’Dea Lawyers Level 18, St James Centre 111 Elizabeth Street Sydney NSW 2000 Phone 02 9291 7100

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Training & Development

Page 8 Professional Development Experts

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS STRATEGIES AFTER THE GFC

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ith economies around the world on the mend following a tumultuous year, it’s time to examine the state of international business in a range of economic contexts.

Importantly, not all economies went into recession in 2009: the Chinese and Indian economies suffered downturns in international business activity, but it was nothing on the recessions besetting advanced Western economies. The US and Iceland, in particular, plumbed new depths of financial woe.

So how has the global financial crisis affected international businesses? Well, it depends on the severity of the recession in an organisation’s home country. For international businesses based in the economies hardest hit by the global financial crisis – particularly in the US and Iceland – the effects have been profound, with companies there continuing to display all-time low levels of internationalisation. But international businesses based in China and India, for example, experienced only a downturn in international business activity.

And the impact of the global financial crisis on international businesses based in economies that experienced only a shallow recession is different again. For these economies, where recessions were caused by increased cost of capital and the collapse of international trade, the impact has been milder.

The aggressive response of governments, greater inherent comparative advantages, larger central bank and commodity reserves and more robust financial and capital markets in these countries led to their economies returning rapidly to nearnormal trading conditions.

As a result, the impact of these international businesses was much less. In some cases, the reduction in international competition allowed these businesses to increase their global market share to levels higher than they reached before the onset of the global financial crisis. Following Australia’s return to economic growth, for example, all four major Australian banks moved into the top 20 largest global banks.

Economies in countries such as Australia and Singapore experienced only technical recessions of two succeeding

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quarters of negative growth before returning to positive growth on the back of strong domestic financial and capital markets, and aggressive, government-sanctioned economic stimulus packages. International businesses based here have been able to return quickly to internationalisation activities and maintain an international strategy – albeit with some changes. In these countries, government intervention has made its domestic market particularly attractive – encouraging some international businesses to invest locally rather than in foreign markets.

International businesses with home markets in Australia still tended to internalise – predominately because of Australia’s proximity to Asia, which continues to enjoy strong economic growth. Not surprisingly, countries with high economic growth rates preceding the global financial crisis that did not experience a recession maintained strong levels of internationalisation activity. The reduction in some of their foreign markets (particularly markets in countries that did enter a recession) meant that some international businesses were unable to maintain the same rate of internationalisation. Some companies were not able to survive at all because they were dependent on foreign markets heading for a deep recession. Conversely, some international businesses took advantage of overseas competitors’ declining share prices – acquiring as many shares as possible as part of their internalisation strategy.

The global financial crisis has affected all international businesses. Internationalisation rates have declined dramatically in countries that experienced a deep recession. For countries that experienced shallow recessions, internationalisation behaviour has reduced and become highly focused. Companies based in economies that experienced no recession at all took advantage of a decimated playing field and internationalised more aggressively. From this we can learn two principal factors that determine international strategy during times of financial crisis: home country market conditions and the level of domestic industry protection introduced by foreign country governments in response to the economic downturn. Other factors including the variability in relative exchange rates may also influence international strategy during financial crises.

Contributed by Stuart Orr Stuart Orr is a member of the Chifley Academic Committee for Chifley postgraduate programs.

Phone 1300 CHIFLEY | 1300 244 353 Visit www.chifley.edu.au

Workforce Advisory & Management

Evolving your Workforce

Page 09

How do great organisations maintain low levels of turnover and high levels of employee satisfaction?

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espite fluctuating economic times and increased globalisation of jobs, most employers are finding it hard to keep good workers. The reality is that workers are expecting more from their employers and will move on if their needs are not met. This is evident in a recent survey we conducted where 78% of employees indicated they were planning to move jobs in the next six months – undeterred by the economic uncertainty.

Based on compelling data from the Society for Human Resource Management and others who study workforce trends, organisations must analyse their retention realities and ensure that their key employees are not seeking greener pastures. How do great organisations maintain low levels of turnover and high levels of employee satisfaction? The answer is: culture.

Organisations with high rates of employee retention concentrate on creating three distinct cultures that keep people focused on the organisation and its goals. The purpose of this article is to explore these three cultures.

The culture of choice

Donald N Smith, president of Burger King said: “The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly important thing to people.” Burger King recognised long ago that Americans expect to have multiple choices each day. Today’s employees are looking for choice in the methods they use for completing a job, in the benefits they receive from work, and in when and how they report to work.

In the last two decades, we’ve seen an explosion in the types of employee benefits offered by employers. We’ve seen an increased acceptance of telecommuting and flex-time. Choices in the tools they use, the methods they employ, and the recognition they receive are all characterised as innovations in HR management.

In short, we continue to learn more and more about employee engagement and the link between empowerment and retention.

The culture of development

ignores the ambitions of good people can’t expect to keep them. High rates of retention are clearly linked to the amount of attention the employee gets in terms of their professional development and growth. When employees feel that their career goals have been acknowledged and that they are continuing to be challenged on the job, they are likely to stick around. Employees who feel stagnated, ignored or bored will likely start to look for other opportunities. A culture of development can be cultivated through a variety of tools.

Training, mentoring, and clear career paths all contribute to this culture. However, the strongest culture of development is created by the first line supervisor who works with the employee each day. Every supervisor and manager has an opportunity to show that they are interested in the employee’s growth and development by asking the right questions and by understanding where the employee wants to go professionally.

Simply by asking, managers and supervisors can begin to create a culture of development and raise levels of retention.

A culture of care

In a strict sense, the kind of motivation we need to be talking about in today’s environment is inspired rather than induced.

Employees will be motivated to stay put and work at higher levels if they feel that they are cared for and if they care about the work they are doing. In other words, employees must feel a sense of inspiration to fully commit to their daily activities.

In organisations where retention levels are high and turnover is low, research has found that employees find some level of inspiration from their jobs. Such inspiration might be a sense of contributing to the greater good. It might be a commitment to the team and its goals. Inspiration may be derived by following a committed and ethical leader.

Employees must be led to care about their work and about the organisation.

We have all read the ominous reports that indicate the workforce is shrinking significantly due not only to the current economy, but also with the anticipated exit of the Baby Boomers. It is clear that despite the current day challenges, organisations that do not work on their culture during the tough times will find it difficult to attract and retain qualified and committed employees when things start to improve. Now is the time to examine the culture of the organisation.

With the national average length of employment hovering around one-and-a-half years per job, it makes sense to explore what it takes to retain and develop a committed staff.

Retention is now being considered a long-term strategic goal for organisations that recognise its value.

Craig McCallum

www.chandlermacleod.com

General Manager Marketing: Specialist Recruitment & Consulting Services Tel: 02 9269 8879 Craig.McCallum@chandlermacleod.com

Bestselling authors Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans, in their book, Love’Em or Lose’Em, say that any organisation that www.hcamag.com

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issue 5.10

international

HR TECHNOLOGY

Page 10

Connecting HR across the Globe Question:

We currently have operations in a number of countries across the globe and are looking to consolidate all of our HR data into one solution. What should we be looking for in such a solution?

Answer:

For many, globalisation is a reality, and today many HR practitioners find themselves working for global organisations with international corporate structures and workforces. This represents an enormous opportunity for HR practitioners to collaborate in order to harness the benefits the workforce provides.

Such a global perspective of HR management will reduce costs, maximise workforce potential and deliver competitive advantage.

Your organisation has made a wise decision in selecting one central HR repository – it will provide the global HR team with a platform to work collaboratively in delivering global HR excellence. When implementing a new system, it may be a good time to introduce global HR best practice within your organisation.

Evaluating your needs upfront is an excellent place to start.

It is important to understand the HR processes in each location and any local compliance issues that need to be catered for.

Performing a needs analysis and documenting your needs on a global basis will be time consuming and will require a project manager to collate and document all requirements. If you don’t have the resources to dedicate to this important step, you may consider utilising an independent third party consultant who has experience implementing global systems.

Depending on the size of your organisation, the needs gathering phase may take weeks or even months, but it’s worthwhile to understand the needs of all countries. This phase will ensure the system you select is able to meet your needs today and into the future. Selecting a new system can be a costly exercise and your organisation will not be ready to change systems for many years, so it is imperative to get it right. A system that can meet your needs now and grow with you will ensure you are able to maximise your return on investment and reduce the cost of ownership.

Once your requirements are documented you will have a blueprint for your new system and a checklist to utilise when evaluating the different systems. These will streamline the selection process.

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Reporting on a global basis is one of the key benefits you will achieve by consolidating your HR information. In order to effectively harness the benefits a central system provides, a solution with one database is vital. An easy-to-use reporting tool that all stakeholders can learn and utilise quickly will support project success. The system benefits will be harder to identify if you are unable to utilise all of the information that is stored.

While it is important to be able to easily access the information through a user-friendly reporting tool, it is also essential that users are only able to access information that is pertinent to their country or region. A system with a rich security layer that provides multi-level and flexible security should be in your requirements – access to sensitive payroll information should be restricted to only those employees and managers requiring this data. If not inbuilt, the reporting tool being utilised should recognise the security layer and only report on the data the user has access to.

If required, multi-language capabilities should be a consideration. The system will be adopted faster and effectively utilised if end users can input and report on data in their own language. In addition, useability will be increased if documentation and help are provided in the user’s selected language.

Localisation is another consideration – a system that allows changes to windows/forms for each country will further enhance useability. Users should be able to update the field labels/names with their terminology or create new fields to store information required. A system that can store multiple windows/forms and display the correct form based on the user country will significantly reduce ongoing system maintenance. This approach will ensure global adherence to corporate HR best practice.

Technology and the internet have changed the workforce landscape, and many employees today telecommute and work remotely. When managed effectively, this can provide considerable cost savings. A global HR system that provides a corporate skills framework will allow the business to utilise the skills of employees in other locations that understand your product and business when needed. This provides many opportunities for both the enterprise and your workforce – allowing employees to share their skills and knowledge with counterparts in other countries may introduce efficiencies not considered. Furthermore, employee resources can be shared when one location is experiencing quiet times and another is busy.

Local support is critical, and a vendor who can provide local support and training as well as an understanding of local compliance issues will ensure every office is able to maximise their use of the system.

A central HR system is an excellent opportunity for your HR team to maximise workforce effectiveness on a global scale and promote business agility.

Nick Southcombe General Manager Frontier Software Pty Ltd (03) 9639 0777 www.frontiersoftware.com

news issue 8.4

NEWS Technology trio announced as ‘Best of the Best’ employers

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icrosoft Australia, Dimension Data Australia and Express Data have been revealed as the winners of the 2009 Hewitt Best Employers in Australia and New Zealand. RedBalloon, Insurance Line and Trilby Misso Lawyers were next in line making up the top six as Accredited Hewitt Best Employers.

The Hewitt Best Employer Study involves a diverse range of businesses and sizes; small, large Australian, global and the one thing they all have in common is an absolute commitment to becoming a best employer. Overall, 110 organisations and 37,000 employees were involved in the process.

Tim Powell, managing director of Hewitt said employees of the Best Employers listed were nearly 50% more likely to think their organisation motivates them to contribute over and beyond than the general population.

Fifty-three per cent of employees said the way their organisation manages performance keeps them motivated to achieve company objectives.

Powell shed some light on the strategies used by the Best Employers.

These include: »» A commitment to exhibit authentic leadership by looking for new ways to develop leaders despite the downturn. »» Managing external reputation through their brand and values. »» Dedication towards measuring performance. »» Open, transparent and frankness in the way they communicate where the business was going, and providing guides to their teams on how to work forward and how the team would be involved in that.

Reinstatement of dismissed employees presents new challenges for HR U

nder the newly implemented Fair Work legislation, the reinstatement of unfairly dismissed employees is now more likely than ever before. In addition, a recent farreaching reinstatement order from Fair Work Australia demonstrates the significant operational issues employers could face, according to Lesley Maclou, partner at Harmers Workplace Lawyers.

Maclou said many employers may not consider the repercussions of the forced reinstatement of a dismissed employee, or factor this possibility into their operations.

“For example, a company which has recently hired a new employee to replace a dismissed employee might not factor in the possibility that the dismissed employee may be reinstated to their role by Fair Work Australia, nor its impact on the organisation,” she said.

Maclou said the recent Fair Work Australia reinstatement order (between contractor, Bilfinger Berger Services, and Sugar Australia) goes further than many employers might imagine, with Fair Work Australia making it clear that an order for reinstatement to a position carried with it the requirement that the employee return to the exact conditions, type of work and even work location. This means that the employer is prevented from redeploying the previously dismissed employee within the organisation. Consequently, an employer might find they could have two permanent hires for the one role.

Maclou added that this example showed the particular issues reinstatement could raise for companies with fixed term contracts or commercial arrangements that require flexibility with respect to the provision of labour.

Suppressed demand for new jobs will hit employers

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he Insync Surveys Retention Review, released in March, predicts a surge in staff turnover as the job market picks up. The 2010 report, based on 1,548 employee responses, also reveals the reasons employees leave their employer.

Interestingly, fewer departing employees are now indicating a ‘lack of job satisfaction’ as their number one reason for leaving. However, ‘work stress’ and ‘job security’ are increasingly common. There is also a decline in ‘pay and conditions’ as a driving influence in one’s decision to leave.

James Garriock, Insync Surveys CEO said: “Employees aren’t happier;

they just haven’t been leaving due to dissatisfaction. Labour supply exceeded demand during 2009, but unemployment didn’t rise to expected levels. The majority of employees stuck by their employers.”

Garriock added that many employees who stayed were asked to make sacrifices during 2009, such as taking leave without pay, pay cuts, forced annual leave or doing more work when departing staff weren’t replaced. “Many of these people are now dissatisfied with their employer and will leave when the job market recovers,” he said. “We predict turnover to be above the long-term average by the second half of 2010 if job supply trends continue.” www.hcamag.com

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issue 8.4

HR insights

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espite popular misconception, your company only has one brand – and the corporate, consumer and employer brands are subsets which make up the brand portfolio. Although many business leaders fail to recognise this, Brett Minchington, MBA, chairman/CEO of Employer Brand International, says HR can play a key role in adding value to a brand portfolio. He shares with Human Capital some of the key outcomes from a year long employer branding global research project titled: ‘How to optimise the value of your intangible assets through leveraging your brand portfolio (employer, consumer and corporate brands).’

Human Capital: Can you tell us about your recent research project?

Brett Minchington: The uptake in employer branding research, theory and practice has grown over the past five years, including the past two following the GFC where employer branding became a key priority of the leadership agenda. During times of economic growth the focus of employer branding was on talent acquisition

strategies. However, with the reduction in recruitment and headcount as a result of the GFC, companies shifted their focus to engagement and retention of the talent they already had. Companies are now seeing the benefits of applying a holistic approach to employer branding as a talent attraction, engagement and retention strategy.

The key objectives of the project were: • To understand the relationships and key links between the employer brand, corporate brand and consumer brand • To develop a framework to guide best practice in leveraging the brand portfolio to optimise the value of intangible assets • As part of the research project we conducted face-face research forums in South Africa, the US, Denmark and Australia with 8-15 senior executive leaders from top companies from the regions. We also conducted 1:1 interviews with industry and corporate leaders around the world

Juggling act: Leveraging your brand portfolio Chairman/CEO of Employer Brand International, Brett Minchington, explains how and why HR should play a key role in adding value to a company’s brand portfolio

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HR insights

HC: What did you find is the relationship between the employer brand, corporate brand and consumer brand?

BM: This has been described as The Bermuda Triangle! I describe it as a relationship built upon focus, leadership and influence.

Firstly, your company only has one brand and the corporate, consumer and employer brands are subsets which make up the brand portfolio. The total portfolio needs to be considered in organisational strategy as each subset can – and usually does – impact on the other. For example, a company that manages redundancies poorly and gains negative media attention will likely see an impact on their consumer brand as a groundswell builds for consumers to boycott their products. With today’s online communication tools and networks such as Twitter and Facebook, negative publicity can be circulated globally instantly. The damage to your reputation can take years to restore.

Most companies have a different strategy for each subset of the brand. The marketing function is usually responsible for managing the corporate and consumer brand and HR is usually responsible for the employer brand, though this is changing. Our global research published in 2009 found 43% of HR departments are responsible for the employer brand, while it was 70%+ two years previously.

The HR, Marketing and Communication functions need to work closely to ensure they capitalise and leverage on the ‘sum of the capabilities of different functions.’

The essence of your corporate and consumer brands should be reflected in the essence of your employer brand. The Ritz Carlton brand is about quality and service. If it promises a superior customer experience and employees do not ‘buy in’ to the vision, the company will likely fall short on delivering the customer promise.

