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There Has Been An Increase of Businesses Not Including Salary Details When Advertising A Job Vacancy

Posted by Emily Ridley

It has been reported that employers are increasingly not including salary details in jobs ads. As a result of this it is likely that they might be missing out on the best applicants.

Omitting salary details is also a surprising move for a business to make considering that the current unemployment rate is at 4.2 percent thus creating a shortage of available workers in many industries.

As a consequence of this Australian businesses are scrambling to attract the skills they need to grow.
As a result of the dwindling pool of available resources in the job market, vacancies are proving harder to fill for many employers.

A recent survey conducted by Indeed which included the responses of over 2,000 working Australians found that “65 percent of job seekers say a role’s salary is important to include in a job ad”.

However, according to the same survey “Only 9 percent of employers will always advertise a role with a salary”

Katie Furvey who works for Indeed says that there are a number of reasons for the disconnect.

“Our survey findings may reflect that employers want to appeal to applicants who are attracted to the role and the company, rather than those focused primarily on salary,” says Katie Furvey.

It is therefore understandable that employers are wary of applicants only applying for a role to achieve a rise in salary.

The reason many firms give for this is that if remuneration is the sole driver of an employee, they are more likely to leave in future when another organisation offers them more again.

It is also important to consider that other applicants may be deterred from applying if no salary is listed, especially in the candidate short market Australia is currently in the midst of.

Katie Furey agrees, suggesting that, “Being upfront about remuneration can work in everyone’s favour – greater transparency engenders confidence and trust from candidates and helps avoid surprise rejections when an offer is made,” says Ms. Furey.

However, from the perspective of an employer the large majority of businesses who choose not to disclose remuneration on a job advertisement will disclose it at the interview stage, so the latter point about surprise rejections may be a moot one.

Another possibility and reason for not advertising a salary is that displaying salaries for new hires may create issues with existing employees, especially if the renumeration offered is higher than what these employees are currently earning.

The last thing employers will want to do is create reasons for valuable existing employees to leave, especially if the war for talent is expected to intensify.

However, although the interview stage may be the safest option for employers to disclose pay details, in the current job market this option runs the risk of not attracting the required calibre of applicant in the first place.

Employers must tread a fine line in the current climate, but it appears inevitable that companies will be reviewing their strategies on how to attract new hires.

“If the last 18 months have demonstrated anything, it’s that the way we work is changing, so it follows that how job advertisements are structured can, and should, also evolve,” Says Katie Furey.

As with most things in the past two years, the pandemic has driven a lot of the change.

How employers navigate this change will go a long way to determining how successful they will be attracting the right candidates to apply for their advertised job.

Tips For Boosting Employee Retention in A Post-Pandemic World

Posted by Emily Ridley

The covid-19 pandemic has changed the way the world works in so many different ways. Covid has changed the way we travel, the way we socialise and one of the biggest changes is the rise in popularity of flexible working options for employees.

Now that more people are working from home and ultimately the employee has more power in a post-covid world when compared to before covid. As a result of this employers are having trouble retaining some of their most valuable employees. Here are some tips to help employers boost employee retention in a post covid world.

Understand The Importance of Having Flexible Working As An Option For Your Employees

Although most people are able to return to the office now if they want to, there is also a large number of employees who are resisting the everyday commute becoming the norm again. A survey showed that 95 percent of workers say they prefer working from home in some capacity. This illustrates that there is a clear expectation for flexible work arrangements to continue post covid-19.

Furthermore, 62 percent of employees say they wouldn’t even consider a new employer who doesn’t have a flexible working policy. 81 percent of people surveyed said that a company that allows for flexible working is really important to them when looking at future roles. 

Offer Your Employees Practical Support

Navigating the post-covid world and negotiating a hybrid working balance that is beneficial to both employers and employees is now an important consideration for all businesses. Those who don’t support staff in their desire to maintain a flexible work situation will find themselves at risk of losing some of their most talented employees. 

However, just agreeing to your employees working flexibly isn’t enough; it’s about supporting them to work effectively and productively from anywhere. Research shows that both employers and employees get the best out of hybrid working when their home office reflects the ergonomics of a traditional office environment. 

Be A Leader for Your Employees Not a Boss

Very few people want to be leaders, but everyone wants to be the boss. Remember, though, that people follow leaders, while they abandon bosses. A boss is a dime a dozen while leaders are rare.

