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Episode 37
302 Plays1 year ago
New for the week beginning 13 November 2023 and Question of the week: 'Have you ever loved a job?'
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Transcript
Weekly News Introduction
00:00:08
Speaker
I'm Adele Last and this is the news for recommencing the 13th of November, 2023.
Gig Economy Law Changes
00:00:14
Speaker
Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke has agreed to extensive changes to Labour's proposed gig economy laws to enshrine worker flexibility and limit the introduction of traditional employment conditions such as penalty rates in a bid to address platform concerns and win over the Senate crossbench. The Bill's gig regulation introduces a middle classification between the employee and contractor known as employee-like.
00:00:38
Speaker
so that gig workers can still have some minimum paying conditions without losing their flexibility. One key amendment would stop gig workers subject to the conditions from then claiming employee status under the bill's new employment definition, which has threatened to resurrect misclassification lawsuits against the platforms. The government will also add several guardrails to the Fair Work Commission's discretion to set gig conditions and require consultation with industry to ensure the conditions are fit for purpose.
00:01:08
Speaker
While platforms had wanted weekend and evening penalty rates specifically excluded, the government will instead introduce a provision that the Fair Work Commission can only introduce penalty rates where it is appropriate for the type of work. The Fair Work Commission will also have to consider workers' ability to work on more than one platform at the same time, known as multi-apping, which platforms argue should factor into any assessments of minimum pay. Uber Australia managing director Dom Taylor praised Mr Burke for his collaborative approach,
00:01:37
Speaker
and said the changes were a clear recognition of the unique nature of gig work.
Recruitment Firms Financial Results
00:01:44
Speaker
Three recruitment companies have released updated financial results. The world's fourth-largest staffing business, Japan headquartered Recruit Holdings, owner of local brands PeopleBank and Chandler McLeod, reported revenue for the second quarter ended 30 September 2023, declined 2.7% year on year, although net profit was up 35%.
00:02:05
Speaker
By segment, HR Tech was down 14%, Matching and Solutions was up 8.1%, and Staffing rose 1.5%. Japanese recruiter Will Group, owner of local brands DFP Recruitment, Key Appointments, and Ethos Beach Chapman, reported revenue for the six months ended 30 September 2023, declined 4.3% year on year, Gross Profit was down 4.9%, and Operating Profit dropped 31.2%.
00:02:33
Speaker
Talent International holdings increased revenue by 13% year on year and its financial year ended 30 June 2023 to reach $947.6 million. Revenue from permanent placements fell 20%. Contracting revenue rose 14% to $910 million. And technology consultancy services slightly more than doubled its previous year's sales. Group profit after tax and currency impact was up 7% year on year to $15 million.
Australia's Wage and Turnover Trends
00:03:05
Speaker
Last year saw the highest staff turnover in Australia since 2017 with a 21.4% of employees moving or quitting their jobs and that trend has continued in 2023 with a 12.3% turnover rate in the first six months of the year according to consulting firm Mercer. This surge in employee mobility is the result of ongoing low unemployment rates combined with a post-COVID career rethink along with the necessity of seeking higher salary opportunities
00:03:33
Speaker
to counteract most cost of living impacts," the report said. MERSA's yearly total remuneration survey also found that Australian employers raised salary budgets by an average of 4% in 2023, with 1 in 4 Australians receiving more than a 7% pay rise throughout the year. Mining, tech and logistics workers were the recipients of the highest average wage increases throughout 2023.
US Employment and Unemployment Update
00:03:59
Speaker
Total non-farm employment in the United States rose month on month by 150,000 jobs in October. However, the United Auto Workers' Strike reduced jobs in the manufacturing sector, skewing the result. The increase is below the average monthly gain over the past 12 months of 258,000 jobs. Total non-farm employment in the United States is now approximately 157 million people.
00:04:23
Speaker
October saw the first gain in temp jobs since January, with temp employment in the United States rising by 6,600 jobs. The US unemployment rate also edged upwards with 0.1% rise month-on-month to 3.9% in October.
Doctor Recruitment in South Australia
00:04:41
Speaker
A South Australian recruitment drive targeting disaffected junior doctors in the UK has successfully lured a GP to the outback town of Wandinha, which has been without a permanent doctor for nearly two years.