Leadership needs to inspire staff to deliver on the corporate and consumer brand promise. Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, does this best. It is clear

that the people who work there are aligned to the company’s brand values. Conceived in 1970, the Virgin Group has successfully grown businesses in sectors ranging from mobile telephony to transportation, travel, financial services, media, music and fitness by empowering employees to deliver on their brand values of value for money, quality, innovation, fun and a sense of competitive challenge. Branson’s trademark is outlandish publicity stunts. He will do almost anything to promote the Virgin brand: driving a tank down Fifth Avenue in New York to introduce Virgin Cola to the US, risking his life in high-profile hotair balloon adventures or abseiling down the side of a hotel whilst throwing out free airline tickets to watchers below. Branson gets away with it as he is merely bringing to life its brand values.

issue 8.4

employer brand. For example, a bank many not want to project to clients that it is a funky, cool and fun place to work.

However, it may wish to do so to passive and active candidates, especially to recruit a diverse workforce and younger generation.

HC: What are the challenges for HR managers and directors in adding value to the brand portfolio?

BM: The key challenges include: • Ability to break down the tradition of marketing being responsible for managing the corporate and consumer brands and HR being responsible for the employer brand.

• Inability to demonstrate a viable business case, resulting in a lack of resources to invest in aligning the brand portfolio with corporate objectives.

“… your company only has one brand and the corporate, consumer and employer brands are subsets …”

– Brett Minchington

The employer brand can influence the corporate and consumer brands. Sodexo, a global food services group, has received enormous media exposure the past couple of years as a result of its effective use of social media recruiting. As a result, the Sodexo corporate brand has achieved a much higher level of awareness than would have been possible through a paid advertising campaign. Sodexo has engaged and built global communities and relationships with potential candidates and raised awareness of their products and services among consumers around the world.

Customers are often prospective employees or may be a referral source for talent, so there needs to be consistency in messaging across the brand portfolio.

Sometimes a different message is required for your corporate brand versus your

There may also be a lack of expertise and influence in HR/Marketing and Communication functions to drive the alignment. This is where executives need to step in and support the agenda.

How does the strategy align with the corporate strategy, objectives and values? The key is to ensure collaboration, communication and commitment between the functions responsible for managing the strategy. HC

Further information Brett Minchington’s new book Employer Brand Strategy will be published in 2010. For more information, e-mail: brett@ employerbrandinternational.com

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Cover story

“Y

ou’ll never believe what my company did to me…!” – statements like these used to be heard at, and largely confined to, social gatherings such as BBQs and dinner parties. Now, in an age of social media, they’re likely to spread like wildfire through blogs, Twitter, and Facebook.

Reputational spot fires used to be relatively easy to contain; not so anymore.

“There are so many sites – Glass Door, Even it Up, Whirlpool – where prospective job seekers can find out the ‘real’ stories about your organisation from current and past employees. There is nowhere for businesses to hide now,” confirms Kelly Magowan, CEO of SixFigures.

The damage to employer brands as a result of the GFC (and employer actions taken during the GFC) has been widespread and devastating, with the ultimate fall out being the erosion of engagement and the breakdown of trust between employees and employers.

Mike Beeley of ReAgent Employer Marketing says that for those employers that treated employees poorly, cut too deep or failed to communicate effectively, the repercussions are still being felt. “When people become disengaged and begin their exit strategy, there can be severe collateral damage. Most talented people don’t leave quietly – they take emotional hostages.

They can be your customers or other staff members– either way, it’s a significant risk to your business.”

Broadening the definition

What’s done is done. In the post-GFC world many organisations will be looking to pick up the pieces of their employer

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With many employer brands in tatters following the GFC, Iain Hopkins asks the experts: What’s a reputation worth, and can faith in once-venerable brands be restored?

brand – and that means doing more than commissioning a new run of print advertisements plugging the virtues of the company.

“Your employer brand is the same as any other brand: it sits in the hearts and minds of your target audience. In this case it’s your current employees and how they feel about working for you. For future employees it’s about making them want to work for you and aligning cultural values with their personal ones. For past employees it’s about reminding them what was good about the company – not necessarily what was bad and why they left,” says Nat Cagilaba, account director, Daemon Within.

The secret to appreciating the power of an employer brand is to know that it’s not just the glossy print job advertisement or the clever careers website – although both undoubtedly help the cause – but it’s also the whole employee experience with an employer. This might be more accurately referred to as talent experience management (see Chart 1).

Cover story

“If you get three or four positive experiences in a row, chances are you’ve got yourself the makings of an engaged person,” says Beeley.

However, a brand needs to move beyond the confines of a ‘relationship’ – after all, what can you do if someone doesn’t want to pursue one with you?

As Beeley points out, if you persist in trying to develop the relationship, “it’s called stalking”.

This is a fundamental problem: if an organisation cannot manage relationships, what can it do to sway someone’s opinion?

“We can manage the experiences people have of our organisation – the ‘touchpoints’ where they connect, however briefly, with us and make that instant assessment of us which is somewhat unfair, but human nature,” says Beeley.

How are experiences managed? Beeley suggests a starting point is charting out the likely path of the ‘targets’ into the organisation and ensure, as much as possible, that each connection they have with the organisation is positive and consistent (see Chart 2 on pg17). As such, the employer brand sits across the three critical challenges that HR experiences every day: »» to attract more people in order to grow or remain competitive »» to engage employees – because a disengaged workforce is not as motivated and productive as an engaged one »» to retain key staff and stem the flow of people out the exit door Often the three challenges overlap. “A number of times we’ve had clients come to us and say, ‘we’ve got problems attracting

issue 8.4

people to our company’, and what you actually find is the reason they’ve got a problem with attraction is because they’re losing so many people and they can’t hold onto anyone. So the strategy changes to a retention piece,” Cagilaba notes.

Those thinking that the employer brand is distinct from a corporate or consumer brand can think again. In the early stages of the GFC, particularly in sectors like finance, brands were undermined and suddenly became unstable – large, venerable institutions even went under. Not only were people questioning whether the business was stable from the financial perspective, but people started questioning whether a career in that business, or that sector, was viable.

“The employer brand has started to attach itself to the corporate brand,” says

Chart 1: Talent experience management Advertising Testimonials Direct mail & events

Awareness

relevance

Offer letter

apply

First day Welcome Pack

J o b

Onboarding Training & appraisals

Induction

Experience

lifetime career

Employee engagement

Website/microsite

Processes

Managers recruitment packs

Internal communications Remuneration & benefits Source: ReAgent Employer Marketing www.hcamag.com

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Cover story

Case study: British American Tobacco Australia (BATA) Ian Blamey

Given the tight rules and legislation around tobacco advertising in Australia, BATA needs to tread carefully when it comes to using their brand to attract candidates.

Human Capital talks to Ian Blamey, HR director at BATA, about how the company optimises its employer brand within these tight confines Human Capital: Where does BATA focus its employer branding?

Ian Blamey: If we look back six or seven years ago we didn’t even show our name on our external recruitment adverts. We did it through the recruitment agencies. We did some research amongst potential candidates to our company through our recruitment agency. When we asked the question, ‘would you work for a tobacco company?’, 12% of people said yes, they would have no problem with that. Eighty-eight per cent said no. Of those 88%, 47% said that nothing would change their mind.

And of that 88%, 41% said their mind could be changed. That’s what our employer brand is about – it’s targeting that 41% and trying to find an opportunity to make them aware of just what an attractive place BATA is to work.

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HC: What underpins your employer brand?

IB: One of our guiding principles is around diversity. Our employer brand is themed around the concept of ‘bring your difference’. That’s one of the key mantras for our group worldwide. We appreciate the difference that people bring to our work. I’m not talking about gender diversity, ethnic diversity, etc – it’s diversity of any nature. We’re really trying to appreciate the individual that joins us. Over time we’ve evolved into having not just an employer brand and employer value proposition [EVP] but translating that into what we now call an individual value proposition [IVP]. That means customising our total offering – be that benefits, working practices, flexible work practices – to suit each individual.

We’re operating in a controversial industry so it’s about trying to differentiate ourselves from other companies. Once we get that 41% into the company, we certainly want to keep them – the IVP helps us do that.

HC: Have you seen any benefits since establishing your IVP as a point of difference?

IB: Yes, we’ve seen a big increase in the interest that people are showing to our company. For example, we went to career fairs last year and attracted 900 applicants to our management training program. The previous year we only attracted 340.

During the GFC we concentrated less on our external EVP and instead concentrated more internally on making each existing employee a champion for the company. We did that through the individually serviced IVP. We want every line manager to have a robust conversation with each member of their staff to try to customise or tailor the IVP to suit that person and their interests, their needs – be that inside the company, outside the company, life goals, career goals, family goals, and so on.

Just as important to me is reduced employee turnover and the effect it has on the culture of the company.

This IVP concept is very popular with staff members. In terms of retention, we average around 12% turnover.

During the GFC it came down to around 3–4% but that’s not always healthy either. Let’s face it, it was an employers’ market for a brief 16–17 months, but it’s becoming an employees’ market again.

HC: Do your candidates consider BATA up against a range of other companies?

IB: Absolutely. We’re quite open to the concept of not just being competitive in the FMCG industry but any industry.

We’re targeting applicants from across the board.

HC: Once you make those promises it’s important to follow through – do you concentrate your brand throughout the employee experience?

IB: Yes. We’ve got five business strategies in the company. One of them is called ‘lead and inspire’.

Within that we have an objective which says we want to make our company the best place to live, work and play. We build our IVP around those three concepts and we have a variety of offerings within those three – live, work, play.

HC: You mentioned that several years ago you wouldn’t have put your logo on your recruitment ads. Do you think the perception of the company and industry has changed slightly?

IB: That’s a tough one. Are we trying to change people’s perceptions? Or are we trying to target those 40-odd per cent of candidates who say, ‘if I was able to spend a couple of hours there, to get a feel for the place, I might be interested in working there’?

It’s really about letting people get a feel for the benefits we offer, and the culture we have. I’m not convinced we’re changing the world or the attitude towards tobacco.

Cover story

Cagilaba, “but from our perspective there is only one brand. You interpret it in different ways to different target audiences. You might have your corporate brand going out to investors and customers, and you would give slightly different messages to them. Equally the employer brand gives slightly different messages to employees past, present and future. You might also be a customer or investor, and employee at the same time. All those messages should work together to give you an overall feel for that organisation. Do you always join an organisation because of the employer brand? Or is it the work you’ll undertake and the work the company does on the customer side? Again, all of these factors work together.”

The key, Cagilaba adds, is to make it clear when the employer is talking to the ‘client’ as an employee, as a customer, as an investor. “That’s where it becomes a hazy area because, more and more, especially with social media, that line is being blurred. In the past it was simple – you put a job ad on a job board, and into the classifieds of the newspaper.

It wouldn’t mix with the corporate or product advertising. Now social media is

Nat Cagilaba

issue 8.4

converging the process – so you must be clear about what your messages are, who you’re talking to, and why,” he says.

Post-GFC changes

“Build on the positives and let employees know you’ll start working on some of the challenges” – Nat Cagilaba

Previously the most visible sign of the employer brand came through in job advertisements, and branding was used primarily as an attraction tool. While that remains a focus, the GFC has changed the game plan. The employer brand is now being used as part of a defensive strategy, to engage existing employees.

“When the GFC hit, it was a case of: ‘let’s just advertise, we’ve got this magnet brand, people will come to us’. But there’s a fear now – people worked like dogs to get through the downturn, and now as the market picks up, those people could walk out the door. That has moved the whole concept of employer branding.

Now it’s not just the words. For a lot of people, internal communication is a newsletter and putting posters up on the wall about the organisational values.

Now it’s about bringing those values to life,” says Cagilaba.

To truly engage people, Cagilaba encourages employers to take a look at

Chart 2: The talent pathway start

1. First signs

Recruitment ads (eg, press, online, outdoor, indoor, radio, TV, on-campus, in-transport

2. Viral

Word-of-mouth recomendations, direct marketing, online, PR, employee referral program, alumni

4. First meeting

Are they made to feel welcome, are they expected by everyone, do they have business cards, etc?

5. First contact

Induction, onboarding, early training.

Do they all confirm the expectations created on the way into the organisation?

8. First month

The interview and assessment process

3. First real scrutiny

The website, preferably a standalone, sticky and engaging microsite, dedicated just to marketing us to talent. Interactive, enlightening, informative, impressive

7. First day

Recruitment ads (eg, press, online, outdoor, indoor, radio, TV, on-campus, in-transport

6. Job offer or decline

Whatever the decision, the way we do it makes friends or enemies

9. From here to retirement

end

Ongoing training, personal and career development, communication, engagement tools, support, career progression, etc Source: ReAgent Employer Marketing www.hcamag.com

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Cover story

Brands and engagement Is it fair to say the companies with solid employer brands – or are at least switched on with their brands – also have engaged employees?

Nat Cagilaba responds: “They do go hand-in-hand but one does not equal the other. If someone manages their employer brand effectively, they may still have some employees who aren’t engaged.

However, what they will have is the fact that they’re working on it. It’s not all things to all people. Some people might be really engaged but what

engages them is the quality of the work and the challenges of every day work. For other people it’s the social club and people they work with; while for others it’s the recognition they receive. It might be that one of those areas is lacking, so some people will be engaged and others disengaged. If you’re managing your employer brand effectively, you’ll be looking for the areas where it may not be working.

You’re constantly refining, updating and working with that: the practices of living out your employer brand.”

Employee engagement drops Standard of service suffers Client dissatisfaction Employee turnover Client defection Brand damage

Client aquisition problems

Talent attraction problems

Permanent brand damage

Source: ReAgent Employer Marketing

the full spectrum of what makes up an employment brand. At the most basic level – the attraction aspect of the brand – this is about employer reputation, leadership reputation, and salary & remuneration.

Most ‘outside’ people don’t know much about a company beyond those factors, but those factors are not the same things that keep an employee there. Those retention factors will include the challenge of the work, interactions with colleagues and management, involvement in decision making, career advancement and training.

“It’s the experience of the existing employees and whether the promises were kept that really makes a difference. People on the outside always see the employer brand as the attraction piece, but from the inside you need people to be your advocates

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“Most experts agree: a powerful employer brand is the single most effective attraction and retention tool you can have. That’s why it’s also the hardest to acquire” – Mike Beeley

and say, ‘yes, that does actually happen – the promises were followed through’,” Cagilaba says.

Strength from within

The Employer Value Proposition (EVP) is a promise to employees about what they will gain from a career with your company – it’s essentially the ‘emotional contract’ between employer and employee. Often this is built upwards and outwards from company ethics and principles. However, if those ethics and principles were mere words, the EVP can be meaningless, especially post-GFC. “If it’s lived out in the experience then what you may encounter are challenges to your brand, but it can be rebuilt. A number of our clients tried very hard to go above and beyond when they were forced to make redundancies because looking after their people was a key part of their EVP. Yet when you talk to their employees they remain quite positive about the organisation and acknowledge the company tried to keep as many jobs as possible and redeployed where possible and provided good salary payouts – because they lived their EVP and values. It’s not so much what you had to do but how you did it,” Cagilaba says.

In addition, Magowan warns employers that generic EVPs won’t cut it.

Slightly different EVPs will be required for different segments of the job market. This stands to reason: the drivers and motivating factors for an executive will be different to those for a graduate.

“Often large companies do it very well for graduates and will put a lot of money and time into that. However, as any marketer will tell you, when you’re communicating your brand, and with that your EVP, your message must be tailored to different target markets. Generic websites and EVPs will only resonate with a percentage of people who connect with the brand,” she says.

If you believe you don’t have an EVP, Beeley urges a rethink. “If you don’t know exactly what it is, chances are it’s not a good one. You’ll find this invaluable in creating a market-competitive and unique employer brand, and for mediating

Cover story

through the internal disagreements,” he says. Indeed, brands that don’t resonate internally will struggle to resonate in the outside world. The key is to create employee advocacy so they will tell their friends, their family, their network. “Those current employees are your best spokespeople, the best PR. Firstly, you need to get that internal piece right, and then the right people will follow from that. The best source of hiring talent is referrals from existing employees – nothing can top that.

If you don’t have a good brand internally, you’ll miss out on a lot of talent coming through,” says Magowan.

Where to start

As with any marketing effort, it’s important to start with facts, not just vague guesswork of what people think. Cagilaba urges employers to firstly understand what the current state of the employer brand is: What do your employees say about you?

What do people from the outside world

Mike Beeley

think about you? And from there it’s determining both the challenges and the positives.

“The first step in this engagement process is to say, ‘we’re listening – it’s not about us, it’s about you – so tell us what the problems are and what we’re

issue 8.4

doing well’. Build on the positives and let employees know you’ll start working on some of the challenges. That’s when people start to think, ‘ok, they’ve gone from telling us things and never delivering, to communicating with us and having a twoway conversation’,” says Cagilaba.