It is important to make sure you have a clear direction towards the future. Good leaders let employees know where the company is headed. Bosses don’t share information and leave employees wondering if there’s good or bad coming down the pipe and if they should be concerned.

A leader also believes in the importance of people. A great leader considers employees their most important asset. Bosses are more focused on numbers.

A great leader also Inspires confidence in his employees. Good leaders make employees feel confident about their ability to lead them to a good place. Bosses on the other hand have a tendency to inspire passive-aggressive frustration as employees question the decisions that have been made that have affected them negatively.

Realise That Counteroffers Don’t Always Lead To Retention

Attempts made by businesses trying to retain employees by making a counteroffer are falling short. Recently published research has discovered that of the 50 percent who do accept the counteroffer will resign from their position of employment within the next 12 months.

According to the research, 82 percent of business leaders surveyed are concerned about retaining employees in 2021. 

To fight the issue, many are finding themselves extending counteroffers in an attempt to retain employees. Despite this, 52 percent of employees who accept a counteroffer leave in a year or less. Of these employees who leave one in five leaves in less than six months.

Counteroffers are more often a tool to assist the employer. Particularly in a competitive market, it can be tempting to make counteroffers in order to retain institutional knowledge and avoid the resource-intensive exercise of recruiting, onboarding and training a new employee.

The fact that a counteroffer is designed as a tool for the employer, rather than the employee, is the major reasons why counteroffers are an ineffective retention strategy.

Although offering a salary increase may seem like a cost-saving initiative, a counteroffer doesn’t necessarily advance the career of the employee, so in most cases, the employer is still left with a dissatisfied employee who was motivated to leave the organisation in the first place.

Rather than being reliant on reactive counteroffers to address staff retention, business should be looking at their existing retention strategies as a proactive mechanism to ensure employees feel satisfied, valued, and therefore less likely to court competing offers.

Some more effective strategies could include conducting regular salary reviews to ensure their compensation is competitive, establishing clear career paths with individual employees to help their progression and reduce the appeal of a competing title change, and offer flexible working arrangements to support employee work/life balance.

Important Things to Consider Before You Launch a New Business

Posted by Emily Ridley

Launching a new business can overwhelming and is full of risks. It takes a lot more than just a great idea to launch a successful business, you need to surround with a good team, you need a good level of finances, a savvy marketing plan and so much more. Here is a list of important things to consider before you launch your new business.

What Problem Are You Trying to Solve and Who Is Your Target Audience?

For a business idea or product to be valuable it must help people in a way that they are currently not being helped. Asking yourself what problem can your product or service solve is essential to achieving business success.

It would be a good idea to undertake some research into what challenges people are facing and find one that is common, unsolved and which you could provide a profitable solution for. You also need to put yourself into the mindset of someone who refuses to accept the status quo and has an ambition of making the world a better place

If you already have a product or service idea, do some research to make sure it solves an existing problem.

Do Some Research and Figure Out Who Is Your Target Audience

It is crucial for you to figure out who the main competitors are within your niche? It doesn’t matter as much if you are entering a saturated marketplace if you have a established a strong purpose and a unique selling point that aims to solve a problem that people are begging to be solved.

When undertaking research for your business idea make sure you, search for communities of consumers relating to your area. What are the main pain points consumers want solving that you could provide solutions for?

Take into consideration factors such as; age, gender, social economic status and any hobbies and interests your target audience predominately have.

Also take into consider any factors such as how they communicate. Are they all on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or is email the best way to keep in contact with them?

In terms of geography, it would be wise to ask yourself what areas of the world does your ideal customer live in? Are you targeting audiences in a specific location like an estate agent might be, or is your audience spread around the world across a large variety of different cultures and time zones?

Create A Strong Business Plan and Strong Marketing Campaign

This may seem like an obvious thing to do but it’s often overlooked. Although it’s unlikely that your business will follow the exact path outlined in your business plan, it provides a way to focus your mind, come up with concrete goals to shoot for, and plan your finances in advance. This is also a great way to secure investment by showing potential funders that you know exactly what you’re doing.

Ask yourself what are your goals for the first few years and what do you hope to achieve within a certain timeframe?

