Recruitment

A seismic shift that’s likely to impact many companies’ remuneration and benefits policies, occurred last Thursday. Accounting and business advisory firm, KPMG raised the bar with its paid parental leave scheme — extending it to 26 weeks, with no “primary” or “secondary” carer qualifying status and offering it to all Australian employees, regardless of tenure.…

The hospitality sector around the globe seems to be in collective shock. The sector that (along with the related sectors of agriculture, tourism, events, arts, sport, and leisure) bore the most significant economic impact of the COVID-19 shutdowns is now struggling to attract workers back to the sector now that jobs are readily available again.…

I come from a family of teachers. My mother was a physical education teacher and each of my three sisters entered the teaching profession (one a primary school teacher and both of my twin sisters became high school teachers). Two of my uncles were high school teachers, one becoming a highly-regarded principal. I regard myself…

Last Tuesday the US Government reported that Americans were quitting their jobs in record numbers, with the data recording 3.952 million US workers leaving their employment in April, surpassing the previous record for this century of 3.591 million employee departures in July 2019. Recent surveys of employee sentiment suggest that this spike in the data…

National business and economic activity data released in the past week confirm the ongoing strength of the 2021 economic recovery. To save you the hassle of combing through the ABS’s national accounts data and the May update on the Labour Market Information Portal I have cherry-picked the most relevant data and graphs for recruiters and…

Twenty-one years ago I received the most significant promotion of my career. I was elevated from the role of GM, Adelaide (1 business unit, five staff) to GM, Sydney (4 business units, 30 staff). The company was going through a significant transition after Greg Savage’s departure the previous year and, after expecting to be in…

Last Friday night my wife and I went to the Palais Theatre in St Kilda to see comedian Urzila Carlson’s show; Token African. We, along with nearly three thousand other patrons, laughed non-stop at Carlson’s 80 minute stand-up routine. After the show, it occurred to me that one of the things that I missed most…

Recruitment-specific books by local authors have always been thin on the ground. Geoff Morgan and Andrew Bank’s Flourish and Prosper, Greg Savage’s The Savage Truth and Mandy Johnson’s Winning The War for Talent are the three I know. All three are excellent and I highly recommend each of them. Equivalent books for job-seekers, written by local authors, have been equally…

The contradictory messages being heard around the job market make for a confusing time for both jobseekers and employers. Last month both vacancies and job ads reached record highs in Australia. Discouraged jobseekers have returned with the labour force participation rate also reaching a record high last month. The number of unemployed jobseekers per vacancy…

Last century I often heard the business strategist mantra of “Quality; speed; price: Pick two.” The general reasoning being that it was nigh on impossible for a business to be profitable delivering a high quality product, quickly and at a low price. In the new century internet entrepreneurs such as Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Tony…