Magowan has some simple initial steps: »» Ask internally what people think of the company, and even consider a wiki or blog where employees can dump their thoughts, good and bad, about what’s happening. Often how employees view the business is very different to how HR or executives think they view it. »» Research the marketplace about what’s being said about your company – look at Glass Door, Even it Up, Whirlpool, Facebook. There will be good and bad things mentioned. Be mindful that you can’t be everything to everyone. Find out what’s unique and what the key drivers are, then focus on the fundamentals of what makes up the brand.

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Cover story

Measurement

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that could take months. By far the most effective and immediate test is employee engagement – if your existing staff respond to the brand then chances are your external targets will too.”

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managing the performance of your talent attraction and retention process: “These are long-term metrics,” says Mike Beeley. “They will only improve through the brand if the brand is successful, and

0 11

6

How do we know how well our employer brand is performing? Or indeed, how can we measure the success of the touchpoints? The most common metrics we use are the general metrics you use in

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Average cost per hire

employee engagement

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»» Look at where you want to position the employer brand, what’s realistic, and what you have to offer. Don’t be a Google or GE if you can’t match that. »» Don’t replicate someone else’s brand.

Brands and values and mission statements can often be very bland. What makes you unique? Why do people like working for you? Look at exit interviews and why people leave. Look at hiring interviews – why people join you – and note any discrepancies. »» Understand what the EVP is for different segments. Is that being communicated effectively – in job ads, online, during interviews, and internally? »» Look at what time, money and resources you have available. Be realistic.

HR and marketing

In this age of converged corporate, consumer and employer brands, it’s crucial that HR work alongside the marketing team. However, there are potential challenges in setting up this relationship.

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70

80

Monthly unsolicited resumes 80

90

90

100

100

“Those current employees are your best spokespeople, the best PR. Firstly, you need to get that internal piece right, and then the right people will follow from that” – Kelly Magowan “The two aren’t natural bedfellows,” says Cagilaba. “The key challenge is that HR and marketing are KPI-ed in different ways. HR aren’t marketers but they need to take on more of a marketing role. And marketing is not HR – they are outward looking to build brands, to sell services.”

By working together and leveraging off each other, Cagilaba notes that the needs of both parties can be fulfilled. “If you get your employees out there at a micro level selling services, products, the company, you’re actually helping on the marketing side of things, as well as helping to attract people to the brand. Communication is collapsing into a couple of media types.

HR needs to be across what marketing

is doing and vice versa. That’s happening more and more – these days it’s not unusual for us to pitch to the head of HR, head of communications, head of PR, and head of corporate communications – and none of the line management. To me that’s a very progressive company.”

Beeley urges HR managers to build a team to work on the brand. “Involve people, not just those around you in HR, but across as many disciplines of your organisation as is feasible to manage, to guide and own the process. Most experts agree: a powerful employer brand is the single most effective attraction and retention tool you can have. That’s why it’s also the hardest to acquire.” HC

issue 8.4

International

Avoid the

S

travel

igns for 2010 are that we are emerging from the recession. As a result, Australian companies are likely to gain momentum in the number of employees they send overseas for business purposes as well long-term work assignments. American Express Business Travel expects a pent up need for travel and meetings to be unleashed in 2010, with business travel increasing by as much as 5% from 2009.

This article focuses on short-term business travel and tips to help ease the pain of quickly having to facilitate a business visa for regions that do not allow individuals to enter automatically through a visa waiver or visa on arrival process.

What activities constitute a business visit?

One of the major considerations when travelling is assessing whether the visa being applied for is appropriate for the intended purpose. This is particularly the case when applying for business visitor visas, as an assessment of the proper purpose will be made by immigration officials and in some circumstances, a work permit/visa may be more appropriate.

Where you are unsure as to the appropriateness of the visa, you should seek guidance from an immigration professional or the local consulate in Australia.

Ramifications of an individual entering on an incorrect visa can be far reaching to both the traveller and the business.

The Do’s – Ensure the purpose of business travel falls within the following general parameters: • Survey sites for business activity

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HR professionals are constantly being approached by business managers with questions relating to urgent business-related travel overseas. Navleen Bhatia discusses ways to avoid the pitfalls of business visa processing so there will be no problems on entry and stay

• Attend conferences, business events, meetings or trade shows • Sell a product or services • Undertake research • Service contracts • Attend short-term training

The Don’ts – It is important that the employee travelling overseas for business will not receive an income or, in most instances, a per diem allowance from the company/entity they will visit abroad.

If your employee will be attending to a project or performing a day-to-day productive work function for the company to be visited overseas, an employment visa or work permit is likely to be required.

Australian passport holders and visas

In most instances, Australian citizen business travellers are fortunate in not being required to apply for and obtain a business visa prior to arrival for most European nations, North America, and certain countries within the Middle East, South America and Asia-Pacific regions.

In these situations, the Australian citizen will enter the country under a visa waiver arrangement, or will be granted the business visa upon immigration clearance at the destination airport.

The table opposite provides basic guidance on the most frequented countries

by Australian businesspeople. The table outlines whether or not a visa is required to be processed and obtained prior to departure by the Australia citizen and the maximum permitted duration of stay within those countries. Please note that

International

issue 8.4

blues should your employees hold temporary or permanent resident status here in Australia, the entry criteria will be dependent on the passport held.

HR professionals taking charge

Preparation is key. If not already done, establish a process under which visa assistance is to be handled by the business and the traveller. Some recommendations:  That your employee speak with their HR professional or nominated immigration provider to ensure their activities fall within the parameters of the business visa requirements for the country to which they are travelling.

Country

Business visa required?

Maximum permitted duration of stay (at the discretion of the immigration officer on arrival)

Argentina Brazil Mexico US

No Yes No No

< 3 months Dependent on the business activity to be conducted < 6 months < 3 months. In January 2009, the US government introduced an Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (ESTA) applicable to all Australian passport holders visiting or transiting the US under the Visa Waiver Program. ESTA registration at a minimum of 72 hours prior to departure is mandatory for those eligible to participate in the Visa Waiver Program.

Canada UK Europe (Schengen region) United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia India China Indonesia* Hong Kong* Philippines* Singapore*

No No No No Yes Yes Yes No No No No

< 6 months < 6 months < 3 months < 30 days Dependent on the business activity to be conducted < 6 months Varies, however generally < 60 days < 30 days < 3 months < 21 days < 30 days

* May also utilise the APEC Business Travel Card Scheme for entry www.hcamag.com

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International

Duty of care Michael Tauber, general manager, Customer Care, responds to questions regarding employer obligations for employees travelling overseas for work HC: How can employers gain insights into risk factors for employees travelling overseas?

MT: Customer Care can provide a vast array of significant insights into the risk factors for travelling overseas.

These risks can relate to medical, travel and security issues that exist to a greater or lesser extent in each country and can change on a daily, hourly and, sometimes, a minute-byminute basis.

Customer Care is able to provide predeparture information on issues such as medical precautions, vaccination requirements and potential security issues specifically relating to their destination as well as training, emergency planning and country specific reports. Managers and their staff are able to access the Customer Care internet site outlining the risk factors by location and providing tips on how to remain safe whilst travelling. Daily e-news and e-mail/ SMS alerts provide information on emerging events around the world.

HC: What sort of things does Customer Care safeguard against?

MT: We help organisations to care for their employees by keeping them informed on general and specific risks of travelling, training them to prepare and handle changing situations and providing a 24-hour helpline to assist them should they get into trouble anywhere in the world.

Through itinerary-based traveller tracking, an organisation can immediately locate all of their employees around the world or just those in a specific location in the event of a terrorist event and contact them to ensure their wellbeing or ascertain if they need emergency assistance.

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For example, travellers to PNG for business in Port Moresby or for leisure trekking the Kokoda Trail are able to determine the appropriate vaccinations to take prior to departure, medications to take with them as well as an understanding of the level of criminal activity that is taking place, locations to avoid and events that may cause disruptions such as elections, strikes or other possible civil or political unrest.

HC: If the worst happens when travelling overseas, what can Customer Care clients expect?

MT: Prior to travel, staff can go online to obtain critical medical and security information about their destination and sign up for alerts for the countries they are visiting.

Once away from home, if there is a medical, travel or security emergency, they would have 24-hour access to Customer Care’s contact centre with medical, security and case management experts who can assist them with the most appropriate course of action to safeguard their health, safety and wellbeing.

These services are escalated through a quality assurance framework to ensure an appropriate and timely resolution to the caller’s enquiries.

This includes, where appropriate, liaison with the caller’s employer or their insurance company and who will authorise the deployment of the resources at Customer Care’s disposal. These resources include air ambulances, best available hospitals and specialists, security personnel for close protection and escort services.

»» Ensure the employee and business unit understand that the documentary requirements are to comply with the prerequisites of the foreign country. »» Arm your employee with a basic checklist for visa processing to ensure they are immediately aware of the documentary requirements for most visas (see sample checklist opposite). »» Set expectations from the outset by advising that visa preparation and issuance can take 5–15 working days depending on the country your employee is required to travel to. »» Advise the traveller that criminal and health issues can impact the visa process, potentially delaying visa issuance and subsequently travel if additional checks are conducted by the respective Embassy, High Commission or Consulate General. »» Advise the business that visa requirements and processes are subject to frequent change, often without notification by the Embassies, High Commissions or Consulate Generals.

The APEC Business Travel Card Scheme

An excellent option available to Australian citizen business travellers, but one which is seldom availed, is the APEC Business Travel Card. This card is valid for three years (but linked to the validity of the traveller’s passport) and through successful application, permits multiple shortterm business visitor entry to accredited businesspeople to travel within the APEC region without a visa.

Some real benefits of the card include a longer period of stay allowed than for those applying for the usual business visitor visa, and the cardholder’s ability to access special ‘APEC lanes’ at major international airports which fast-track immigration processing on arrival and departure.

The APEC Business Travel Card Scheme is an APEC initiative. The scheme was developed in response to the need of businesspeople to gain streamlined business visitor entry to the economies of the Asia-Pacific region to explore business opportunities, attend meetings, and conduct trade and investment activities.

Just like a visa however, the APEC

International

Business Travel Card Scheme does not affect the right of each participating economy to determine who may travel to, enter and remain in their economy, even after a businessperson has been issued with an APEC Business Travel Card.

Staying compliant

All in all, it is important, from a risk perspective to ensure your traveller is 100% compliant with the immigration laws of the country to be visited. This will mitigate the travel risk not only to the employee but also avoid the company potentially being penalised for failure to comply with local immigration standards either by the way of a monetary fine or in a worst case scenario, being barred from conducting business activities. If in doubt as to whether your employee will be meeting immigration law requirements, we recommend that you to speak with an immigration service provider to gain the necessary information before travel is embarked upon. HC

issue 8.4

Common documentary requirements for visa processing Passport valid for a minimum six months from date of entry into country to be visited If not an Australian citizen, is the applicant able to demonstrate sufficient residency ties to Australia to permit the visa application to be processed in Australia?

Passport sized photograph(s) Return travel itinerary, including hotel booking(s) Visa application form Business support letter from sending company stating activities to be conducted overseas and duration of stay Invitation letter from company to be visited Evidence of sufficient funds to cover employee for duration of stay USEFUL WEBSITES: Embassies and Consulates in Australia: www.protocol.dfat.gov.au/Mission/list.rails Travel to the US: www.esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/esta.html?_ APEC Business Travel Card Scheme: www.immi.gov.au/skilled/business/apec/ Australian Passport Information Service: www.passports.gov.au/images/apis.pdf

√√ √√ √√ √√ √√ √√ √√ √√

About the author Navleen Bhatia is the manager of Fragomen’s Consular Practice and Document Procurement Services division in Australia.

For more information, visit www.fragomen.com

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issue 8.4

ask the experts

going global

This month, Mark Wright, of Greenberg Australia answers some questions on successfully planning global immigration assignments

Q

Why is the visa usually the last issue to be considered when planning international assignments? In reality, nothing can happen without the appropriate visa arrangements, and this often demands careful planning and outstanding stakeholder management.

What happens after the work permit is approved?

Many countries have a post-entry requirement involving local registration with police authorities â&#x20AC;&#x201C; this is often referred to as a residence permit, and allows the assignee and their family to undertake routine tasks such as open a bank account, or lease property.

Q

What are some of the common pitfalls of assigning staff internationally?

Without doubt a lack of forward planning.

There are some basic principles which can be adopted for all international assignments which will ensure a smooth and trouble-free immigration process. Many countries have a long lead time for work permit approvals, and many countries donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t accommodate business entry during the work permit application procedure.

Q

What can the employer do to better plan?

Establish whether the employer has a business entity in the host country, or if not, what entity will likely sponsor the employee for their visa. This may involve a joint venture partner, or perhaps the acquisition of a new business in the host country.

Also important is the relationship between the assigneeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s employer in Australia and the host country entity. Tertiary qualifications are very often critical to work permit applications, as well as the proposed salary to be paid to the assignee and whether this meets the host country requirements.

What happens if the work permit approvals are delayed?

If the timing of the work permit approval does not meet the travel plans for the assignee, it is important that the assignee is briefed about the risk of entering the host country prior to the work permit approval.

Most countries frown upon business entry to bridge the gap between work permit approval, and I am aware of many instances where the assignee has been denied entry in these circumstances.

Keep all stakeholders updated on any delayed work permit approvals. This could include HR personnel, project managers, as well as external stakeholders involved in the relocation such as relocation and destination management providers. Clear communication ensures that corporate compliance is maintained.

Q

Q

Q

What advice needs to be given to the assignee?

As strange as it may sound, it is important that the assignee understands what they will be doing in the host country. The assignee should fully understand the statements made to the host country immigration authorities, and that any statements made to border

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control accord with the statements made in the work permit application.

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Are all work permits the same?

No. There is a wide variety of host country work permits to choose from, and the most appropriate one will depend on a range of factors. These include the nature of the host country employing entity, the work experience and qualifications of the assignee, and the duration of the assignment.

Q

What issues arise as the assignment comes to an end?

Some host countries have a notification requirement when an assignment comes to an end. Failure to comply can result in the assignee being barred from re-entering the country, and in some cases the employing company may be subject to sanctions.

Q

And finally, what about the accompanying family?

The obvious issues to consider include whether the spouse wishes to work in the host country, the schooling requirements of accompanying children, as well as whether the host country can accommodate same sex relationships from an immigration perspective. Australia is one of a small number of countries that recognise common law de facto relationships for immigration purposes, so it is important that this be addressed early in the application cycle.

Whatever the issues are, it is important that the accompanying dependent family is involved in the assignment procedure.

Further information To find out more call Greenberg Australia on 1300 737 040 or visit www.greenbergaustralia.com

showguide

ital Proudly supported by Human Cap

magazine

ip and alignment

sh Strengthening HR leader

gone from strength to agement event, the HR Summit has Asia-Pacific’s leading HR and man ide you with innovative prov will ney this year’s event in Syd and s, year t eigh t pas the over strength your wor kplace.

HR practices to implement within will showcase all the latest , an expansive industry expo that Featuring two conference streams ortunities; the HR Summit ps, and strategic networking opp product developments, free wor ksho involved in strategic human is who l Australian HR professiona the for d gne desi lly ifica spec is 2010 s strategy. resource management and busines e their knowledge and leaders and business minds will shar Over the two days, Australian HR cs include strengthening Topi . affecting today’s mar ketplace es issu sing pres t mos the on expertise sting productivity and ing for high perf ormance and boo HR leadership and alignment, lead ive ideas and innovations t. HR experts will cover progress perf ormance through engagemen sessions and practical ies, panel discussions, interact ive essential to you through case stud wor kshops. nce and Directors Forum showguide include Main Confere The following pages throughout this and exhibitors information. p sessions, plus speaker, sponsor agendas, details on the free wor ksho the entirety of the HR Summit. sors for their support throughout We would like to thank all our spon commitment to the success r thei event partner, Randstad for our to d nde exte is tion men cial Spe also must thank our many of Australia’s HR professionals. We of the event to develop the talent Summit is an event not to be contribution to ensuring the HR exhibitors and speakers for their missed.

Kind regards,

The HR Summit 2010 team Stephanie Sudzina

Catherine Squire

conference department manager

event coordinator

Sophie Knight

angie Gillies

national commercial manager – HR products

graphic designer

www.hrsummit.com.au

main conference Agenda Day One – 28 April 2010 8:00am Registration opens 8:30am Welcome and opening remarks from the Chairperson

The 10 burning questions keeping HR leaders awake at night Steve Shepherd, general manager, Randstad, president, RCSA 9:00am CASE STUDY: Strengthening HR leadership and alignment

Woolworths Limited is one of the largest employers in Australasia, with more than 191,000 team members working in stores, support offices and distribution centres across Australia and New Zealand.

“Woolies” has built a solid and highly respected business culture around the core value of leadership and a focused strategy on the recruitment and retention of great people.