Ask yourself what is your budget and how much money can you afford to spend on things such as; marketing and to hire new staff?

No matter how good your idea is, you’re going to need to run a marketing campaign that is highly impactful to keep new leads coming in, raise brand awareness, and advertise your services.

Do research into the main advertising mediums for your niche, what works for your industry and what marketing tactics doesn’t. Ask questions such as, are short term or long term marketing campaigns the way to go?

Once you know the kind of campaigns you are going to run, you should investigate the cost of running them and scope out the agencies and platforms that will help you get your campaigns off the ground.

Have Your Finances Organised

You need to have a realistic expectation of how much your business will cost and have 100 percent certainty that you know where that money is going to come from.

Don’t waste your time starting a new business if you don’t have the money to sustain it. Build up reserves of cash wherever possible. If you already have a regular flow of income, set aside some of it for contingencies; you never know when you’ll be bit by a surprise bill, have a major client drop out, or have a supplier raise their prices on you.

Have A Backup Plan in Case Your Business Fails to Succeed

In the unfortunate event where your business fails you don’t want to end up stuck with a warehouse full of products that you are unable to sell or a mountain of debts you can’t pay off. Before you start your business, you should make the sensible decisions to ask yourself “if everything goes wrong and my business fails, what’s the worse that will happen?”

You need to consider this question very seriously and know what the honest answer is. Maybe you can sell off your capital assets so that you’re not left with a massive financial loss. This is where it’s important you didn’t tell your boss to shove it before going solo, because you may need to ask for your old job back if things don’t work out.

Starting a business involves a serious amount of risk but, in many ways, it’s never been easier to do so. Many new businesses begin lives as internet-based projects until they have the capital to expand and today there are more ways to advertise your services than ever before.

How Your Small Business Can Become More Eco-Friendly

Posted by Emily Ridley

In recent years customers have become more conscious about the impact their purchases are having on the environment. If you are the owner of a small business, it is highly recommended that you evaluate the impact your business methods are having on the environment. By making any effort to do this your customers will be impressed and it will make you appear more trustworthy and respectable.

Here are some tips to help your business become more eco-friendly.

Use More Sustainable Products

The items companies purchase to ensure their workplaces function well be it printer paper, cleaning products or to-go containers can be toxic to the environment due to the processes that go into making them. 

For all those paper items commonly used, such as rolls of toilet paper and reams of printer paper, office managers can look for labelling that says it is made from post or pre-consumer waste. Recycled products such as these maintain a circular economy and reduce overall waste.

For cleaning products, there is a whole cottage industry of green cleaners that don’t include toxic chemicals, opting instead for natural ingredients that work just as well. Using these products keeps toxic ingredients out of the streams and their waste out of landfills. 

Write a sustainability page or policy

A brilliant way to share your sustainability values and efforts with both your customers and your staff is to create a sustainability policy or page and have it published on your website.

If you’re a business with many staff, a policy outlining the goals and steps to becoming more sustainable will help make sure that everyone who works at your organisation is on the same page. Your policy can literally be “Our organisation is aspiring to become eco-friendlier, here are the actions everyone in the business is required to take and the values that need to be considered when making future decisions within our business.”

If your business has a website, adding a sustainability page will help outline your values for your customers and explain what steps you’re taking to become a more conscious business.

This page can consist of a list of steps you’re both currently doing, and a list of steps your organisation is moving towards. Sustainability can be a work in progress, too as long as you’re moving in the right direction. If you don’t wish to have a whole page about your sustainability police, you can simply add a blurb or paragraph to your “About page”, “Values page” or even a blog or a post on your social media platforms.

Offer Your Employees the Opportunity to Work Remotely

Because we live in a world where it is possible for more work to be completed online, there is less need for people to be in a physical office. Remote work has taken off over the past few years, allowing employees to have work-life flexibility and substantially reducing their time spent commuting. 

Working from home has become a hugely popular lifestyle for millions of employees around the world during the covid-19 pandemic. By maintaining and expanding the number of employees working from home, emissions from commutes are greatly reduced. The less cars on the road the less emissions.

Give Your Staff Public Transport Commuter Benefits

When employees do need to be in the office, how their commute contributes to greenhouse gas emissions still can be influenced. 

Public transportation (buses, trains, vanpools) is the greenest way to commute, and companies can encourage employees to take advantage of these transport options.

