Speed to place
Every day that a key vacancy remains unfilled, your other employees must do double duty. And your company misses profit opportunities or competitive advantages because this position remains vacant or is done on a part-time basis by others less qualified.
AB Talent’s experienced recruiters use professional expertise, established business networks and advanced candidate matching technology to place the right people quickly. We have a large talent pool to draw from, and we don’t waste your time with inappropriate candidates.
Skills focus
If you need an apprentice or trainee to build up your own talent bank then you’ve come to the right place. With over 10 years experience in the sign up and management of Australian Apprenticeships*, we can find the right candidate for your apprenticeship & traineeship needs, test their suitability and process all the government paperwork to ensure you benefit from the available government funding rebates.
Both current and new employees can be eligible for apprenticeships & traineeships, so you can offer both good career paths and new jobs to the right people.
Total solution
We’re not just a recruitment agency — we’re a recruitment solution. We find you the right people to meet your business requirements.
AB Talent is owned by NSW Business Chamber, so you benefit from our long history of servicing & supporting Australian businesses. We draw on many resources, consultants, products & services to offer you recruitment solutions above & beyond any Australian recruitment agency — all at a very competitive price.
We listen to your needs, write and publish your ad on key job sites and search our large talent pool. We then provide you with a shortlist that rates candidates from 1 to 5 stars according to specific attributes, skills and experience.
We also offer:
- access to candidates via Skillsroad, a dedicated apprenticeship and traineeship job board and careers site for school leavers and Gen Y job seekers.
- sophisticated candidate matching technology
- NSW Business Chamber and ABLAC’s extensive networks, career events, industry partners and contacts
- over 100 field consultants at work in the business community each day
- Criminal Conviction / Working with Children checks
- a range of tests ranging from numeracy & literacy through to IQ & EQ measuring
- experienced recruiters who manage the whole process for you.
* ‘Australian Apprenticeships’ is the Government’s collective name for traineeships and apprenticeships.
The ability to attract and retain top talent is vital to achieving your business goals. Whether you are a small, medium or large business, you can attract good staff if you provide the right working conditions.
Once you have the right person in the job you want to keep them. Losing key staff is a costly business — some estimates state that losing a middle manager costs the company their annual salary in lost productivity, paying out entitlements, retraining, loss of business continuity and opportunity.
Employers recognise that employees now have a higher mobility, especially Gen Y’s who can average a move annually. What’s more, in Australia (as in other parts of the western world), we are not replacing our ageing work force with the equivalent numbers of new recruits.
Reduced employee turnover is dependent on the quality of the overall work environment you provide for your employees.
Good working conditions
Employers are becoming more creative and flexible in providing a safe and stimulating environment for their team. The benefits are greater loyalty, improved productivity, improved morale, safety and reduced absenteeism.
A stimulating workplace
The Google, eBay & Seek offices provide ‘thinking’ and recreational areas, competitions & social events for their staff & cool incentives to reward great results. Not all companies have the funds or aspire to emulate Google but many recognise the key message: employers need to provide a place where people want to come to work. A place where they know they are valued and good work is rewarded.
A safe workplace
For many businesses, managing safety can be at the bottom of the list of priorities. For many others, the realisation that good safety equals good business sense (and saves considerable amounts of money), has driven them to implement practices to reduce injuries and control hazards.
There are also hidden or indirect costs associated with accidents. These have been estimated to be ten times the direct or financial costs, and include lower productivity, damaged equipment, machine downtime, investigation and administration costs and many others.
Simple steps
Safety is not always easy to address in a business, especially when you are strapped for people to do the work, or running on a tight budget. Lots of businesses however, have addressed safety by starting out with a few simple steps:
Communication
First of all, start by communicating with other people in the business your intent to address safety and for everyone to be involved. This gets people talking, and thinking, about safety, and is an important step in improving awareness. Communicate safety in every meeting you have internally, whether it is with other managers, supervisors, directors, employees, contractors, or casuals.
Hazard spotting
The next step is to look for hazards in the workplace, and this can be achieved in a number of ways, for example using an inspection checklist, asking people to report hazards to you, reviewing your injury records to identify causes, and asking others to identify hazardous situations or processes. After hazards have been identified, they should be addressed so that they do not cause injuries.
Source information on OHS
Hazard identification and control is only part of the process of implementing a safe workplace, as there may also be specific legislative requirements, which also need to be addressed. These include first aid, manual handling, hazardous substances, confined spaces, noise, certificates of competency for operators of industrial machinery (eg. forklifts), and others.
There are also various standards and codes of practice which you may need to know about.
Plan your attack
Once you have scoped the size of the safety requirements in your workplace, it is a good idea to have a plan of attack. Start by listing the issues you want to address. This could be a list of a few pages, but don’t be overwhelmed. It is common for businesses to become overwhelmed by the amount and detail of the requirements which need to be addressed.
Following the scoping exercise, set the order of priority which you want to follow to make changes and improvements. This order can be determined by looking at the most common type of injury, the most dangerous to the people at the workplace, and the most probable to cause an injury.
Action plan and implementation
Once you have set priorities, look at who can be involved in getting the work done. If you have a team or committee to work together, it may be easier to address the issues compared to one person doing it. Using a team approach also builds commitment to safety by a number of people and helps to spread the word to others.