Learn more about Woolworth’s HR leadership initiatives to help employees reach their full potential, invest in training and development programs, and align their HR practices toward the core business strategy.

Kim Schmidt, HR director, Woolworths Limited 9:45am CASE STUDY: Boosting productivity and performance through engagement

Smart managers are realising that this is the time to capitalise on organisational strengths and pull together as a team.

In this case study, hear how Carnival Australia manages workforces on land and offshore that positively impact the organisation’s business strategy and bottom line. This session will focus on shifting performance up and provide innovative strategies for increasing productivity within the operations framework.

• Understand the ROI for Human Capital • Learn how to coach managers to inspire and reach performance targets • Recognise staff contributions and reward outstanding performance • Support and skill up employees to exceed expectations • Delivering on what employees want Simone Shugg, director, people and performance, Carnival Australia 10:15am Building a great place to work: Yahoo!7

Yahoo!7 has consistently been recognised as an “employer of choice” for employees. Discover Yahoo!7’s secrets on how they create a corporate culture that encourages employees to do their best.

• Boost the effectiveness of your workforce • Keep staff engaged, happy and motivated • Help staff take responsibility for their work • Create a positive workplace culture • Build on staff commitment • Energise your work environment Michele Mok, senior HR business partner, Yahoo!7 11:00am Refreshments and networking break on the exhibition floor Hosted by: Solterbeck 11:30am panel discussion: Powering great performance

This dynamic discussion will uncover how leading HR Directors propel their workforce to exceed performance expectations. Sue Jackson will be joined by industry leaders to discuss: • Implementing best practice performance improvement programs as an integrated, enterprise wide approach

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• Utilise reward and recognition programs as a powerful internal communication tool • Align reward and recognition programs to the organisation’s mission statement to attain productive behaviours • Celebrate individual excellence and team function to exceed performance • Reach beyond daily tasks and achieve broader strategic HR objectives Moderator: Sue Jackson, executive chairman, Solterbeck Simon Cowl, human resources director, GlaxoSmithKline Australia Pty Ltd Dr. Ian O. Williamson, professor of management, Melbourne Business School Lynda Harris, general manager - people, Aussie Group 12:15pm The simple truth about the Fair Work Act

The new laws are forcing organisations to review their HR documentation and practices. This highly practical session will cover key aspects of the Fair Work Act that are relevant to all HR Managers and provide strategy on what your company needs to do to ensure you comply with the new laws. Tim Capelin will also share insights gained from clients about the practical implications of operating under the new system during its implementation. This session will cover: • Achieving the new National Employment Standards • Complying with new awards • Avoiding union problems • Creating useful alternatives to awards • Evading the new breed of claims Tim Capelin, partner, Australian Business Lawyers 1:00pm Luncheon reception (conference delegates only) 2:15pm Winning the war on sourcing top talent • Data and statistics on growth industries 2009-2010 • Attracting and retaining top talent • Innovative use of technology in recruitment for HR managers Michael Harvey, CEO, CareerOne 2:45pm Workforce resilience: Strategies and practices to build long term productivity through the empowerment of your team

In the current economy, employees have added responsibilities and fewer resources. A resilient workforce is needed to face today’s challenges.

Hear proven methods from eBay for ensuring productivity from your top performers by providing growth opportunities and building a great place to work.

• Encouraging self-managed accountability • Communicating and responding to employee needs • Implementing a recognition framework • Encouraging a flexible work environment • Delivering on employee career aspirations • Adapting to change rapidly and effectively Klaus Duetoft, senior regional HR director, eBay and PayPal Asia Pacific 3:30pm Refreshments and networking break 4:00pm workshop: 26 Proven strategies to energize training and development sessions

As HR budgets are under scrutiny, learn how to leverage training and development through fun and thoughtful games. This session

Agenda Day Two – 29 April 2010

12:15pm Strategies to sustain diversity and equity in the workplace • Creating and managing flexible workplaces • Bridging diversity gaps • Recognising ability in all employees • Creating Indigenous career paths Chrissie Tucker, diversity manager, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Lisa Annese, acting research director, Diversity Council Australia Amelia Britton, diversity manager, ppc, KPMG

8:00am Registration opens

1:00pm Luncheon reception (conference delegates only)

9:00am Opening remarks from the Chairperson Steve Shepherd, general manager, Randstad, president, RCSA

2:00pm Embedding and aligning company culture with business strategy

A company’s success depends on its people. But their collective power stems from an organisation’s ability to point them in the same direction and create an environment that doesn’t impede their progress. When an organisation’s workforce and culture are aligned with its strategic objectives people can be a major source of sustainable competitive advantage.

Join this session to hear: • How to determine if an organisation is aligned with its strategic imperatives • What an organisation can do to address cultural-strategic misalignment • Hear case studies that illustrate a range of different business cultural types; including a quality-focused culture and innovative culture Lesley Brown, group leader, Australasia, Towers Watson

will show you several HR-inspired games and exercises that you can implement at your offices for zero cost to promote knowledge sharing and collaboration.

Marc Ratcliffe, CEO and founder, MRWED Training and Assessment 5:00pm Networking cocktail function on the exhibition floor

9:00am Adapting HR leadership for the new emerging business environment: Best practices on change management Nicola Brazil, head of development, PricewaterhouseCoopers 9:45am CASE STUDY: Leading for High Performance: Building engagement and alignment

Learn how the ATO and Queensland Health power performance up through employee engagement, HR alignment with business unites and role modelling. Understand their unique approach to organisational and personal effectiveness that propels the organisations forward.

Dulise Maxwell, executive director of people and culture for Queensland Health. Formerly, ATOP performance and culture director, ATO 10:15am workshop: Developing a learning and development roadmap

This interactive session will focus on strategy mapping that addresses cultural transformation around people management.

The session will cover training needs, key objectives of the program and how this complete approach provided a long-term solution.

This comprehensive example can be used as a take-away model for developing your own internal learning strategies and roadmaps.

In stage two we take you inside our sample roadmap and you experience two key training moments along that timeline. Participants will undertake live leadership training activities in this dynamic session.

Muffy Churches, general manager, performance skills, A.S.K. Learning 11:00am Refreshments and networking break 11:30am The dance of management. When to step in, when to step out, and how to do so without stepping on toes

This dynamic session will teach HR professionals how to coach managers on the best ways to achieve optimal performance.

The session will explain how to: • Create an environment that encourages people to do their best • Set expectations and give clear instructions • Build loyalty and trust among the workforce • Establish and maintain powerful work relationships International Speaker: Shari Harley, trainer and business advisor, Harley Group, Colorado, USA

2:30pm Workplace 2010: Utilising mobility and virtual teams

Bain & Co. is very fluent in the management of a massive mobile and virtual workforce. Learn best practices on how to manage employees overseas, on remote locations and improve the “work from home” office environment. By making expectations very clear, learn how Bain & Co. enjoys a flexible, mobile workforce that can adapt to rapid productivity. Also, learn how Bain leverages its employees’ mobility to fill roles in international locations and other business units.

Raechel Gavin, head of HR Australia, Bain & Co. 3:00pm workshop: Leadership Coaching: Building resilience in challenging times • Cultivate a high performance mindset and culture • Build a collaborative team • Create a compelling reason for people to stay • Encourage work-life balance and develop a healthy work force • Be the catalyst for transformation Meiron Lees, executive director, InnerCents 3:30pm Conference adjourns

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directors forum Agenda Day One – 28 April 2010 8:00am Registration opens 9:00am Welcome and opening remarks from the Chairperson

HR leadership and business transformation Emerging with strength, transparency, consistency and alignment Paul Butler, associate director, Grant Thornton Australia Ltd 9:30am Seat at the table: How HR impacts business strategy

Lend Lease is a different kind of company where success is measured not only by financial returns, but on its positive contribution to the environment and society. Lend Lease believes that HR is an integral part of its overall strategy and values HR as a cornerstone of global leadership. Hear how Lend Lease’s HR strategy impacts its business and reinforces a culture of innovation and respect for people.

• How HR Directors can be recognised and valued • How does the HR Director implement the CEO’s vision • Understand HR’s role in corporate strategy • How HR can impact long and short term operational strategy • Hear how CEOs and HR Directors can effectively work together • Discover how HR can impact bottom line performance and revenue Peitra Moffat, APAC head of HR, Lend Lease 10:15am Change management leadership: Cornerstone strategies toward organisational alignment

Wyeth is undergoing a significant change journey and transformation. Announced in October 2009, Wyeth is the recent acquisition of pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer. The integration and success of the acquisition depends highly on the HR strategy implemented from the beginning. A top priority of the acquisition continues to be Wyeth’s focus on its people, their engagement and professional development.

This session will detail showcase: • Defining the new HR vision • Alignment across business units, locally and globally • Creating a values definition of the new organisation • Mainlining core standards of leadership and collaboration • The journey towards employee engagement in a new organisation • Status report on integration: how far have we come in six months Dr. Gayle Philpotts, HR director, Wyeth 11:00am Refreshments and networking break 11:30am Top strategies for long-term employee retention

The best retention decision is a great hiring decision.

Learn top tips from Heritage on selecting the right candidates, welcoming employees and assimilating them into the corporate culture. Understand how to communicate effectively with staff to recognise their career aspirations and professional goals. Hear proven methods for ensuring long-term retention of your top performers by providing growth opportunities and building a great place to work.

• Retaining high performers • Linking talent with organisational strategy • Empowering your best people to achieve results • Developing a corporate culture of performance

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• Utilise mentorship programs • Maximising your People ROI Bob Hogarth, general manager, human resources, Heritage Building Society 12:15pm The right to request flexible working arrangements – anything but a toothless tiger!

The R2R is not a “toothless tiger” and can deliver a painful albeit indirect “bite”. At this interactive session, you will learn how to protect yourself from the R2R “bite” by using our unique five-point process: • Putting in place the “R2R” compliance infrastructure - sample tools will be provided • Ensure the legal implementation of the change • Up-skill relevant managers • Implement post response (to the request) processes • Implement a simple change management strategy Siobhan Flores-Walsh, partner, Australian Business Lawyers 1:00pm Luncheon reception (conference delegates only) 2:00pm Leadership development: building a pipeline of future leaders

GE places great importance on developing and upskilling leaders.

This session will discuss GE’s leadership development strategies and the importance of building a leadership pipeline to line up successors within the organisation.

• Hear about GE’s leadership development programs and leadership development interventions across all GE businesses • Find out how GE’s leadership development programs have positively impacted the organisation’s culture and helped individuals develop their leadership skills • Explore strategies to identify leaders that can potentially transform your organisation and lead your business going forward • Understand how the GFC has affected HR programs and the expectations of the workforce Jim Nolan, vice president, human resources, General Electric 2:45pm Workplace planning and strategic HR partnerships: Thinking global, acting local

St. Vincents & Mater is dedicated to building innovative partnerships to develop future leaders in healthcare. This session will spotlight their knowledge collaboration program that is designed around the themes of people, strategy, systems and practice, encompassing foundation leadership. Learn more about their strategic workplace planning strategy and knowledge collaboration efforts that will lead the organisation into the future.

Kerrie Field, general manager, human resources, St. Vincents & Mater 3:30pm Refreshments and networking break 4:00pm Skilling up & coaching techniques for HR directors

HR professionals are often given the task of implementing a coaching culture or enhancing an organisation’s coaching capability in order to increase engagement and performance. To be successful, they need a clear, practical and transferable approach to coaching. This session is designed to meet the specific needs of the HR team in an organisation. Its aim is to educate HR professionals in

how coaching fits within a learning organisation culture and provide them with the skills and tools to enhance coaching capability within their organisation.

Hilary Armstrong, director, Institute of Executive Coaching 5:00pm Networking cocktail function on the exhibition floor

Agenda Day Two – 29 April 2010 8:00am Registration opens 9:00am Opening remarks from the Chairperson Paul Butler, associate director, Grant Thornton Australia Ltd 9:15am HR transformation: Accelerating employee engagement

Thales Australia has transformed its organisation to one where turnover is low and business results have risen, all during the GFC. Thales monitored levels of employee engagement and organisational attachment, and achieved transformation over a rapid timeframe.

Employee engagement was measured through a comprehensive ‘Organisational Effectiveness Profile’. This session will cover how traditional best practices mixed with innovative strategies lead to the transformation of an entire workforce.

Thales transformation includes: • Building a true Corporate University • New in-sourced recruitment functions • New performance management structures • Improved career development functions • Revamped Rem and Ben approach • New partnerships and agreement models Paul Bowles, general manager, training & consultancy, human resources, Thales Andria Wyman-Clarke, vice president, human resources, Thales 10:15am Re-Designing corporate culture

Bupa is the largest private health and care provider in Australia.

In 2008, it managed the largest merger the local health market had seen with the purchase of MBF. Learn how the HR department re-designed the business into one unified organisation. Hear how Bupa used a strategic focus and proven processes to create stability within three months of the merger and built a focused corporate culture. Understand how Bupa created a seamless transition in its merger by focusing on customer and employee satisfaction.

Penny Lovett, HR director, Bupa Australia 11:00am Refreshments & networking break 11:30am Technology innovation to attract quality employees

New technologies are rapidly changing the recruitment space in local and international markets. The Australian market demands improved technologies and innovation, but are we ready for the change? Find out more about international technology trends, data and statistics and how these will shape the Australian recruitment market and ultimately help businesses to attract and retain quality employees.

Michael Harvey, CEO, CareerOne

12:15pm Responsible executive remuneration & employee share schemes

Executive remuneration is under reform. In light of recent economic conditions and company performance, how is executive remuneration viewed? Compensation extends beyond pay and allowances to items like non-cash benefits, career development and the employee value proposition however the attention of the media, shareholders and regulators remains firmly on remuneration levels. This session will outline remuneration principles and practices that are fair and responsible and their link to organisational performance in light of recent trends and regulatory developments and will address their direct impact on attraction and retention of top talent.

Christine Deveney, principal, Mercer 1:00pm Luncheon reception (conference delegates only) 2:00pm executive education workshop: Melbourne Business School – Leading HR through recovery • Implementing a change management strategy • Focusing on organisational alignment • Leading teams through challenging times • Delivering results through innovation • Skilling up managers and skill shifting • Establishing trust and credibility among employees • Maintaining motivation, drive and morale in the workforce • Empower employees toward self leadership Helen Ormond, program director, Mt. Eliza Executive Education, Melbourne Business School 3:30pm Conference adjourns

wants to hear from you Visit the HC Magazine Booth on the Expo Floor and participate in our HR survey.

Share your thoughts, successes and challenges with the HC Editor.

www.hrsummit.com.au

free workshops Day 1: 28 April 2010

Day 2: 29 April 2010

10:00am Developing positive workplace relationships

10:00am Middle management – The missing gap

In this workshop you will discover what helps build strong and effective working relationships in a corporate environment and improve your ability to recognise and respond to issues before they develop into problems. The workshop will be practical and hands on - with opportunities to apply skills and learning to your own workplace. The overall aim of the workshop is to demonstrate how a proactive approach to workplace relationships can deliver real results to a business and its people.

This interactive workshop will help HR managers understand the crucial role of middle management in aligning HR objectives with business strategy. Learn how to coach middle management to reach their performance benchmarks and make a solid contribution to the bottom line.

Presented by: Lyn Fletcher, director of operations, Relationships Australia

2:00pm Engage your people for the upturn To be competitive in this economic climate you need to engage your employees so you are ready to take on the upturn. In this workshop you’ll hear how having a focused team of engaged employees brings commercial return for your business. Learn from RedBalloon’s strategies in building an award winning company with an employee engagement score card of over 90% two years running from Hewitt (the average in Australian businesses is 54%). Hear what RedBalloon has put in place to create a great culture and the five steps that have delivered success for RedBalloon.

• Determining whether employees are ‘attached’ to an organisation (what does it mean and why is it important) • Understanding the process of an employees’ logical connection to a business • Defining emotional connection and what drives it • Experiencing employee brand connection – your people as advocates of your business • Recognising contribution – making people feel like winners Presented by: Naomi Simson, chief experience officer, RedBalloon

2:45pm Talent attraction, assessment and early retention - ROI on talent spend a “must hit” corporate objective!

As the GFC disappears over the horizon and talent shortages re-appear employers must change to excel in the new talent market or risk restrictions to the success of their businesses.

This interactive workshop will enlighten and excite all levels of HR professionals through to CEOs. Attendees will take away actionable learnings that will help ensure leadership in the talent market for your business. We will investigate real world examples of leading talent attraction methodologies, explore trends in talent assessment strategies - science, art and automation - and study on-boarding do’s and don’ts.

Presented by: Jeff Thompson, CEO, Jobwire

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mezzanine level

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Presented by: Neville Walter, group executive, business development and marketing, UNSW Global Training

2:00pm The landscape for attracting talent has changed forever Job hunters favour search engines as the #1 way to search for jobs!