Small businesses can provide employees with public transit benefits that help the environment, either directly or through their human resources (HR) software. 

To provide these benefits directly, many city transit agencies offer subsidized passes for businesses. Alternately, these benefits may be available to add through HR software that centralizes all benefit programs.

Encourage Your Employees and Customers to Make Environmentally Friendly Purchases

Many car companies are encouraging their employees to go electric when choosing a new car. Many businesses are incentivising employees to buy an electric car by providing them with a monthly voucher covering a portion of their lease or finance payment. Some businesses are encouraging carpooling to and from the office. Some businesses have switched to all LED lighting in their offices and have installed solar panels to offset their energy usage.

Tips For Making More Money in The Share Economy

Posted by Emily Ridley

Thanks to the advancements of digital technology having multiple sources of income and having a number of different side hustles to support yourself has never been easier. The share economy is allowing people from all over the world to make extra money on top of their normal 9 to 5 job. Here are some ways Australians can take advantage of the share economy and make extra money.

Airbnb

Airbnb is a significantly popular way for Australians to make additional income on the side. With this in mind it is important to think about and look out for a number of tax implications associated with Airbnb.

Airbnb provides Australians with a fantastic opportunity to rent out that spare room without the long-term commitment. It can also be a handy way to lease a holiday home that would be quiet for much of the year.

Rent Out Your Pool

Making sure that your pool remains sparkling and algae-free certainly isn’t a cheap process however there’s a way to get these backyard swimming spots earning their keep.

Some people are making anywhere between $5,000 and $10,000 a month or $30,000 a year by letting people rent out their pool on a platform called Swimply.

Rent out Your Garage or Shed

Empty sheds or garages can also be rented out via a platform called Spacer. Help a hoarder out and earn around $400 a month, or potentially around $4,800 a year.

Spacer can be best described as is an online marketplace for self-storage. The platform was founded in 2015 and based in Sydney. Spacer allows people to rent excess space to other people. Spacer has similar features to Airbnb and ride-sharing apps.

Uber and Other Rideshare Apps

Uber has become a popular way for Australians to earn additional income. However, drivers can find themselves potentially getting into serious tax related problems unless they do it right.

The concept of being an Uber driver is unique and gives drivers a flexible opportunity to earn additional income for anyone who owns a good quality car.

Other popular Rideshare apps available in Australia include; Didi and Ola.

There is also a rideshare app called Shebah. Shebah brands itself as the only all-woman rideshare company in Australia. The purpose of Shebah is to offer safe and secure rides for women by women. Women, women with children, and men travelling with kids are permitted to ride. Men aren’t allowed to ride shotgun via Shebah.

Rent Out Undercover Car Spots

For the past 12 months, Charlotte Ward has been renting out two undercover car spots at her home in Bondi Junction in Sydney’s eastern suburbs for $240 a month via a platform called Parkhound.

She says that the extra $480 she makes each motnhs month allowed her and her housemate, who both don’t drive, to leverage the extra earnings they made through Parkhound to snag a better rental than they would otherwise have been able to afford.

It can be revealed that people renting out their empty car spaces on the app earn on average $300 a month, or $3,600 a year.

Ward is no stranger to the sharing economy. Back in the days of overseas travel, she used to rent out her room on Airbnb to help fund her trips.

“I think people can make extra money just from the existing assets that they have that they might not realise,” says Charlotte Ward.

Take Care of Someone’s Dog or Cat

Another way to make money via the share economy is to look after someone’s pet dog or cat when they are on holidays.

This can be done by signing up to a service called Mad Paws. Mad Paws can be best described as a Pet Sitting service through which a pet care professional minds your dog, cat, puppy, bird, or other pet.

All depending on the preferences of the Pet Owner, Pet Sitting can occur either at the owner’s house or at the sitter’s house.

In the case of the former, pet sitters can offer pet house sitting, by which they mind your home and your pet. Pet sitting can span for as long as the pet owner needs, from overnight to months at a time. Pet Sitting is also sometimes known as Dog Boarding, Cat Boarding, or Pet Boarding.

How To Ask for And Receive Customer Feedback to Improve Your Business

Posted by Emily Ridley

Australian Businesses Are Offering Employees Massive Incentives to Combat The Great Resignation

Posted by Emily Ridley

Millions of Australian workers are preparing to quit their jobs in the upcoming months. To try and entice workers from quitting, employers are making an effort to offer a number of incentives to try and convince their workers to stay.