00:04:54
Speaker
Dr. Ernest Wong joined the one dinner medical practice at the end of October after hearing the SA Health call out on a British morning news program. He was one of many junior doctors in the UK who had walked off the job seeking better pain conditions from the National Health Service. A six hour drive from Adelaide, the town of 1,000 people has been relying on nurses working alongside locum doctors and telehealth since late 2021 with the nearest medical centre in Port Lincoln a two and a half hour drive away.
00:05:24
Speaker
billboards sprucing the working and lifestyle advantages of migrating to South Australia were parked outside hospitals in the UK during the doctor strike earlier this year as part of the recruitment campaign that successfully enticed Dr Wong to South Australia.
Flexible Work and Diversity in Australia
00:05:39
Speaker
A new report from the law firm Herbert Smith Freehills revealed that a majority of employers in Australia continue to support flexible working with 63% reporting they have redefined core hours to accommodate remote work
00:05:52
Speaker
and 68% have plans to evaluate employees based on productivity rather than hours worked. In the future of Work2023, remote and flexible working report, 49% of employers say hybrid work has improved access to talent and 68% say it has boosted applicant diversity. Furthermore, 53% of employers predict that forcing more in-office working will result in higher staff turnover.
00:06:18
Speaker
In related news, Medibank is the latest company to introduce a four-day work week trial. The trial, which will last six months, will include more than 250 Medibank employees, including part-time staff and frontline customer teams.
New Zealand Unemployment Rise
00:06:33
Speaker
New Zealand's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased to 3.9% in the September 2023 quarter, up from 3.6% in the June quarter. In September 2022, the unemployment rate was at 3.2%.
00:06:47
Speaker
The total number of employed persons was 2,919,000 down 6,000 from the prior quarter. The labour force participation rate stood at 72%, down 0.5% from the quarter before. Weekly earnings were up 5.5% over the year.
First Nations Representation Initiative
00:07:06
Speaker
The federal government wants to boost First Nations representation among the senior public servants with the program.
00:07:13
Speaker
that aims to bring at least another 50 Indigenous employees into the APS leadership cohort by 2024. The SES 100 initiative is jointly run by the APSC and National Indigenous Australians Agency and will support First Nations senior leaders to excel in their new roles. It has been designed to grow First Nations APS leaders from a headcount currently of around 54 to 100 across a range of roles.
00:07:39
Speaker
Public Service Minister Katie Gallagher launched the program last Monday, stressing that First Nations Australians must be represented at APS senior levels to be part of government decision making processes. The SES 100 recruitment strategy has advertised a number of vacancies on the APS jobs website with December the 17th, the closing date.
US Army Recruitment Challenges
00:07:58
Speaker
In the United States, military recruitment is in the midst of a crisis with a news report last Monday stating the US Army
00:08:06
Speaker
is pushing non-commissioned officers into its recruiting school after graduating only just under half its 2,886 student capacity. Now the US Army wants to grow its recruiting school by involuntarily assigning soldiers to recruiting roles and introducing significant and unprecedented incentives to attract volunteers. The incentives range from a $5,000 bonus to those who attend the recruiting school by February to more controversial inducements such as fast track promotions
00:08:36
Speaker
For example, sergeants being automatically promoted to staff sergeant upon graduating recruiting school regardless of qualifications. Staff sergeants then have the opportunity to be promoted to sergeant first class after getting 24 applicants into the basic training within one year.
Big Four Firms Staff Cuts
00:08:54
Speaker
EY Oceania will cut 232 people, more than 2% of its 10,700 strong workforce,
00:09:00
Speaker
as a significant reduction in demand from financial services and public sector clients hits its bottom line. The firm, which was the only Big Four giant to avoid cutting staff during the COVID-19 pandemic downturn, has now joined its consulting rivals in reducing staff numbers in Australia. The total reduction adds up to roughly 950 people or about 2% of their collective Big Four workforce of 42,700.