• Discover the fundamental shift in job hunter behaviour and learn where 86% of job seekers are looking for their jobs online > There are currently over 50 million job-related searches a month on Google in Australia • Understand how search engines are effectively the world’s largest job board > Most job ads posted on company websites are invisible to these searches • Learn how to ensure your company’s job ads are visible to the largest pool of job hunters > Automatic integration across social media networks (Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn) • See how easy it is to integrate with social media networks and tap into this ever-growing pool of passive job hunters > Reduce your advertising spend on job ads and increase the quality of your applications • Learn how to significantly increase the job hunter traffic to your own website thus reducing your reliance on external advertising Presented by: Glenn Davies, director-talent acquisition, JXT Consulting

HR Summit Melbourne returns 21-22 July 2010 To discuss sponsorship opportunities, contact: Sophie Knight national commercial manager - HR products (02) 8437 4733 sophie.knight@keymedia.com.au

ww.hrsummit.com.au

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speakers Lisa Annese

Lisa Annese acting research director, Diversity Council Australia

Lisa Annese joined DCA as Acting Research Director in April 2009 while Jane O’Leary is on parental leave. Lisa has extensive background in equal opportunity for women and diversity including several years working at EOWA (Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency) where she was instrumental in the management of the majority of projects of the time, including the first ever census of ‘Australian Women in Leadership’, the first-ever ‘Business Achievement Awards’ and the beginning of the ‘Employer of Choice’ citation.

Muffy Churches

muffy churches general manager, performance skills, A.S.K Learning

Hilary Armstrong

Hilary Armstrong director, Institute of Executive Coaching

Hilary’s area of expertise lies in: solution focused, narrative and transformational executive coaching, facilitation and mediation, and applied ethics in the workplace, among others. In her capacity as Director of Training at the Institute, Hilary works across the Institute. She directs and oversees its development through curriculum design and research as well as supporting and supervising other coaches through the IEC Community of Practice.

Simon Cowl

Simon Cowl HR director, GlaxoSmithKline Australia Pty Ltd

Paul Bowles

Paul Bowles general manager – training & consultancy, human resources,Thales

Paul’s career with Thales began in April 1998. He is responsible for Learning & Development delivery throughout the company in Australia and is a member of the worldwide Thales University Leadership Team. Prior to establishing Thales Training & Consultancy in Australia, Paul set up Thales University in Washington DC whilst serving as HR Director for the company’s US businesses. In his time working for Thales in North America, Paul was responsible for a partnering with the business providing strategic advice on a range of people and culture areas affecting business performance..

Amelia Britton diversity manager, KPMG

sophie crawford-jones director of performance, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Lesley Brown group leader, Australia, Towers Watson

Glenn Davies director-talent acquisition, JXT Consulting

Paul Butler associate director, Grant Thornton Australia Ltd

Christine Deveney principal, Mercer

Tim Capelin partner, Australian Business Lawyers

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Christine is a Principal and the Executive Remuneration segment leader for NSW in Mercer’s Human Capital business. Christine has over 20 years’ of global consulting experience including the provision of consulting and compliance services to Australian and multinational corporations and their employees in relation to: domestic and international employer and individual taxation, global performance and reward programs, global mobility programs, post-merger integration strategies, executive reward strategies and short-term and longterm incentive plan design.

Klaus Duetoft

Klaus Duetoft senior regional HR director, eBay & PayPal Asia Pacific

Tim Capelin

Tim Capelin has over 15 years’ experience in employment and industrial law.

During this period he has represented leading organisations in most industry sectors. He is one of the founding partners of Australian Business Lawyers. Tim has extensive experience in all types of industrial relations and employment law matters. He specialises in providing strategic advice to major organisations on employee relations matters and has particular expertise in advising clients on enterprise bargaining negotiations. He is an experienced advocate and has represented employers in all relevant tribunals and courts.

Glenn Davies is an expert in the recruitment of personnel across multiple disciplines and industries. With over 15 years’ experience including being directly responsible for sourcing staff across Asia, the US & the Middle East, Glenn is well versed in the many ways to source and attract top talent. Glenn has held several senior roles in recruitment, has run his own recruitment business for over 5 years with 7 branch offices across APAC, and is currently the Director of Talent Acquisition for JXT, a consulting firm to recruiters, HR professionals and Blue Chip companies.

Christine Deveney

Paul Butler Chairperson Directors Forum A qualified CPA, Paul has over 20 years’ accounting and finance experience within large organisations across the healthcare, property, manufacturing, metals, logistics, and finance industries. Occupying senior finance roles both domestically and internationally, Paul has extensive management and operational experience, and effectively contributes across the broad management spectrum. Paul specialises in designing and implementing business improvement strategies and assisting clients in managing significant changes internally to achieve their financial goals.

Sophie Crawford-Jones has consulted in the HR arena in London, New York and Asia for number of years and joined PwC’s Human Capital team in 2003 where she is currently the Australian Human Capital Leader. As a member of the Australian Firm Executive, Sophie has helped to enable a truly business focussed approach to the people agenda. Sophie has been recognised for her strong business acumen and her outstanding ability to develop extensive, trust based relationships with her clients and teams. These attributes have seen her become a sought-after business partner.

Glenn Davies

Lesley Brown

Lesley Brown leads the Australian and New Zealand based Employee Survey practice of Towers Watson. As well as managing the development of this business in Australia, Lesley also drives Towers Watson’s Global Engagement and Welfare Intellectual Capital team examining Towers Watson’s extensive database to develop insights for clients and formulate new market offerings. Lesley has more than 17 years’ experience in the field of culture alignment and employee survey research. Her expertise includes employee engagement measurement and analysis. Other areas of interest include employment brand, the financial services industry and sustainability.

In early 2009 Simon Cowl was appointed as Director of Human Resources for GlaxoSmithKline Australia/NZ. With 20 years’ industry experience Simon has a solid background working as a senior HR professional within large corporate organisations including Foster’s and the Hay Group. With broad technical knowledge in the generalist and total reward practice areas, Simon has a proven background in leading, motivating and creating an environment for high performing teams.

Sophie Crawford-Jones

Amelia Britton

Amelia is the Diversity Manager for KPMG in Australia and has responsibility for the Diversity & Inclusion program across the firm. KPMG is a global Tax, Audit and Advisory business with a large, diverse workforce in more than 145 countries. Prior to managing the Diversity program for KPMG in Australia Amelia held a global role with KPMG in the Global People, Performance & Culture team working on various projects including Global Diversity. Amelia has had a career in Human Resources both locally and overseas within the finance, government and professional services sectors and holds a Bachelor of Arts, Asian Studies (Human Resources) from UNSW.

Muffy is the principle developer, designer and facilitator of A.S.K Learning’s performance skills courses and employee development programs. She combines over 15 years of soft skills training, executive coaching and facilitation across three continents. Renowned for her preparation, enthusiasm and the ability to provide the linkage between conceptual models and practical business outcomes for participants and their companies; Muffy’s energetic style and ability to involve all participants in the training journey has delivered outstanding results for an array of blue-chip organisations.

Klaus Duetoft currently leads Human Resources for eBay Asia Pacific. With a team of HR professionals in Australia, Singapore, India, Korea, Japan and Greater China, covering eBay, PayPal, Skype and Classifieds businesses.

Previously he was the founder and principal of Irrelach Consulting Pty Limited, a consultancy focused on delivering outsourced Human Resources solutions to small to medium-sized organisations. Klaus has gained his extensive human resources experience in industry sectors including the pharmaceutical, FMCG, high technology, eCommerce and mobile telecommunications sectors.

Kerrie Field

Kerrie Field general manager, human resources, St Vincent’s & Mater

As General Manager Human Resources & Media Solutions at St Vincents & Mater Health, Kerrie is considered a strategic business partner and is challenged with making a difference in an environment which is resource challenged and under constant reform and redirection. Kerrie is a visionary leader whose career has spanned a number of industry sectors. Kerrie contributes her success to authentic leadership, a fantastic team, innovative approach and the ability to constantly challenge the current in order to transform the future. In 2008 Kerrie was honoured to receive the HR Partners Award for Best HR Leader at the Australian HR Awards.

Lyn Fletcher

For over 20 years, Lyn has been a manager in the not-for profit sector, managing teams and projects in the relationships services sector. As Director of Operations for Relationships Australia NSW, Lyn provides leadership around HR issues for Relationships Australia NSW and uses her professional skills as a trainer, coach and consultant in assisting other organisations to manage their Lyn Fletcher director of operations, people and processes to optimise effectiveness and performance.

Relationships Australia

Sue Jackson

Sue Jackson executive chairman, Solterbeck

Siobhan Flores-Walsh

Siobhan Flores-Walsh director of people partner, Australian Business Lawyers

Siobhan has worked in employment law and industrial relations for 18 years.

Her experience includes first tier law firms as well as in-house legal and human resources roles in the oil industry and a large media organisation.

Siobhan is experienced in all aspects of workplace relations including advising on appropriate forms of industrial regulations, outsourcing, harassment and discrimination, occupational health and safety compliance and general employment issues such as post-employment restraints, executive contracts, policy, incentive schemes and superannuation.

Meiron Lees

Meiron Lees executive director, InnerCents

Raechel Gavin

Raechel Gavin head of HR Australia, Bain & Co.

Raechel Gavin currently works as the Head of HR for Bain and Company Australia. Bain is a global consulting firm with 41 offices in 27 countries.

Raechel’s career spans roles working with Federal Government, the airline industry, consulting in both Australia and the Middle East and more recently professional services. In her most recent roles, Raechel has had key responsibilities for developing strategies around best practice mobility and virtual teams.

Shari Harley international speaker, trainer and business advisor, Harley Group, Colorado, USA

Penny Lovett HR director, Bupa Australia

Lynda Harris general manager – people, Aussie Group

Dulise Maxwell executive director of People and Culture for Queensland Health

michael harvey CEO, CareerOne

Pietra Moffat APAC head of HR, Lend Lease

Bob Hogarth general manager, human resources, Heritage Building Society

Peitra Moffat is a former employment lawyer, having worked in top-tier law firms before moving in house to Lend Lease. She has held various legal, human resources and employee relations positions across the global Lend Lease group. Peitra currently heads up human resources for the property development, property management and investment management businesses in Lend Lease across Asia-Pacific.

Michele Mok

Michele Mok senior HR business partner, Yahoo!7

Bob Hogarth

Bob is a Senior Executive for Heritage – Australia’s largest building society. Bob has over 20 years experience in senior HR roles in both the finance and banking sector and tertiary education. Bob describes himself as not the typical HR practitioner in that like many of his counterparts he is passionate about people and their development but in addition to this he is able to sometimes understand what the accountants are talking about! Bob and his team are responsible for all people-related strategies and activities and together they have helped the organisation towards realising its “People first” ethos.

Dulise’s capability to coach and consult to organisations and individuals to increase their performance levels has grown from more than 20 years of educating at secondary and tertiary levels, performing at Senior Management levels in government commercial enterprises and facilitating, designing solutions and coaching in the areas of strategic planning, organisational development, Asian-Australian Business Communication and Strategic Human Resource Development. In 2007 Dulise’s work was recognised by receiving two Australian Human Resource Institute awards.

Pietra Moffat

Michael Harvey

As part of the recent joint venture between News Limited and Monster Worldwide, Mr Harvey will be overseeing the transition of the CareerOne.com.au website to Monster’s world class technology platform further intensifying the company’s challenge to the market leader. Mr Harvey began his career at Pannell Kerr Forster, Chartered Accountants. After a stint with Arthur Andersen, he joined News Limited in 1995 and was part of the team who launched Foxtel. In 1996, he was appointed Chief Financial Officer of Fox Studios Australia, and in 2001, he was promoted to Chief Executive and took responsibility for expanding the film studio.

Since joining Bupa in 2002 Penny has successfully lead numerous change management and people programs, including the landmark merger of Bupa Australia and MBF. Penny’s core role is to support the achievement of Bupa’s strategic and operational goals through the development of people and capability. During her time in this role, Bupa has been awarded several independent industry accolades in recognition of the leadership role it plays as an employer, including awards for Employer of Choice and Best Talent Management Strategy (AHRI) and Best HR Strategic Plan (HR Leadership Awards).

Dulise Maxwell

Lynda Harris

Lynda has held senior Human Resource roles within customer-focused companies for the last 25 years. While this experience has taken her from large multi-national organisations to smaller privately-owned businesses, a common thread has been her involvement in market leading businesses with a strong brand. Lynda has been General Manager People with Aussie for nearly 12 years and as such, she is a member of the Executive Management team.

Meiron Lees has spent most of his professional career dedicated to strengthening businesses through his unique coaching and training programs. In 2002, Meiron emigrated from South Africa to Australia and founded InnerCents, an organisation that supports businesses to achieve profitable results and individuals to realise their highest professional aspirations. Meiron has developed training, coaching and mentoring programs in the areas of leadership, management, strategy, performance and stress management. In 2008, Meiron published his first book – ‘D-Stress, Building Resilience in Challenging Times’.

Penny Lovett

Shari Harley

Shari Harley runs Candor Matters, an international training and consulting firm helping people manage their reputations and build relationships that last.

Shari delivers talent and career management programs for small and large organisations all over the world. Shari has a Master’s Degree in Communication and serves as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Denver. She is the author of the book ‘Where Did My Customers Go?’, ‘Managing Reputations’ and ‘Building Relationships That Last A Lifetime’.

With a background in consumer marketing and consulting, in 2000 Sue acquired Solterbeck, then a marketing consultancy with seven staff, and shifted the business focus to the emerging performance improvement market.Today, Solterbeck has 40 staff and annual sales reach over AUD$20m. Solterbeck’s clients include 30 bluechip organisations in such industries as automotive, banking, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, FMCG, and insurance. More than 30,000 people participate in Solterbeck’s programs in 10 countries worldwide. Sue is recognised as an industry expert and is a respected commentator on performance improvement trends and issues.

Michele Mok is the Senior HR Business Partner at Yahoo!7. Michele is responsible for driving strategies around employee engagement, culture, change management and organisation effectiveness. She has designed and implemented programs to attract, develop and engage talent and provides strategic partnerships to media sales, search marketing, finance and performance. Michele’s extensive experience in the online media industry included strategic positions at ninemsn and generalist HR positions in Local Government.

Jim Nolan

Jim Nolan vice president, human resources, General Electric

Jim joined GE in March 1999 initially working in the GE Money business as HR Leader for GE Money’s Operations centres in the UK and Ireland. Whilst with GE in the UK, Jim worked as a Six Sigma Master Black Belt and also led the HR integration for one of GE Money’s major European acquisitions. Moving to Australia in September 2004. Jim was the HR Leader for three of GE Money’s major business units; Cards Solutions; Retail Finance and the newly-formed Money Direct business.

www.hrsummit.com.au

speakers Helen Ormond

Helen Ormond program director, Mt Eliza Executive Education, Melbourne Business School

Helen Ormond is an expert in change leadership and organisational alignment, having successfully led major programs in the corporate sector globally as well as in the public sector at a whole of government level. Helen is experienced in leading organisations through cultural change aligned with new strategic and policy agendas. She leads the Human Resources program at Mt Eliza as well as a range of leadership programs for corporate and public sector organisations.

Naomi Simson

Naomi Simson chief experience officer, RedBalloon

Dr. Gayle Philpotts

Dr. Gayle Philpotts HR director, Wyeth

Gayle Philpotts joined Wyeth in 2006 as HR Director. With 21 years’ experience gained across nine organisations and four industries, she brings a passion for people, a pragmatic attitude and a desire to make a difference to the business.

Under Gayle’s leadership she has redefined the profile of HR, implementing the Wyeth DARE HR strategy that has been widely accepted across the business and in the process has lead her team, and the organisation, to make Wyeth an even better place to work.

Jeff Thompson

Jeff Thompson CEO, Jobwire

Marc Ratcliffe

Marc Ratcliffe CEO & founder, MRWED Training & Assessment

In 2000, Marc established MRWED Training and Assessment, one of Australia’s largest providers of trainer training. His vision was to create a company which specialised in the delivery of courses to “train the trainer”, in particular the Certificate IV in Training & Assessment. In 2009, he was named as one of the Top 10 Young Trainers of the Year by Training Magazine (USA). Marc has been involved in vocational education for almost 20 years, delivering training to thousands of students across Australia, as well as in North America, Africa, India and Asia.

Kim Schmidt HR director, Woolworths Ltd

Chrissie Tucker diversity manager, Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Steve Shepherd general manager, Randstad

Neville Walter group executive, business development and marketing, UNSW GlobalTraining

Simone Shugg director, people and performance, Carnival Australia

Neville Walter has an overall responsibility for UNSW Global Training, UNSW’s RTO that provides accredited and non-accredited vocational training at both personal and organisational level. Neville was previously engaged in Strategic Account Management at Caltex, developing further the strong business relationship between Caltex and QANTAS. He also held a Senior Strategy and Planning advisory role with Caltex. Prior to that, Neville worked in the UK retail and consumer goods areas, conducting strategic planning, financial modelling, business case evaluations and business partner capability assessments.