One Australian organisation offer $6,000 to all of their 200 employees to spend on anything they want in order to prevent a mass exodus of employees as the Great Resignation looms in Australia.

The Great Resignation has been occurring in America with everyone from frontline workers to senior executives quitting their jobs as people seek out flexibility, work that aligns with their values and companies that treat them as humans.

Linktree is a social media start-up that has the backing of billionaire Afterpay co-founder Nick Molnar, is offering an annual $6000 reward for staff to spend across four pillars, including wellness, personal growth, lifestyle and impact.

Linktree is working in a fiercely competitive space for employees with a crippling shortage in the industry, as Deloitte Access Economics estimates Australia will need to upskill an extra 200,000 tech workers over the next few years.

A Linktree employee named Hannah has said that she is very impressed with the rewards program and she describes the $6,000 incentive as a “pay rise but with more intention”.

She plans to spend the money on personal growth courses that will help her with her wellbeing and also spend the money on a gym membership and massages.

She is also planning to spend the money to help the environment. “I have always wanted to get solar power for the house and I will use some of this to go towards powering it. It’s a big investment but the rewards program is giving me the opportunity to do it sooner,” says Hannah.

Hannah says it is the best employee incentive she has ever heard of and ever received from an employer.

“It definitely highlights how much that Linktree actually cares about its employees mental and physical health, both in and outside of work. One of the pillars that we could select to spend benefits on was priorities outside of work like cleaning, which I thought was really cool as people’s priorities are really different, and there’s the flexibility there,” says Hannah.

Defying the ordinary was one of the core values of Linktree, said its head of people operations Emily Moore, and implementing the rewards program was a fantastic feeling for employees after a tough few years with Covid.

“Right now many people are re-evaluating what is really important to them and making changes in their lives they may have been putting off prior to the pandemic. We want our employees to be able to bring their best ‘whole selves’ to work and truly believe in creating policies and initiatives that enable them to achieve just that,” says Emily Moore.

Other employers have been scrambling to offer their employees some major perks to stand out from the crowd and entice newcomers or keep current employees.

Some of the incentives range from heartbreak leave, time off for cultural celebrations, free cooking classes, shares in the company and more time out when having a child.

Fintech company Finder introduced five days paid leave for life’s big events on top of its annual and sick leave entitlements.

The $56 billion Aussie design company Canva introduced a vibe and thrive allowance for all workers, which can be spent on everything from gym memberships, home office set ups, social celebrations, wellbeing and education.

Financial technology company, Iress, has introduced more leave for staff, who will be able to take up to six long weekends each year, with no impact on their current annual leave balance or pay.

Important Information About The NSW Government’s JobSaver 2.0 Support Package

Posted by Emily Ridley

Qualities That Every Great Accountant Should Have

Posted by Emily Ridley

An accountant that is highly valuable should have a large range of skills that play a vital role in helping your business become more successful. Here is a list of qualities that will help you determine how valuable your accountant is.

They Are Highly Organised

An accountant that is highly valuable should always be able to keep your bookkeeping records updated. At the end of each month, they should be able to show you how much revenue you have earned and how much revenue you spent based on the documents they’ve kept within the month. They should also be able to use these documents to show you whether you actually made a profit or not.

Furthermore, the ability of the accountant to stay organised will also make it easy for you to access financial documents whenever needed, ensuring that your business doesn’t end up paying fines because of misplaced or missing documents.

They Think of Money as Numbers

For many people money can have an emotional value, this often influences whether you decide to save or spend. A high quality however, understands that money represents numbers or figures to manage. Regarding money this way helps accountants take the emotion out of managing finances. Being able to think of money in terms of numbers only is among the most important qualities of an accountant.

They Are Patient

A high-quality accountant must have a lot of patience for their clients. It takes a long time to complete accounting tasks and explain the entire process to their clients. It is highly advised that you only work with an accountant that you know will remain patient all the time.

If your accountant is impatient, it’ll be challenging for you to get your business’s bookkeeping right or learn how accounting works. How can you get answers to your accounting-related questions if your accountant doesn’t remain calm? Do you think you can actually understand how your business’s accounting works if this is the case?