00:09:27
Speaker
Affected EY staff were told last Thursday they were being made redundant. Almost 90 of the cuts came from the firm's financial services team. An EY insider told the Australian Financial Review that the staff cuts were also about protecting partner profit margins. Person also said there had been a big push in parts of the firm to have Australian staff assign work to EY's offshore service centres as a way of cutting staffing costs and increasing output.
00:09:54
Speaker
PwC last Wednesday said it was cutting 344 staff or more than 4% of its 8,000 strong workforce. This followed an earlier cut by PwC of 47 in late June. KPMG has cut 300 or 3% of its workforce of 10,000 and Deloitte is cutting unspecified numbers of employees.
Sneesby Racing's Success
00:10:15
Speaker
This year the recruitment industry's connection to the Melbourne Cup was the most significant it's ever been
00:10:21
Speaker
when both the starters, part owned by Sneesby Racing, finished in the place-getters. Craig Sneesby, managing director of U&U Recruitment Partners, was a very happy man when runner-up Solkom and the third-place runner Shiraz delivered respective prize money of $1.1 million and $550,000 to their delighted ownership groups, including Sneesby Racing.
00:10:43
Speaker
Sneesby didn't share with the media what he won on the punt. However, he did say one of his mate's mates won $2.7 million via a $200 investment on a boxed first four bet, which is selecting the first four horses in the correct order. And that's your recruitment news for the week beginning the 13th of November, 2023. I'm Ross Clennett.
The Importance of Loving Your Work
00:11:16
Speaker
Question of the Week this week has been inspired by an article that I've read recently in the Harvard Business Review and it's called The Business Case for Love by Marcus Buckingham. Marcus Buckingham is a Gallup employee. He's written a book or he's written books. Most recently it's called Work and Love and here's what he said.
00:11:41
Speaker
At some point in my conversations with hundreds of thousands of high performers, they all talk about specific moments or activities in their work that they love. They don't say like or enjoy. They say love. And when they say love, it means they want to keep coming back to this activity and seek out opportunities to do more of it.
00:12:01
Speaker
When they're doing this activity they love, they work more fluidly and feel less stress. My research has shown that workers who find the love in what they do are much more likely to stay in their job and to advocate their company as a great place. So Adele, question of the week this week. Have you ever loved one of your jobs? Yeah, that's interesting. It's a really strong word, isn't it? And he's referencing it there saying,
00:12:26
Speaker
loving it it's I guess like being in love you know you sort of a bit obsessed you become you become really focused in in one direction so when I think about that within my career I guess it's interesting about the comment about fluidity in that article as well and having having the flow and I think that's probably when I think back to the points in which I've loved my job has been that intersection between
00:12:54
Speaker
where you've mastered the skill, where you are able to consistently deliver the same result of your skill set in terms of you've practiced, you know, technique, and you're really good at the job. And then you start to get into the flow of where the results start to show as a result of that. But it's difficult, you know, you it takes some time to build and master that skill. And it takes a lot of practice like any, you know, professional sports person, they
00:13:22
Speaker
have some natural talent, but they become outstanding by repeating the same skill set over and over. So I think for me, if I think about where I really loved my job was probably mid-career. As I said, where I'd started to master the skill, I started to trust my recruitment ability and then the results started to flow and I got in the flow and the groove and then it just keeps
00:13:48
Speaker
going from there, you know, you get a result, you do it again, you get a result, you do it again. So for me, that would have been in the midst of sort of the Hoban and early Horner days as well. And, you know, I really did love the job. I still love the job. Overarchingly, I love the job. But when you talk about specific times and roles, they're ones that stand out for me. Ross, how about you? Well, before I answer that, just I'm intrigued to know
00:14:16
Speaker
Was that the actual recruitment aspect of the job? Is that sort of what you first recall loving or was it the leadership of people? Well, I think the leadership of people was the secondary part of why I probably stayed really long-term in the role because I did love getting to that point and leading a team and sort of challenging myself, I suppose, of trying to achieve the results through others because that was the real challenge as a leader.
00:14:44
Speaker
But yeah, no, I think the first sort of falling in love with the job was in that mid part of my career, as I said, at that intersection of highly skilled and then able to produce the results on a consistent basis. And then the second, perhaps second love was getting into a leadership capacity of being able to then try and get that result through others. But I think it's always, if I think about it, came from pushing through that difficult period of, you know, am I going to be good at this?