Dr. Ian Williamson

Dr. Ian Williamson professor of management, Melbourne Business School

Simone Shugg

Simone joined Carnival Australia, a division of Carnival Corporation & plc, in June 2008. Carnival Corporation & plc is the world’s largest cruise ship operator and owns amongst others, Cunard, P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises, Costa and Seabourn. Carnival Australia is the dominant cruise holiday provider and has doubled in size over the last three years. Prior to this, Simone held senior HR roles with Halifax Bank of Scotland Australia, across a number of its brands.

Chrissie has recently completed a stint as Acting Head People Development for a substantial period of 2008 and 2009 while continuing in her role leading the diversity area. Chrissie has worked in the area of diversity since the early nineties at the Reserve Bank of Australia. The area of diversity is broad and at the ABC, Chrissie has covered gender, race/ethnicity, indigenous, disability, work/ life balance and bullying, discrimination and harassment as well as contributing to the ABC values and positive workplace culture initiatives. Over the past ten years, the ABC has won a number of awards in the area of diversity.

Neville Walter

Steve Shepherd Chairperson Main Conference

Steve is considered a Thought Leader in the Recruitment Industry within Australia. Steve has had a varied recruitment industry background and has held Business Development, Branch, State and Divisional Management roles, including a period as Director of Sales and Operations. In August 2007, Steve joined Randstad as General Manager, Managed Services and has been charged with expanding and developing Randstad’s HR outsourcing, recruitment process outsourcing and vendor management business. In 2009 Steve took on additional responsibility for Randstad’s executive search business across Australia.

Jeff is the founder and CEO of Jobwire a national, boutique talent attraction, assessment and early retention advisor. With almost 35 years’ experience in General Management, Jeff brings a wealth of knowledge to the solutions offered to employers. Since 1992 Jeff has been deeply involved in the HR and Recruitment Agency market, attracting talent through two recessions and through the recent talent shortages of 2006 - 2008. Jeff speaks regularly to individual employers, employer groups and professional bodies. He also travels internationally to attend Asian and American Conferences.

Chrissie Tucker

Kim Schmidt

Kim has spent over 20 years working in retail Human Resources specialising in organisational development and change management. As the Director of Human Resources for Woolworths Limited, Kim leads a team of HR professionals working in close partnership with the business to effectively manage 191,000 employees in Australia and New Zealand. As part of the Woolworths Management Board, Kim works alongside the business to ensure the HR strategies delivers the structure, people and capabilities to achieve the business objectives.

Naomi Simson is the founder and CEO of RedBalloon which has made the BRW Fast lists six years in a row. Naomi is also an employee engagement advocate, and she practices what she preaches in her own business. RedBalloon was one of six Best Employers in 2009 Hewitt Best Employers ANZ study and has been awarded an engagement scorecard of over 90% two years in a row – the average in Australian businesses is 55%.

Ian Williamson Ph.D is the Helen Macpherson Smith Chair of Leadership for Social Impact at the Melbourne Business School. His research focuses on the recruitment, development, retention and the creation of value by knowledge workers, with an emphasis on understanding how firms hire and manage top executives, information technology workers, consultants, scientists and lawyers.

More recently his research examines the role of human resource practices in driving firm innovation. He currently serves as the Director of the Asian Pacific Center for Leadership and Social Impact.

Andria Wyman-Clarke

Andria Wyman-Clarke vice president, human resources, Thales

Andria Wyman-Clarke joined Thales in November 2007 as vice president, HR. She and her HR team provide strategic advice and support to the business on a range of people and culture areas. Focusing on sustaining and improving the business performance by aligning HR to the business strategy. She leads a customer focused team of human resources professional working along side the business to deliver business focused outcomes and increase employee engagement. Prior to joining Thales, Andria had been Head of HR in across various industries including pharmaceutical, retail, automotive and mining.

sponsorship opportunities for future events: Contact Sophie Knight, National Commercial Manager sophie.knight@keymedia.com.au 36

www.hcamag.com

sponsors event partner

directors forum sponsor

Randstad is a Fortune 500 Company and the second largest HR services provider globally, specialising in temporary and permanent staffing across a wide range of industry sectors and professions, executive recruitment, HR solutions and in-house services.

From over 4,000 offices across 50 countries, Randstad employs 675,000 people every day with the aim of ‘Shaping the world of work’. Through our continued commitment to providing recruitment and HR experts for every market and industry sector in Australia, our mission is to help people to find the right career moves and businesses to connect with and develop the best talent in the market.

Grant Thornton Australia Limited is a member firm of Grant Thornton International, the fifth largest global advisory firm. Grant Thornton Australia provides a range of traditional advisory services such as audit and assurance, tax, recovery and reorganisation and corporate finance services to large corporate organisations and privately held businesses. In Australia, Grant Thornton Australia has expanded its service offering in recognition of the continually growing and complex workforce issues businesses are experiencing. These services include: workforce management, outsourced payroll, interim workforce, business risk and consulting services.

Louisa Wilson marketing & communications director – asia pacific

Paul Butler associate director

Phone: 02 8258 9786 E: louisa.wilson@randstad.com.au Website: www.randstad.com.au

legal sponsor

training reservations & internet cafÉ sponsor

Australian Business Lawyers is retained by leading corporations in almost every industry sector. They are an award-winning workplace law firm providing products and services to HR professionals in all areas of industrial relations, OHS and employment law. ABL has been consistently recognised and awarded for client-focused delivery of services and products, innovative use of technology and internal HR practices. They are independently rated by the Legal 500 Survey in the top 10 employment law practices in Australia.

Through innovation, consistent quality and a passion for their work, they aim to be top of mind for companies seeking solutions to HR related legal problems.

Tim Capelin managing partner Phone: (02) 9458 7005

Phone: 03 8663 6714 E: pbutler@grantthorntonvic.com.au Website: www.grantthornton.com.au

Fax: (02) 9954 5029 E: tim.capelin@ablawyers.com.au Website: www.ablawyers.com.au

mytraining.net training reservations. made simple.

Geoff Rosamond director

mytraining.net is a part of Human Potential Consulting, an Australian management consulting company specialising in organisational change and transformation projects for enterprise level clients. Key challenges addressed are the streamlining of learning services with the ease of integration and management of external training suppliers courses into existing HRIS systems to manage training requirements.

Phone: 1300 768 368 E: team@mytraining.net Website: www.mytraining.net

strategic sponsors

A.S.K Learning delivers world-class learning, development and consulting solutions across the Asia-Pacific region. They provide the training, tools and expertise to help you more effectively manage, develop and retain your most important asset, your people.

A.S.K Learning’s tailor-made learning and development strategies are delivered using face-to-face training, eLearning, learning and performance management systems, consulting services, or a combination of all of these. Their ambition is to support you in improving the performance and capabilities of your people to deliver tangible gains to your organisation.

Joanna O’Sullivan marketing manager

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Phone: 02 9492 0001 E: joanna.osullivan@asklearning.com Website: www.asklearning.com

CareerOne, a joint venture between News Limited and Monster Worldwide, offers national reach through its website and across 130 metropolitan, regional and local News Limited papers. Whether you’re looking for a single new employee or an entire team, CareerOne.com.au makes it easy to advertise online. With an audience of over 1.5 million searching for jobs on CareerOne.com.au every month, shouldn’t one of Australia’s leading online job boards be part of your recruitment strategy?

Phone: 1800 555 010 E: advertise@careerone.com.au Website: www.careerone.com.au

strategic sponsors (Cont.)

Solterbeck is Australia’s leading performance improvement company, delivering increased engagement and performance amongst clients’ employees and channel partners. Solterbeck builds better business results through unique depth and expertise in three key service areas: • Incentives, recognition and rewards • Conferences, incentive travel and business events • Employee communications

Sue Jackson executive chairman

Phone: 03 9949 5902 E: suej@solterbeck.com Website: www.solterbeck.com

Towers Watson is a global professional services firm that helps organisations improve performance through effective people, risk and financial management. In the Human Capital area, Towers Watson helps organisations develop and implement workforce strategies that align with business needs, address critical talent issues, drive higher performance and ensure the right return on their investment in people.

Joanna Slykerman marketing manager

Phone: 03 9820 9388 E: joanna.slykerman@towerswatson.com Website: www.towerswatson.com

workshop sponsors

Jobwire was established as a specialist in providing casual staff in the industrial labour market. A fully Australian owned and operated company; Jobwire have significantly expanded their expertise to cater to client’s diverse requirements as a talent attraction and retention provider. In addition to short and long term and permanent talent attraction solutions, Jobwire have demonstrated their capability for in-house or outsourced attraction and retention strategies for their clients.

JXT consulting specialises in e-recruitment applications and solutions. JXT consulting has gained an enviable track record of successfully creating a next generation job board solution called ATEMO. By heavily optimising job advertisements, ATEMO makes your jobs visible to the 20million+ job related searches conducted every month on Australian search engines. You will have the combined reach of search engines, the JXT job network, your website and integration to social networks.

Janessa Thompson media relations

Glenn Davies sales director – talent management

Phone: 0409 367 163 E: janessa@jobwire.com.au Website: www.jobwire.com.au

Phone: 1300 726 279 E: sales@jxt.com.au Website: www.atemosoftware.com

RedBalloon offers a range of services to help organisations recognise, reward and motivate their people with amazing experiences. They’re passionate about delivering pleasure to people at work (and they’re also Best Employers) and creating exciting ways for businesses to meet their goals.

Relationships Australia is a not-for-profit organisation and leading provider of professional services for relationship support and training; including counselling and relationship skills training for individuals, couples and families. In the past five years, Relationships Australia have provided a range of services to workplaces including employee assistance programs, workplace mediations, training in relationship building, negotiating and management coaching.

James Wright strategic account director

Lyn Fletcher director of operations

Phone: 1300 85 09 40 E: corporate@redballoon.com.au Website: corporate.redballoondays.com.au

Phone: 02 9425 4999 E: enquiries@ransw.org.au Website: www.relationships.com.au

www.hrsummit.com.au

sponsors workshop sponsors (Cont.)

Supporting Organisations

UNSW Global Training is a wholly owned entity of the University of New South Wales.

They provide clients with skills training for managers, supervisors, team leaders and their staff. Their training is designed to ensure participants are able to engage successfully in the learning experience through pragmatic, concise, tightly delivered courses. They provide accredited and non-accredited courses in management, communications, sales, marketing, compliance and finance.

Kelly Services, Inc. is a leader in providing workforce solutions. Kelly offers a comprehensive array of outsourcing and consulting services as well as world-class recruitment on a temporary, temp-to-hire and permanent placement basis - at all levels.

Steven Yuen marketing consultant

Paul Chiswick national sales director

Phone: 1300 727 640 E: learn4life@unsw.edu.au Website: www.learn4life.unsw.edu.au

Phone: 02 9246 6726 E: paul.chiswick@kellyservices.com Website: www.kellyservices.com.au

bronze sponsors

cvmail, from Thomson Reuters, is a leading global e-recruitment solution. They combine the latest software and recruitment expertise to deliver substantial benefit to organisational performance and recruitment costs. cvmail helps customers of all sizes and across multiple sectors to reduce costs, streamline recruitment, enhance their employer brand and improve quality of hire through their applicant tracking software.

Tim Strachan national sales manager

Phone: 03 8684 2021 E: tim.strachan@thomsonreuters.com Website: www.cvmail.net

Insync Surveys is a 2009 BRW Fast 100 company. Insync Surveys carries out benchmarked customer, employee, board and other stakeholder surveys for many Asia-Pacific organisations including: Cathay Pacific, AXA, Medibank Private, Fairfax Digital, many local councils and most university libraries. Insync Surveysâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; organisational psychologists help improve performance and the working lives of their people.

Genevieve Boyd marketing

Phone: 02 8081 2081 E: gboyd@insyncsurveys.com.au Website: www.insyncsurveys.com.au

official publication

NorthgateArinso is a leading global human resources software and services provider offering innovative HR business solutions to employers of all sizes. They help HR executives optimise their HR service delivery through smarter process and more efficient technology, supporting key areas such as workforce administration, payroll, benefits, recruitment and talent management. NorthgateArinso are one of the five largest HR service providers worldwide.

Peter Burt business development manager

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Phone: 02 9258 2000 E: peter.burt@northgatearinso.com Website: www.northgatearinso.com

HC is targeted at senior human resource professionals and top corporate decisionmakers. Each month HC examines the issues that are at the forefront of todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s people strategies and analyses the thinking of those who are at the cutting edge of the industry.

Sophie Knight national commercial manager - HR products

Phone: 02 8437 4733 E: sophie.knight@keymedia.com.au Website: www.hcamag.com

exhibitors API Leisure & Lifestyle is the leading provider of employee benefits programs with over 90 years experience in implementing sophisticated and successful systems Australiawide. API’s programs provide an extensive range of over 1200 lifestyle and financial benefits designed to enhance the employment value proposition and assist with the retention of quality employees.

ATEL AusNAC is a leading Australian Apprenticeships Centre catering to both large & small businesses across all industry & vocational sectors. Our free service to employers, trainee’s & apprentices offers nationally recognised & cost effective training solutions for your business. Our team of professional staff can assist your business access government funding & apply tailored training solutions to suit your workplace.

Kylie Green business development manager

Mandy Glendenning consultant

Phone: 02 9277 6560 E: kgreen@apilifestyle.com.au Website: www.employeebenefits.com.au

Phone: 02 8875 6100 E: mandy.glendenning@atel.com.au Website: www.ausnac.com

Creating effective eLearning content has never been easier. CADRE has 15 years experience in developing custom content and supporting clients with its integration into learning practices. What sets CADRE apart is their focus on learning design – ensuring that they understand the problem and create a design that meets the needs of both the learner and the business.

Gift Card Planet is an independent rewards provider for businesses and the general public. With a large range of pre-designed gift cards aswell as the unique ability for businesses to design their own, it makes a more personal gift or reward. Come visit us to see how we can integrate this into your gift, promotion or rewards programs.

Katy Morriss sales manager

James Tamanika business manager

Phone: 02 8514 8902 E: kmorriss@cadre.com.au Website: www.cadre.com.au

Phone: 03 8532 4507 E: james.tamanika@edgeloyalty.com.au Website: www.giftcardplanet.com.au

ergoworks PHYSIOTHERAPY AND CONSULTING PTY LTD

EmployeeConnect has grown to become the best of breed of Human Capital Workflow Solutions. With core products that include, self service, HRexpress, HRpro & HRenterprise, EmployeeConnect transforms traditional human resource functions into an integrated, enterprise wide, Human Capital program delivering strategic, financial & competitive benefits.

Ergoworks Consulting is a nationally established ergonomics consultancy that provides assessment, training and e-learning software packages to its clients. A complete network of qualified ergonomists and physiotherapists allows ErgoWorks to offer a range of services throughout Australia.

Ari Kopoulos national sales & marketing manager

Marnie Douglas

Phone: 02 8288 8028 E: info@employeeconnect.com Website: www.employeeconnect.com

Phone: 02 9251 0822 E: marnie@ergoworks.com.au Website: www.ergonomics-ohs.com.au

ergoworks

PHYSIOTHERAPY AND CONSULTING PTY LTD

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exhibitors Fitness First is the largest privately owned global health club with over 540 clubs worldwide reaching over 1.4 million members in 20 countries including Australia, UK, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. With a mission to make the world a fitter place, Fitness First Australia now has over 90 club locations servicing 350,000 members across Australia.

Nicole Bosland national corporate sales manager

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Phone: 02 9387 5266 E: corporatesales@fitnessfirst.com.au Website: www.fitnessfirst.com.au

Whether you’re a corporate group or a social club – family days at Luna Park offer all the fun, excitement and ease of organising a great day out for a large group. Family day bookings receive special rates on rides packages and must be prebooked with our sales staff. If you are requiring an exclusive area for your group, we have a number of indoor and outdoor venues to suit your needs.

This may be handy if you are planning to organise entertainment, presentations or a central area for your guests to gather for a meal.

John Spencer group sales manager

Phone: 02 9922 6644 E: jspencer@lunaparksydney.com Website: www.lunaparksydney.com

Frontier Software is a leading specialist HRMIS vendor offering an integrated HR, payroll and ESS service across all industries. Founded in Australia 1983, Frontier Software now has offices in Australia, NZ, UK, India, Singapore and Malaysia. Services include full implementation support, training and helpdesk. Frontier Software also offers full and partial payroll outsourcing solutions.