It is therefore vital that you pick a patient accountant to ensure that your business’s books are accurate and you’ll be able to learn about the entire process.

They Have Great Communication Skills

Communication is one of the key soft skills that might not seem all that important for accountants, but this is not the case. Being, an accountant means having to explain finances and financial information to clients or co-workers who are unfamiliar with accounting terms. If you’re good at explaining difficult or complicated concepts in simple, easy-to-understand terms, this is an excellent quality to have as an accountant.

They Are Reliable and Trustworthy

Clients should know that they can depend on their accountant to complete work or handle financial data carefully. Being reliable and trustworthy are important personality traits to have if you plan on working as an accountant or any other profession.

They Are Detail Orientated

A key characteristic of a great accountant is that they should be very detail-oriented. An accountant must have the ability to take a large amount of information and summarize it in an understandable manner so that the average person can understand.

A good accountant will also be able to present their findings in a way that’ll make it easy for their customers to understand. This includes presenting their findings in such a manner that the information can be easily understood by the customer.

They Embrace New Technology and Are Up to Date with The Latest Accounting Trends

One of the best qualities an accountant can have is the ability to keep up on the latest trends relating to accounting. As a customer and business owner, you should make sure that you are working with an accountant that’s well informed about the current trends in the industry. Having this quality is vital for a business’ success because trends change regularly, and being outdated with these trends can take a toll on your business’ daily operations.

An accountant who knows the latest trends in accounting can give an unbiased opinion that will make it easier for your business to flourish and succeed in the long term.

NSW Government Announces $1 Billion Support Package to Help Businesses Impacted by Omicron

Posted by Emily Ridley

As businesses across the country struggle to cope with the current wave of Omicron cases, the NSW government has announced a $1 billion support package to help the state fast track its economic recovery from the latest outbreak.

The support packages aim is to target businesses that currently have a turnover that’s less than $50 million and a 40 percent decline in turnover during the month of January 2022. The package will also provide support to assist businesses with purchasing rapid antigen tests.

The NSW Government will also provide $80 million to support the performing arts sector which has suffered significantly during the course of the pandemic.

Applications for the support package will open in mid-February and business that are eligible for the funding will be given a payment of 20 percent of their weekly payroll, up to $5,000 each week.

NSW Treasurer Matt Kean outlined that the past few months had been difficult for small businesses across the state but said the “comprehensive business package” would help them get “through to the other side”.

Mr. Kean also spoke about his disappointment in the lack of financial assistance provided by the federal government to help businesses during the current covid-19 omicron wave.

“I was hoping to make this announcement standing beside the Prime Minister today and the Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, but they’re not to be found. These are not just New South Wales businesses, they’re Australian businesses, Australians that pay their taxes to the Commonwealth government. So, what we want to see is rather than the Commonwealth government stepping aside we want to see the Commonwealth government stepping in,” says NSW Treasurer Matt Kean.

Mr. Kean continued to outline that the money from the support package would be directed to “those parts of the economy that are really struggling”.

“Those businesses that ply their trade through face-to-face trading, things like hairdressers, nail salons, the tourist industry and also hospitality and bricks and mortar retail, “says Matt Kean.

Dom Perrottet the NSW Premier expressed the opinion that businesses across NSW are currently doing better than he expected them to be doing during the current Omicron wave and that confidence is finally starting to return to the market.

“And as we did with earlier recoveries, we will come through this recent challenge stronger than ever. We’ve got the backs of businesses, as we have throughout this entire pandemic,” says NSW Premier Dom Perrottet.

The support package will include a topping up of the Small Business Fees and Charges Rebate from the current $2,000 limit to a new limit of $3,000.

The rebate will be expanded so it can also be used to subsidise the cost of rapid antigen tests by 50 per cent, but it will not be retrospective.

Wes Lambert, the chief executive of Restaurant and Catering Australia, has expressed praise for the newly announced grants but shared the Treasurer’s concern over the Federal Governments lack of involvement.

“It’s very important that we continue to advocate for additional funding from the federal government. We would have liked them to have supported the New South Wales government in this support package but we certainly thank the Treasurer and the Premier’s office for releasing this package today,” says Wes Lambert, the chief executive of Restaurant and Catering Australia.

Emerge Advisory