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Posts Tagged ‘australian workers’

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.

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.

245,600 Jobs Across Australia Were Advertised Online in December 2021

Posted by Emily Ridley

The current demand for jobs in farming, animal and planet specialists is at a record high in Australia. CommSec senior economist Ryan Felsman outlined that the unusually high summer rainfall in regional areas had boosted employment openings.

‘With the end of the drought, significant rainfall, improved seasonal growing conditions, elevated soft commodity prices and strong global demand for food and beverages, demand for farmers, skilled animal and horticultural workers have all surged with job ads at record highs, says CommSec senior economist Ryan Felsman.

There were over 250 farmer related jobs advertised on the internet last month. This is a record for jobs advertised online since stats were first complied in January 2006.

Records were also set for skilled animal and horticultural workers with 1,606 jobs advertised, and jewellers, arts and other trades 1,157 jobs advertised.

Australian workers are also needed to care for others, with the current demand at record levels for health and welfare support workers at 2,095 ads and carers and aides with 11,905 ads.

The hospitality sector is also in desperate need of staff with 9,847 ads for hospitality workers and another 3,462 jobs currently available for food preparation assistants.

The major reason for so many new job positions being advertised is because restaurants and cafes had hired staff since the Delta outbreak lockdowns, and consumers began to show more desire to dine out again despite the spread of Omicron.

“’Australia’s labour market is tightening, despite recent disruptions caused by the surge in Covid-19 Omicron virus variant infections,” says Ryan Felsman.

In December 2021, 245,600 jobs were advertised online, marking a 46 percent increase when compared with the number of jobs advertised in February 2020 before the pandemic. 

In 2021, job advertisements climbed by 37.4 percent or 66,900, with the Nationals Skills Commission compiling data from employment site Seek. 

Australia’s Unemployment Rate Drops to The Lowest Level Since 2008

The unemployment rate in Australia has surprisingly dropped to 4.2 percent in December 2021 from the figures of 4.6 percent recorded in the previous month. The drop means that Australia is currently experiencing it’s lowest recorded levels of unemployment since 2008.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed that 64,800 people joined the workforce in December 2021 in a further recovery from last year’s Covid-19 lockdowns in NSW, Victoria and the ACT.

“Recovery in NSW and Victoria continued to have a large influence on the national figures, with employment in these two states increasing by 32,000 and 25,000 people between November and December,” says ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis.

These figures takes employment back to where it was in May 2021 for these two states.

Bjorn Jarvis said the latest report provides an indication of the state of the labour market in the first two weeks of December, before the large increase in virus cases later in the month.

BIS Oxford Economics chief economist Sarah Hunter believes that based on the economic experiences of overseas nations it is suggested that the impact of the Omicron variant will be significant but short-lived, and less economically damaging than previous waves.

“Overall, the unemployment rate is set to remain below 4.5 per cent this year, and with businesses still looking to add staff this will create further upward pressure on wages and domestic inflationary pressure. Today’s data reinforces our view that the RBA will tighten the cash rate much earlier than they are currently signalling,” says Sarah Hunter.

4.2 percent is the lowest since August 2008 which was recorded just prior to the start of the global financial crisis when records were 4.0 percent.

Emerge Advisory