Mind Resources is a leading global provider of learning content, solutions and training that transforms the performance of organisations by improving and developing their most important asset - people. Their learning solutions and training resources are available in a variety of formats, including: online streaming video, e-learning, DVDs, workshops, events, profiling and assessments, training text and props and accessories.

Nick Southcombe general manager

Michael ter Haar CEO

Phone:03 9639 0777 E: nicks@frontiersoftware.com.au Website: www.frontiersoftware.com.au

Phone: 02 9291 4241 E: info@mindresources.net Website: www.mindresources.net

Human Synergistics is an expert culture consultancy that transforms organisations, helping them to become more constructive and improve overall performance.

Human Synergistics transforms organisations, groups and individuals by helping to: • Understand that all corporate performance is human dependant • Realise the inextricable link between a high performance culture and sustained business success • Recognise that leadership is the key to a productive corporate culture

Multibase is a business IT services and solutions company, with a long and successful track record in delivering information technology that increases productivity, reduces cost and improves service quality. Our online training management and induction solutions automate HR management processes, make HR management easier, and motivate employees to train. We can integrate your online solution into your existing business systems.

Mary Megalaa business development manager

Neil Cameron business development manager

Phone: 02 9271 5945 E: mary@human-synergistics.com.au Website: www.human-synergistics.com.au

Phone: 02 9805 1911 E: info@mbase.com.au Website: www.mbase.com.au

Intégro Leadership Institute provides leadership development programs for organisations that seek to align their workforce in pursuit of a common vision and create employees who are passionate about the purpose of the company. Intégro works with businesses of all sizes whose leaders have a contagious passion, a well-articulated vision and who seek to create relationships based on trust with their employees.

Plateau Systems is the industry’s premier provider of SaaS talent management suites.

Major global corporations and government agencies, including General Electric, U.S. Air Force and Capital One Services are using Plateau’s integrated talent management solutions to improve productivity and facilitate strategic workforce initiatives.

Plateau is widely recognized throughout the industry for its commitment to customer satisfaction, forward-thinking vision and for delivering best-in-class functionality.

Keith Ayers CEO

Nathan Dale account executive

www.hcamag.com

Phone: 02 9453 4555 E: support@integro.com.au Website: www.integro-leadership.com.au

Phone: 02 9236 7375 E: nathan.dale@plateau.com Website: www.plateau.com

Quest Serviced Apartments - Your accommodation solution for relocations and secondments. Quest will endeavour to assist you in accommodating your staff in over 120 properties throughout Australia and New Zealand. Allow Quest to custom make programs specific to your requirements for your global mobility workforce. Quest, specialists in extended stay accommodation.

TAFE NSW – Sydney Institute provides training solutions! They identify your training needs and tailor training to meet your requirements. You determine where TAFE NSW delivers the training and they base the timetable around your availability. The cost of training can be reduced through their ability to access government funding and they provide recognition for your staff’s previous work and life experience.

Adam Strauss extended stay manager

Cam Jobbins director, national business

Phone: 03 8699 1521 E: astrauss@questapartments.com.au Website: www.questapartments.com.au

Rookie Recruits is an early career placement and development specialist, supporting employers in the selection, placement and development of the very best young talent.

Born out of a deep belief that attitude and natural talent dictate potential, as opposed to skills or experience, every candidate is enrolled in a unique 12 month personal development program that helps to realise their full potential.

Jason Murray senior talent consultant

Phone: 0404 893 240 E: jasons@rookierecruits.com Website: www.rookierecruits.com

Smartbox is a world leader in lifestyle and leisure activities. Innovative and impactful it comes in a sleek box with a guidebook and gift certificate. Your company chooses from one of seven different themes including cuisine, beauty, weekend getaways or thrilling adventures and the recipient chooses the activity, booking directly with the partner. It’s risk free and can be tailored to include corporate branding.

Deborah Schnavelli business development director

Phone: 1300 825 112 E: deborah.schnavelli@smartbox.com Website: www.smartbox.com.au

Phone: 02 9217 3536 E: camden.jobbins@tafensw.edu.au Website: www.sit.nsw.edu.au/employerservices

STE 1300apprentice is a group training company committed to sourcing quality host employers to facilitate on-the-job training for their apprentices and trainees. Operating across New South Wales and the ACT, they currently employ around 300 apprentices and trainees in approximately 40 different vocational areas. STE 1300apprentice will organise your complete apprenticeship and traineeship needs including recruitment, administration, OH&S, training and mentoring.

Samantha Leet business development

Phone: 02 9715 7344 E: s.leet@1300apprentice.com.au Website: www.1300apprentice.com.au

The Coaching Room specialises in leadership, executive and management coaching as well as leadership training for c-suite executives. The Coaching Room has coached new and current leaders and their organisations in Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Their internationally experienced and accredited neuro-semantic leadership coaches have been facilitating transformational and generative change with c-level leaders since 2003.

Jay Hedley CEO

Phone: 1300 858 089 E: enquiry@thecoachingroom.com.au Website: www.thecoachingroom.com.au

Solvay Pharmaceuticals is a group of companies active in more than 50 countries.

Founded in 1863, it employs over 28,000 people worldwide. Established in Australia in 1996, Solvay focuses on four main therapeutic areas – cardiometabolics, neuroscience, gastroenterology and vaccines.

Yackstar is a next generation social business platform that revolutionises the way employees interact. By harnessing the social energy within your organisation, Yackstar provides employees with innovative applications to communicate, collaborate, innovate and celebrate. The end result is improved employee engagement, performance and retention.

Caroline Pilot vaccines & consumer products manager

Phil Sharp manager, business development

Phone: 02 9497 9710 E: caroline.pilot@solvay.com.au Website: www.solvay.com.au

Phone: 1800 709 807 E: phil@yackstar.com Website: www.yackstar.com

www.hrsummit.com.au www.hcamag.com 43

issue 8.4

Teambuilder

Heal hy HR This month’s teambuilder profile looks at one HR professional who has found her niche building engagement and leadership capabilities in massive government agencies

F

rom a young age, Dulise Maxwell was fascinated by Japanese culture.

Although it seems a big step from that passion to her current role as executive director of people and culture (corporate) at Queensland Health, there is a common thread.

“My studies and work in Australia, China and Japan tended to be around cultural morays and how people from a business perspective engage with the cultures of other areas. That actually has a direct relationship with the world I’m playing in now,” she says.

Maxwell’s current career trajectory commenced when she was then asked by the Queensland government to set up commercially viable businesses for them in the international training and consultancy area. “That’s when I started to have teams – and like so many new young leaders I moved into the role without understanding what it meant to lead teams. I discovered that was where I was getting some of my greatest passion from – working with people and bringing out their best to achieve the best outcomes for the business.”

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Maxwell commenced study in strategic HR and business development, and subsequently moved into a career in the strategic HR and OD space. She ran the consultancy parallel to that career, which kept up her interest in Australian/ Asian cultural morays, and also morphed into helping businesses be more effective and efficient about how they engage their people to deliver business outcomes.

Maxwell is only two months into her role at Qld Health, after spending time at the ATO as national director of leadership.

Her brief there was to help the organisation shape a leadership culture. With a staff of 20,000+ nationwide that was no easy task, but Maxwell claims it was “a great deal of fun, an enormous opportunity”.

A fresh take on leadership

Her personal belief is that leadership is a state of mind evidenced by behaviour – not merely a position. “That means anyone can demonstrate leadership behaviours – they can be cleaning floors or working in a call centre, or they can be a CEO of a company – but the empathy, integrity, the desire to

encourage others to do their best can be demonstrated by anybody.”

Maxwell notes that many companies she’s worked in or consulted to were in the unfortunate practice of promoting technically excellent workers to positions of management, and then providing limited support to that person. “People are recruited on a rudimentary ability to answer some basic questions – but it’s based on your brilliance in your previous job. Now you’re asked to do a completely different job that you’re not prepared for. You’ll have teams of people you’ll be accountable to and accountable for.”

This ‘sink or swim’ mentality often triumphs despite the lack of recognition that management or leadership might be a tough task, and asking for help is frowned upon. It’s only when someone starts to sink that a coach is introduced or remedial action is taken. “The danger is they may be labelled as a poor performer. In reality they might be brilliant at leading, but they just need some help to know how to do it,” she says. Maxwell maintains it’s unrealistic to expect HR to be on top of how new

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Teambuilder

managers are progressing, “it’s got to be the line manager – and if they’re highly competent, that’s what they’ll be looking for – signs that the person is not coping”.

Getting her bearings

Maxwell heads up the entire HR and organisational development strategic function for Queensland Health, an entity that employs 73,000 staff. “That doesn’t mean we do it all – we look after the strategic direction but we work highly collaboratively with all of the other parts of the organisation. For example, we have directors in each of the districts who are also responsible for people and culture.

We’re looking to form a good strategic powerhouse to work with us in partnership.

I believe strongly that you don’t do these things yourself. You must have brilliant partnerships throughout the organisation,” she explains.

“We need to work collaboratively for the good of the staff and then ultimately so we can provide a better service for the people of Queensland.”

HR in the public sector

With her current role and her experience at the ATO, Maxwell is well placed to comment on public sector HR. She notes that HR does operate differently across different government agencies and departments, but downplays public/private sector differences.

“I don’t see any real difference between public sector and private sector when it comes to people and cultural issues – because they’re all just organisations,” she says. “Whatever the rules are that are handed down through legislation for codes of conduct, etc, you have the same things applying to private and public sector organisations. The biggest changes of course are more around the business model – revenue driven or budget driven and so on – but in reality the way we engage people, the way we create the best possible workplace environment where people are enthused to come to work, have volunteer

mindsets, and they feel supported, and the way in which we run it efficiently, is very similar to the private sector.”

And just like the divisions and sectors of large private sector organisations, there will be differences in business needs and corporate culture between government departments. The same differentials will apply between the federal sector and the various states. She says, for example, that Queensland Health would be quite different to Queensland Rail. “The type of employees we have when we’re dealing with the ill, the infirm and maybe even the dying of Queensland is very different to the type of employees that Queensland Rail might have. Therefore the way we build each culture to support our people will be quite different,” she notes.

Engagement and performance

Throughout her career Maxwell has been well aware of the link between engagement

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HR rewards

Given the broad corporate canvases in which she works, and despite formal recognition from state AHRI awards, it’s surprising to hear Maxwell’s nomination as her proudest career development.

“For me, my greatest success has been my client’s successes – be it internally or

“Anyone can demonstrate leadership behaviours … the empathy, integrity, the desire to encourage others to do their best can be demonstrated by anybody” – Dulise Maxwell and performance. “An organisation will never reach peak performance if it hasn’t won both the heads and hands, and the hearts and minds of its people. Say we’re only looking for the heads and hands, and we tell you what to do and you sit quietly while we do so: no organisation in the 21st century will survive on that model. People now are too well informed, they can say what they want, share the best stories, and the worst,” she says.

Enormous effort must be put into engaging employees, and Maxwell claims the key to this is to be clear on your employer brand and then recruit people with the right attitudes and behaviours (the right skill sets are a given).

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“If you get that right, you get people who are at least partially aligned with your value sets and your cultural attributes.

As long as you fulfil your EVP and the psychological contract you’re making with those people through your employer brand, you’ll have their hearts and minds. You’ll then only have to live up to it and deliver.”

The benefit of an engaged workforce speaks for itself: “It’s like iron filings and a magnet – if all the iron filings are all aligned and heading in the same direction there’s a huge magnetic pull created – and you’ll have a high performing culture,” Maxwell says.

externally – on a particular challenge or issue and when we finish working together they can see that we’ve addressed the issue, met that challenge, and they are in a better place,” she says.

“Also, to have people trust and respect you. HR work can be fairly challenging.

One of my greatest joys was when I was working in an environment where we’d been having a lot of industrial issues. After quite a fierce meeting, one of the unionists stormed past my secretary and into my office, to tell me he’d had some feedback from his members. He said their perception of me was that I was bloody tough but always fair and I meant what I said. That was a great compliment!” HC

See Dulise Maxwell talk about building engagement and alignment towards business outcomes at HR Summit Sydney, 28-29 April

Sponsored feature – Defence Reservists

issue 8.4

Australia’s Reservists: “Twice the citizens” Mention Australia’s Reserve Forces and many think of soldiers, sailors and airmen and women that train every Tuesday night plus one weekend a month and only serve if our country is under direct threat.

This is certainly a myth, as Defence Reservists are highly professional servicemen and women working in an organisation, developing a range of skills and personal attributes which are highly sought after.

Today’s Australian Defence Force Reservists serve around Australia on security operations such as CHOGM, APEC, Commonwealth Games and World Youth Day. They provide support at natural disasters like last year’s Victoria bushfires and serve overseas in operational areas from the Solomon Islands to Afghanistan.

Aside from this commitment to Australia, they also have civilian jobs, families and other commitments outside the camouflage uniform.

Winston Churchill once labelled British Reservists “Twice the citizens” – the same could be said of Australia’s Reservists who often have the challenge of balancing a number of priorities.

To open a window on Australian Defence Force Reserves and allow employers to see first hand the skills their Reservist employees are gaining while on operations or training, the Department of Defence’s Cadet, Reserve and Employer Support Division (CRESD) has coordinated Exercise Boss Lift.

“CRESD is responsible for facilitating employer support for Australia’s Defence Reservists,” says Ian Flawith,

Executive Director of Reserve Support.

“This includes employer participation on the Exercise Boss Lift program which highlights the important role the Reserves play in the Australian Defence Force, through allowing employers to experience directly the essential roles played by their employees.”

Under the program, the employer meets up with their Reservist in the deployed location and for four intense days, they get to experience first-hand the operational environment, including extreme climatic conditions which can occur in the tropics.

“Following the Boss Lift experience, many employers admit that prior to attending, they weren’t aware of the depth in role undertaken by the ADF Reserves and they had identified a number of transferable skills that will ultimately benefit the civilian workplace,” Flawith says.

This is backed up by the employers themselves who spoke about their experiences.

Dean Hansson, area manager KFC NSW and Ex Boss Lift 05/09 participant says, “there was no doubt that the skills Chris learnt as a Reservist applies strongly in the civilian workplace.”

UNISYS HR director John Maley and Ex Boss Lift 04/09 participant echoed those thoughts. “It has been really impressive to see what the Reservists do for the benefit of Australia and for the Solomon Islands,” he says.

Area Commander NSW Police and Ex Boss Lift 04/09 participant Max Mitchell was particular impressed by his Reservist’s leadership skills.

“Kurt is a general practitioner of policing, and watching him functioning as a corporal with other ADF members around him, how he conducts himself, his leadership skills, his planning and his decision making has really opened my eyes as to his capability when he returns,” he says.

For further information about Defence Reserves Support and its employer engagement activities, call 1800 803 485 or visit www.defence.gov.au/reserves www.hcamag.com

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Corporate health – disengagement

The

disengagement B

eing disengaged at work can shave years off your life, lead to an early heart attack and cause you to fight with your family.

New research out of the US and Australia is showing us that workers are becoming more disengaged during the economic challenges we are experiencing. One of the reasons for this disengagement is that many are feeling angry with their company for firing their friends or cutting benefits. Their reaction is to take power into their own hands and say “I will get back at them by not working as hard and being disengaged at work”.

Sounds logical, but are they hurting themselves more than the company? Let’s look at the three types of workers: • Engaged worker – has a strong connection to their job and

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epidemic With all the talk about the impact of disengaged workers on business performance, it’s sometimes easy to forget it can have massive repercussions for individuals as well.

Dr Adam Fraser tells us why

Corporate health – disengagement

the company. They are constantly looking to improve their performance and do their job better each day. In addition they are enthusiastic at work and boost the culture.

• Not Engaged Employee – These people are the walking dead.

They do their job but don’t have any enthusiasm, energy or passion for their work.

• Actively Disengaged – These people are toxic to the company, they undermine the company and engaged workers. You could say they have quit but haven’t had the decency to resign.

According to Gallup, currently in Australia only 20% of workers are engaged, a whopping 63% workers are not engaged and 17% are actively disengaged. This costs our economy between $33.5bn and $42.1bn in lost productivity alone.

Focusing on the wrong thing!

If you look at all the literature around engagement, it always talks about how the company suffers if employees are disengaged.

A company that has four engaged employees to every actively disengaged employee, grows 2.6 times faster than an organisation with one engaged to one actively disengaged employee. In addition, companies in the top quarter of engagement out-earn companies in the bottom quarter by 18%. (Taken from Gallup article Building engagement in this economic crisis.)

You can’t argue with those numbers; it is obvious that a company needs to have engaged workers. However, I have been in many a team meeting where the manager says employees must be engaged at work so the company can perform better. This is usually met with glazed expressions or rolling eyes. Why? Because the average employee is far too self centred and this does not appeal to their self interest.

What about the individual?

Rather than only focus on the company, why don’t we talk about the impact of disengagement on the individual?

