RECRUITMENT

GWSRR
“On the employer side the the employer doesn’t know what the business
will look like in five years.” - David Pring.
WWW.WSBA.COM.AU
“
In addition to all of the skills....is how
resilient is someone to working in an
environment of change. We all tend to
dislike change. We all like security.”
- David Pring.
GWSRR in action.
Continued from page 25
Nicole Karagiannis: When looking for
quality staff, the important person in that
equation is – firstly, if you look at it from the
consumer end, really, what do we do? We
offer a service for our patients or consumers.
So, they’re important – they’re the ones at
the heart of what we’re doing or looking for.
Therefore, to be looking for quality staff, we
need to have our patients’ needs at the centre
of that search, really. Secondly, our employees
or future employees our assets. So, if we’re
people in the business of looking after people,
that becomes very much our asset.
Jim Taggart: Scott how do you feel about
Nicole’s response there – you know, in terms
of employer/employee? You’re in the recruitment
industry – profession. Who is the significant
player in that relationship with you?
Scott Henshaw: My immediate thought
was: I don’t think either is more important
than the other. I mean, for a talented professional
in the market to secure a role that he
or she enjoys, is motivated and willing to
support their ongoing professional development,
it’s about finding the right employer
for them. To say that the employer is more
important than the candidate in that equation,
I just don’t think marries up. I think they are as
equally important components for the success
and longevity of the relationship.
Jim Taggart: David, you deal with a
number of organisations. How do you feel
about that, when they come to you and you’re
looking at their balance sheet and their profit
and loss and so on, and they say X, Y and Z,
does staff come up as an important part of that
equation?
David Pring: Certainly when you’re
looking at a business and the strengths of the
business, sure, you have a balance sheet and
assets. One of the big issues that always comes
up in determining the value of an organisation
is its assembled workforce. And that’s really
an intangible asset. It’s not recorded on the
balance sheet. It’s not recorded anywhere. But,
in terms of determining value, organisations
will look at what that assembled workforce is
and what the intangible value that that actually
brings – or part of the market value that forms
in addition to its assets.
Michael Walls: What does that mean –
the assembled workforce?
David Pring: The way staff is assembled,
and together, brings a value greater than
simply having a number of employees. So, that
workforce has the right skills for the organisation.
Jim Taggart: I want to impose a question:
Do employers really know what they’re
looking for?
Alison Wood: Well, I think a lot of employers
do know what they’re looking for – especially
small businesses – really small. I think
people who are recruiting apprentices, for
instance, usually know what they’re looking
for, and they have trouble finding it. But there
are changes that are happening over every industry
area. So, every industry area is basically
in transformation – the digital transformation,
apart from everything else. So, even working
out what is the best fit for recruitment, for
both the applicant and the company, is not
enough. It’s the transformation that’s happening
all the time, and it’s a constant rebooting
the workforce for the changes that are happening,
industry by industry. So, often employers
don’t know what could be happening
industry-wide. And I think that’s where we’ve
got a role because our trainers often do.
Tom Graham: It’s a very broad comment
on this. But, I’ll just give you an example of
a case when I’ve actually gone to talk to an
employee. We’ve done a presentation about
superannuation and we always have oneon-one
discussions. When they come and
sit down, we say: How’s it going? And sometimes
it’s: This is confidential, Tom. They find
themselves at times in a predicament whereby
they’re not all that happy in the environment
they’re working in. They’re not even telling
the boss about this. However, they’re caught
in a predicament. They’ve got big mortgages.
And I don’t know if you understand just how
high - the average is about $600,000 now. It’s
just ridiculous. So, they need the work. But
they’re not really happy with the environment
and they’re not really prepared to be a bit
more outspoken. I get that from just talking to
employees. I feel like I should go and talk to
their superior about it. But they’ve said: No,
this is confidential.
Tom Graham: I wouldn’t say it’s “normal”
and I’m not saying they’re necessarily disgruntled,
they just don’t think they can talk openly.
They feel it’s so sensitive to maintain that job,
they don’t even feel comfortable opening up
to the employer.
Scott Henshaw: It’s almost as if they don’t
feel that they should bring that type of subject
matter into the workforce.
Tom Graham: Yes, exactly they’re thinking
in the back of their mind: Gosh, if I lost
the job, how am I going to keep the mortgage
payments going?
Tom Graham: Yeah, exactly. Yes. Exactly.
Yeah. You know. ‘Cause they’re thinking in
the back of their mind: Gosh, if I lost the job,
how am I going to pay the – keep the mortgage
payments going?
Jim Taggart: That’s very interesting
because our current unemployment rate’s
around 6.3 and it’s rising, and that psychological
impact of keeping that job or all of those
things behind it is quite established in the
literature. Alison, can I ask you a question
here? And the question is: Is education the
leader or the reactionary to change in employment
skill development? I’m really interested in
how people view that.
Alison Wood: Probably there isn’t a
simple answer. But we would like to position
ourselves as a leader because for those
industry areas that are really finding it hard to
keep up. I’ll give you an example. We’ve got
a new degree course in IT network security.
And we’re adding the second strand to that
for 2016, which will be in data analysis. Now,
there’s not a business – a medium to large
sized business around that isn’t going to have
to get their heads around the amount of data
there is and how to use it to build your business.
So, we do need to be a leader in an area
like that, in building up workforce capability.
But, on the other hand, there are plenty of
times when an industry knows the direction
that it’s going in and it doesn’t have the right
workforce to assist it to go in that direction.
And, in that case, we have to listen to what
industry is saying and work with them to try
and upskill the workforce in the directions of
that. So, it’s both really.
Jim Taggart: And that’s quite interesting
in itself, if I can just make a brief comment
– because a number of associations in
industries are becoming RTOs themselves and
competing for that training dollar, if you like,
out there. I’m not saying that’s a good thing
or a bad thing. But it’s a phenomenon that is
out there in the marketplace that I think we
need to address later. In terms of that, Scott,
how do you feel about that? Are qualifications
critical? Or is it the skills? And if so, is there a
difference? And, what do you look for when
someone comes for – well, to seek an employment
that you’ve been given the brief by an
employer?
Scott Henshaw: Are qualifications
important? Absolutely. And I think more and
more becoming so. I think in a market that’s
highly competitive often the easiest and first
box to tick, I suppose, is: Does this person have
the relevant piece of paper that I need for them to
do this job?
Jim Taggart: And how do you do that?
Scott Henshaw: You is the key word
there. And Alison’s point earlier I think was
quite valid around this brief of seeing and
feeling a distinct trend towards the need for
business to better understand what it is they
actually want. You could argue that, not that
Continued on page 27
26 WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS SEPTEMBER 2015