00:15:14
Speaker
to when it, you know, it starts to really make sense and it flows.
Perseverance and Career Mastery
00:15:18
Speaker
Well, that, I mean, that certainly sounds very familiar to me because I remember when I came back from the UK, because that was my first recruitment experience, 20 months working for AP or now known as Hayes. And I remember coming back to Australia thinking, wow, it's a really tough job market. I might as well just get a recruitment job. I'll get a proper job once the market picks up because I just hadn't really enjoyed the job
00:15:42
Speaker
in London. It was just slog. That was my experience. Now, little was I to know that when I returned to Australia, the market was even tougher than London and it was to get tougher in my first six to 12 months. And it was about 18 months until I finally started to see some results. I started to win referral work. I got exclusive work. I started to see my temp numbers go up and I was able to
00:16:13
Speaker
really find that that sweet spot of when a job came in straight away I'm like oh I know exactly who I'm going to put into this job and that was happening happening more and more frequently and so that gave me a sense of okay I'm really getting somewhere
00:16:30
Speaker
And then I was working with a really good team. I really enjoyed the people that I was working with. We'd all gone through that tough period together. We were all starting to see some benefits. We were making more money. We were certainly making progress against our competitors.
00:16:47
Speaker
we were getting really good feedback from our candidates and clients. And so it really felt like all the graft was justified and vindicated because now we were coming out the other end and really starting to deliver great results. There's a really interesting few comments you make in there Ross for anyone perhaps who is listening to this in the early stages of their career.
00:17:14
Speaker
around the timing, I think. I really do believe people misunderstand or don't have the right expectation around how long this job actually takes to master. I think people expect to come into a job like this, I guess maybe because it hasn't got a formal qualification requirement or it hasn't got an entry level element, an exam element to getting into the job that they kind of expect to come in and be good at it straight away.
00:17:44
Speaker
And the genuine reality of it is it takes time like anything, you know, you don't pick up a musical instrument and be good at it straight away. It takes a lot of practice. So I, you know, I want to sort of speak to those that might be listening out there and you're in the early stages of your career. It is hard. It's hard work. It takes a good, I would say at least 18 months to two years to really start to master it and hit your stride. We're in a tough market for sure. But on the other side of that,
00:18:13
Speaker
sort of adversity on the other side of the difficulty is often where the love lies, often where you start to get into that flow and then you go aha, you know, you have that aha moment quite literally and you start to love the job. So I guess if you're listening and you're at that point in your career, I guess I'm saying hang in there, hang in there longer than you thought you needed to and work through the adversity because on the other side of that is great love. And that that's where I'd
00:18:42
Speaker
also point to this kind of, let's call it a cliche, where you often hear, oh, you know, find something you love and you weren't, you won't work a day in your life. Well, you're not just going to find something you love and know that immediately. Like that love, well, rarely it, to your point, it takes time to build the skill because the love comes from the skill. Let's face it.
00:19:07
Speaker
How many people love something that they're shit at? It's not normal. You love something that you're at least competent at and hopefully become very competent at. And that doesn't happen overnight, certainly for something that's worthwhile. And I think recruitment's worthwhile. I think agency recruitment's worthwhile. And it does take time.
00:19:34
Speaker
You're not going to be great overnight. Nobody was. Like, read Greg Savage's book. Greg is very specific about his struggles as a recruiter and also as a leader. And that's everyone. And so, yes, absolutely. You want to do something that you love, but that comes a little bit down the track. It's not in most cases going to feel like love early on.
00:20:03
Speaker
So are we saying we're both non-believers of love at first sight then Ross? Yes, actually, I think that's a good way of putting it. It's not love at first sight. It is love with a little bit of effort and work, but it is there. We promise you, hang in there. Yes, it grows over time.
News Segment Conclusion
00:20:27
Speaker
And now you're up to date with your recruitment news.
00:20:31
Speaker
And for all previous episodes, visit our website at recruitmentnewsaustralia.com.au And connect with us on LinkedIn, Ross Clannett and Adele Last.