Gallup’s survey of Australian workers showed that 43% of Actively Disengaged workers have admitted to treating their family poorly for three or more consecutive days.

The fall out of disengagement does not end in the home.

An English study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine followed a group of healthy men over 10 years. What they found is men who were engaged at work were 30% less likely to suffer from coronary heart disease than employees who were disengaged at work. The findings remained consistent even when the researchers controlled for age, ethnicity, marital status, educational attainment, socio-economic position, cholesterol level, obesity, hypertension, smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity. What this means is that work attitude was the defining variable.

One of the contributing factors to this relationship between disengagement and heart disease is the fact that people who are disengaged at work report higher levels of stress compared to engaged employees. Moreover, a German study published in Psychosomatic Medicine shows that people who report high levels

issue 8.4

“… people who are disengaged at work report higher levels of stress compared to engaged employees” – Dr Adam Fraser

of stress at work have significantly higher levels of cortisol in their system. Cortisol is a stress hormone that is linked to a variety of metabolic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

Engagement is also beneficial for your mental health. When you are engaged all you are thinking about is the present moment, you are paying attention to each detail and thinking ‘can I do this better, faster, more efficiently?’ Research by prominent psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi found that people with chronic depression and eating disorders feel a predominance of negative emotions and negative self-talk. However, when given a task to do that they engaged with, their emotions and thoughts were indistinguishable from those of people free of these conditions.

In addition, it was found that the worst thing for people with depression and eating disorders was for them not to be engaged, as their mind becomes occupied by depressing thoughts and their consciousness becomes scattered.

This is true for all of us. Disengaged people in the workplace often say that they are bored and disinterested. Pause for a moment to think what happens when you put two children in the back of a car and go for a long drive. After 15 minutes what do you hear?

“She hit me”; “He’s on my side of the car”; “He teased me”. A disengaged worker is similar to these children in the back of the car. When not engaged their thoughts drift and they start looking for trouble. Office gossip, turf battles and in-fighting is a fall out from a lack of engagement.

Can we start to choose to be more engaged in the work place?

For most people, engagement is conditional: if my team is in a good mood I will be engaged; or my boss didn’t thank me for doing a good job so I won’t be engaged. Obviously having a supportive and fun work environment makes it easier to be engaged. However, research shows us that highly engaged people don’t necessarily work in the best work places.

Looking at all this evidence we can clearly see that being engaged in the work place is one of the most important elements in our search for greater wellbeing. Can we start to expand the engagement conversation to focus on the benefits to the individual?

What if a company focused on helping their employees to be more engaged in the work place so they had greater wellbeing, better health, and richer relationships with their family? Hmm, would you call them an employer of choice? HC www.hcamag.com

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issue 8.4

OHS

space Watch this

The long and winding road towards harmonisation of Australia’s OHS laws finally has an end date in sight.

How well prepared are employers?

A

nyone with any doubts that Australia’s OHS laws are due for an overhaul need look no further than a decision handed down in February by the High Court in relation to Kirk v WorkCover NSW (and Ors). In its decision, the High Court strongly criticised the approach to prosecutions under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000 (NSW) and dismissed the attempted right to prevent appeals from that jurisdiction to the Supreme Court of NSW. Graeme Kirk ran a farm near Picton in NSW. He hired a farm manager and that person was responsible for running the farm, supervising anyone on it, and resolving any safety issues. The farm manager was riding a quad bike, rolled it and tragically died. He chose to ride the bike through the farm next to a purpose-built road, but was not on the road.

Kirk and his company were subsequently prosecuted for breach of legislation. The case moved through every court in NSW and then the High Court.

The outcome of the judgment in the High Court was to quash the original conviction against Kirk and the employing entity. The penalty imposed against Kirk (fines of $121,000) was similarly dismissed and the High Court made an order that the matter not be reheard in the Industrial Court of New South Wales. The High Court also ordered WorkCover NSW to pay Kirk’s legal costs.

“This case shows how difficult it has been to comply with the laws in NSW,” says Miles Bastick, partner at Freehills. “The High Court said the way things have been interpreted by the prosecution – WorkCover – but also the judicial officers in the industrial court, has probably not been quite accurate. People have treated compliance and safety in NSW as very difficult to achieve because usually there’s always something else you could have done which

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might have avoided the risk. If that’s the case then it’s almost a fait accompi that they’ll be in breach of the Act.”

Innocent until proven guilty

This case ties in with one of the more controversial aspects of the draft legislation, which is expected to be passed into law by 1 January 2012. Although the draft backs the English-style justice system (a person is declared innocent until proven guilty), NSW currently favours the French-style justice system, whereby employers are deemed to be guilty of an offence under the Act and must then prove their innocence.

The new legislation is different in the sense that it’s similar to Victorian legislation, which requires all reasonably practical precautions to be taken rather than to guarantee safety. In practice this is likely to mean a greater challenge for prosecutors to prove breach of the legislation in some states in the ‘new world’.

Bastick notes that positive duty on officers to exercise due diligence should not pose a problem for any organisation that has been doing the right thing in regards to safety in the past.

“Legislation in each state has differed and what it has provided is this: essentially if a director is prosecuted, they will have to establish a defence, and depending on the state, the defence might be that they have exercised all due diligence – which is the arrangement that applies in NSW and Queensland, for example.

In other states, such as Western Australia, a director can be prosecuted if a company has breached the Act and the director has been neglectful. There’s no reference to due diligence,” says Bastick.

“Legally, it’s an important change in the sense that the law says you must do this. But in the real world, if a director wasn’t doing it anyway, they were doing a disservice to themselves because they

OHS

were at a real risk that if they were prosecuted they wouldn’t be able to defend themselves against the prosecution,” he adds.

Unions and others might claim it’s a weakening of legislation in these states because the legislation allows the accused to establish a defence, but Bastick believes it’s a more pragmatic and encouraging way to police safety.

“The whole impetus behind the harmonisation was to try to remove some of the bureaucracy and inefficiency generated by people having to use separate measures across different states.

For example, when we’re advising clients on their national safety obligations, in order to provide the complete advice we need to explain how things are different state to state. If you have one common legislation that will mean companies can expend their resources on some of the more practical, positive aspects of dealing with safety issues rather than trying to understand the regulatory framework. That’s got to be a good thing,” says Bastick.

Preparing for the change

The imposition of a positive duty on officers to exercise due diligence to ensure the company complies with its health and safety duties means companies may need to review their current arrangements with a view to assisting their officers in achieving this higher threshold. The definition of ‘officer’ includes people who influence or make decisions that affect the whole or a substantial part of the business.

“Given this, large businesses will need to ensure their senior management are adequately supported and provided with the tools to assist them in exercising due diligence,” notes Penny Stevens, partner, occupational health and safety at Hall & Wilcox Lawyers.

“Small to medium businesses will need to be particularly conscious of these changes as management structures in these organisations are often more condensed, increasing the likelihood of middle

issue 8.4

management being caught by the officer provisions.” Stevens maintains that while there will be some changes on a day-to-day level for businesses in many of the jurisdictions, overall the model legislation is unlikely to dramatically impact on the way safety is actually achieved. Initially businesses will need to review their systems and procedures from a compliance perspective. There is also likely to be significant work required in respect of the detailed aspects of the regulations, for instance reviewing and consolidating existing processes for licensing and registration requirements.

“Most employers will do a review or gap analysis of what they’ve got in place. There are a lot of employers that aren’t doing the right thing in relation to safety and this new legislation will probably mean the motivation and incentive to spend resources on it, and focus on it to get it right, might occur,” says Bastick.

“The whole impetus behind the harmonisation was to try to remove some of the bureaucracy and inefficiency generated …” – Miles Bastick Some commentators are concerned that some aspects of the jurisdiction will remain state based. For example, the enforcement and administrative machinery will remain state based. “So there will be some differences in how things are managed on the ground.

It might mean – we’re speculating – that one state might have a greater focus on education whereas another might have a greater leaning on the stick – or more prosecutions,” Bastick adds.

And there will be increased penalties. The new penalties are up to $3m for corporations for a breach of the Act and up to $600,000 for officers, together with the prospect of imprisonment. HC

Harmonisation process: Where are we now?

March 2009: Consideration of Panel reports by Workplace Relations Ministers’ Council Senior Officers’ meeting Source: Freehills

2010

May 2009: Consideration of Panel reports and decisions by WRMC

April 2009: Safe Work Australia commences operation, and starts drafting Bill

Consultation period

2009

September 2009: Release of Exposure Draft of Bill

December 2009:

2011 2010: Draft codes of practice developed

Model OHS Act settled

Ongoing: Draft regulations

Commencement of model Act and regulations no later than December 2011

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Profile

Knight of the

Human Capital interviews one industry professional who looks back over 30 years in the profession

(hr ) realm

I

n these days of rapid fire turnover and job hopping, few people reach such landmarks as 30-year anniversaries with the same employer. Michael Knight, executive director of human resources at Charles Sturt University (CSU), achieved this in late 2009.

At a distinguished contribution presentation ceremony in November, CSU Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Ian Goulter said: “Michael started as an assistant services officer in central records and deliveries, and then moved into student administration, middle management, human resources – or personnel as it was then known – before taking on his current role in 2007.”

Goulter continued to say that Knight was instrumental in computerising the Division of Human Resources records and processes from 1985 onwards and has taken this interest to the international stage as a conference speaker.

When asked what inspired him to harness technology, Knight recalled seeing a cupboard which stored the leave and service cards of staff. “It was the only such record. I ensured the lot was photocopied and stored elsewhere as a back-up. It prompted me to computerise all personnel records, which took our division from 1985 until 1990 to complete.”

Evolution of a profession

Indeed, Knight’s career traces the development of HR from transactional roles through to strategic business function. Soon after joining what was then known as Mitchell College of Advanced Education (now CSU) to study a part-time Bachelor of Business degree in April 1976, Knight was exposed to a number of very committed and interesting academics in the areas of personnel management and industrial relations. “I found the discipline appealing,” he says. “Joining IMPA – later to become

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Profile

issue 8.4

the Australian Human Resources Institute – and following development of the profession, I started applying concepts to my studies and work.”

Beginning his career as an assistant services officer at CSU, Knight climbed his way through student administration, middle management, and finally personnel.

“CSU has rewarded me significantly for my loyalty and contribution. I’m a ‘mail-room to boardroom’ success story. My first job was to deliver the mail and work in the central records office maintaining the files and looking after lost property. As opportunities arose, I would apply for promotional positions, working my way around the organisation and up to middle management, and more recently senior management. CSU values its people and provides a number of opportunities for advancement,” he says.

In his current role, Knight is responsible for leading a team of HR professionals working on strategic and operational HR in support of the university’s mission. He reports directly to the ViceChancellor and President, and along with the Executive Director, Finance and three Deputy Vice-Chancellors, he is part of the senior executive group providing advice to the Vice-Chancellor.

Goulter alluded to this strategic bond when he said: “At CSU, Michael is well known for his management, strategic thinking and communication skills. He’s something of an empathetic listener, too.”

In addition to its main Bathurst campus, CSU operates through a number of campuses across NSW and study centres in Sydney. The university also has a number of overseas partnerships and a campus in Ontario, Canada – the only Australian university to have a campus in North America. Overall, CSU employs 1,800 continuing and contract staff plus significant numbers of casual teaching staff, all servicing the needs of approximately 32,000 students – many of whom study via distance education.

HR and technology

Personal file Michael Knight Age: 52 Family: Married with four children – two are graduates of CSU and the younger two are undertaking tertiary studies Favourite band/ music: Fleetwood Mac and Australian country music Favourite sports: Motor racing and hockey Favourite movie or TV: Anything

with a level of reality and comedy Self-described: A person who thinks deeply about issues and attempts to develop sustainable solutions Hobbies: Car restoration and being with family If not in HR: Spend time on my farm on the outskirts of Bathurst and have a level of selfsubsistence

Although he’s seen massive upheaval in his profession, Knight maintains that the biggest change has been the move from rules-based functions and manual record keeping to modern HR providing a range of advice and data to assist and inform business decisions.

This is where his passion for technology enters the equation.

“I’ve always had a technical side to my brain. The opportunity to link advances in technology to improve productivity have been fundamental to my thinking. I was amazed when desktop computing came into being and how computers significantly enhanced what could be achieved, and I wanted to capture this energy to improve how business was undertaken,” he says.

Knight has always been an advocate of using new technology to the best of its advantage, but he’s also aware that some people long for the ‘good old days’. When asked whether HR is a slow or quick adopter of new technology, Knight notes he focused on the same question for his Masters studies, where his thesis focused on the reluctance of HR professionals to embrace technological processes in the early 1990s.

“I think there’s been an evolution from the earlier days where the profession thought personal style was an attribute above and www.hcamag.com

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issue 8.4

Profile beyond that of numbers, which was then seen as the domain of the accountants and payroll managers,” he says.

“I’ve always advocated the use of quality data to underpin sound decision making. I’ve also presented at a number of seminars encouraging organisations to unleash the power of the data held within their HRIS,” he continues.

Knight has taken a leadership role in pushing HR technology forward. His proudest achievement at CSU was in leading a group of 20 universities in a successful bid for funding to enhance the functionality of their HR systems, and then seeing this through to its successful completion.

“Currently I see the HR profession in Australia as being well up with the application of technology,” he adds.

However, with new technology arriving daily – such as social media – there is ongoing work to be done, just as there is work to be done in maintaining HR’s position as business-thought leaders.

When asked whether the debate over HR’s seat at the executive table is over, Knight is quick to respond. “No, it’s not old news but still an issue in many organisations. In organisations where the quality of human resources, our retention, workforce planning and organisational leadership are critical factors, it’s important that the HR function, with a focus on the business of the organisation, has a seat at the table. A number of organisations still don’t appear to have acknowledged this.” HC

In his own words…

What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in your career?

I think we still have some distance to go in having HR seen for the value that we can add to an organisation and not just the gatekeepers or rules enforcers. There has been significant headway made over the past few years, however, in some quarters we still hear comments that ‘HR said no’, when we are positioning ourselves to work with and support line management to make the appropriate HR decisions – and stand by them. There are an increasing number of line managers who are seeing us in this new light. We just keep working away at the others and win them over.

What would you consider to be your greatest career achievement so far?

Over the past two-and-half years, I have turned around the division of human resources here at CSU from being separate silos of operation with an overemphasis on compliance to being one of a business unit clearly focused on the mission of the university and the support of line management to achieve these goals.

This has involved a re-alignment of function, roles, structures and attitudes. We’ve worked extensively across the university and within the division to bring about the changes.

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5 minutes with…

the back page

issue 8.4

Compiled by James Adonis

Peter Sheahan, Tatts Group General manager, human resources

Fast facts: What’s the greatest HR lesson you’ve learned so far?

You can only anticipate and control so much.

Anything to do with people has a healthy dose of unpredictability about it and there is a danger of becoming wedded to the HR plans we have so meticulously laid. It’s important to recognise when it’s time to abandon the plan and take a fresh approach.

Your favourite people-management tip?

Treat people with respect and you will bring out the best in the situation, especially with anything that has a tough edge, from restructuring to union negotiations to performance management, and practice it regardless of role or status. The moment people feel they are not being respected, molehills turn into mountains.

What career advice do you have for ambitious HR professionals?

Get a thorough grounding in the foundations from the start. At its heart, HR requires understanding of how people behave, what

motivates and inspires us, and how we think and feel. Spend time as a customer of HR to appreciate what it is like to receive good and bad HR service.

What’s the main challenge facing HR? There is so much emerging every day by way of new theories, models and success stories across organisations, and it’s tempting to want to adopt them in our own organisations and feel we are at the leading edge. The danger is that, if they don’t really fit the need, HR can be seen as self-serving and out of touch with what the business really needs.

How should HR professionals overcome that challenge?

Have a thorough understanding of the unique nature and needs of the business we are serving. I’m not a fan of the ‘best practice’ approach as it can mean that we are copying what was a good fit for another organisation but may not work for ours. We also need to be good judges of what fits the need, and not just do things that turn HR professionals on.

Can you believe it?

In a year when staff attrition is expected to become a big issue for employers once again, a worker in the UK has just clocked up his 68th year of service with the one company. Ted Ingram, the world’s oldest paperboy, started his job in 1942. Over the past seven decades, the 90-year-old has dropped off more than 500,000 newspapers. During that time, he has missed out on only two days of work and has had just two holidays.

36%

of employees’ time at work is spent reading and responding to an average of 70 e-mails a day.

Source: Microsoft

9 in10

employees admit they multi-task when on a conference call or web meeting. The survey of 1,000 Australians revealed a third of workers say this has resulted in embarrassing situations.

Source: Premiere Global Services

14%

of the workforce is actively searching for a new job, a decrease of almost 5% on the figure for 2009.

Source: CareerOne

Quote of the month

“I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times” – Everett Dirksen

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