Preparing a plan of action is the next step, and this should be covered from two angles. One is the ad-hoc or ‘fire-fighting’ of daily safety issues, whereby the supervisor would address a hazard which is raised from time to time. The other is the program for the company, which would address the legislation requirements, and well as elements of your safety system, including training, supervision, maintenance, inspection, information, record keeping, reporting of hazards and injuries, and documentation of these processes.
Setting dates in your action plan will help you to keep track of the achievements made in the business, and is useful in reviewing whether you have been too ambitious or not ambitious enough in your objectives.
Review your progress
It is a worthwhile exercise to chart your progress over the months and years. This will help to consolidate what you have achieved, what worked and did not work, and to demonstrate the implementation process in your business.
Source: WorkplaceOHS 9 March 2007
Work-life balance
A good work-life balance will not only keep employees healthier and more satisfied, but is a key factor in attracting and retaining staff.
Converge International CEO Dr Lindsay McMillan considers that an imbalance between work and life can result in a declining quality of life, loss of community, erosion of relationships and resentment.
‘If workplaces are to avoid harvesting this kind of negative atmosphere then they really need to take serious consideration of these trends and begin concerning themselves with negotiating and transforming the current pattern of “work–life collision” into one of “work–life balance”,’ he said.
‘Any employer who is serious about signing up the best talent available, maintaining low levels of staff turnover and securing their business for tomorrow will recognise the need to do something about work–life balance now.’ (WorkplaceInfo, 24 September 2008)
Employers' checklist
Use these recommendations to help improve your work-life balance program:
- ‘Acknowledge that employees whose work and personal lives are balanced bring significant flow-on benefits for organisations.
- Improved organisational commitment
- Reduced turnover and higher retention
- Reduced absenteeism
- Change the widespread perception that visibility = productivity.
- Focus on effectiveness rather than length of work hours
- Consider the benefits to the organisation of having employees physically present for less time (ie overhead savings - electricity/office space, reduced absenteeism)
- Recognise that to be at their best, employees need to view their work as personally meaningful.
- Examine the type of work that each employee undertakes and attempt to maximise satisfaction by providing task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback.
- Be open and creative when thinking about how jobs or tasks might be shared, broken up, done differently, re-allocated or performed at different times or locations.
- Ensure formal policies are consistent with what employees actually experience. Policy provision alone is not sufficient to ensure employees’ work–life balance.
- Senior managers need to ‘walk the talk’ and demonstrate that balancing paid work and non-work activities is positive, necessary for physical and psychological health and will not damage career prospects.
- Educate managers and supervisors about how to promote flexible work practices and work–life balance
- Adopt a ‘give and take’ philosophy. Both employer and employee need to be willing to bend a little.
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- It is important for both parties to engage the idea and be flexible in their approach.
- An employee with a flexible work from home arrangement will benefit from less travel time and cost, while the organisation will benefit in that the employee will have access to a large block of uninterrupted work.’
Source: ‘Work–life balance important — so is money!’ (Hudson research) WorkplaceInfo, 14 August 2007.
Flexible work practices
Flexible work practices are essential to achieving an effective work-life balance. Depending on the nature of your business, staff numbers and preferences, you could make some of the following arrangements with your staff:
- flexible start and finish times
- flexible rostering or scheduling
- flexible leave arrangements
- regular part-time work
- make up time
- rostered days off
- regular or occasional working from home
- job-sharing
- nine day fortnights/compressed working week.
Another option might be to work longer hours over fewer days – see the article ‘Four-day work week boosts productivity: study’ published on WorkplaceInfo, 25 August 2008)
Work from home
One of the most popular work-life balance strategies is allowing staff to work from home. This may be a planned day to complete a specific project, for example, or a useful option for when children are sick. Some employers prefer their staff to be productive at home rather than sitting in the traffic for an hour or more. Research supports the work from home option as a way to reduce absenteeism, promote flexibility and boost staff morale.
10 tips for improving the work environment
- Be specific about the role. A satisfied employee knows clearly what is expected.
- Develop consistent and transparent workplace policies.
- Provide a stimulating and enjoyable environment where people want to come to work.
- Value your employees’ efforts, skills and contributions.
- Provide training and career development opportunities. A motivated employee wants to contribute to work areas outside their specific job description.
- Foster an environment where free speech and innovative ideas are encouraged & valued.
- Ensure quality supervision — this is critical to employee retention.
- Provide skills-based training to managers.
- Introduce health promotion/cost subsidy items and other benefits.
- Allow for volunteer work support/time off.
Useful resources
The Australian Government has published a series of fact sheets on flexible work practices and family friendly policies. They provide information on different types of flexible working arrangements which may help balance work and personal needs.
Benefits
Many employers have found that more flexible work practices help reduce staff turnover, lower workers compensation costs and reduce absenteeism.
Greenslopes Private Hospital, a National Work and Family Award winner in 2005, found that investing in better work and family initiatives led to a 5.5% reduction in employee turnover and a 23% reduction in workers' compensation costs.
St. George Bank, winner of the 2007 Gold Award – Private Sector in the 2007 National Work and Family Awards, introduced a suite of flexible workplace initiatives.
‘ Flexible start and finish times, job-sharing, working from home and study leave provisions are now part of the day-to-day operations of the Bank. Transition from work to retirement is made easier with access to a range of flexible work options. New parents are able to access 13 weeks paid parental leave and can return from parental leave on a part-time basis until their child reaches school age.
Management at St. George believe that these initiatives have delivered real benefits for the organisation and its employees, resulting in reduced staff turnover, increased employee satisfaction and reduced absenteeism.’
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Business Council of Australia
National Work and Family Awards 2007
