How Australian organisations are stepping forward

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The past few months have certainly been disruptive. After so much change, we wanted to share some positive news stories about how Australian organisations have been adjusting. Here’s what REDI.E, City of Nedlands and Employment Office are doing to adapt, adjust, look after their team members and invest in their long-term talent strategies.

Promoting employer branding and talent pooling

One of our clients, Regional Enterprise Development Institute (REDI.E), is an Indigenous owned and managed organisation delivering training and community services in the Murdi Paaki region (Western NSW) to Indigenous communities.

In light of the escalating COVID-19 crisis, REDI.E made the difficult decision to cease all program operations in March, for the safety and protection of the most vulnerable people in NSW.

CEO, Tracey Shillingsworth, said, “We had to take a proactive approach to protecting our communities and use better delivery methods to continue our most important services and support.”

Tracey Shillingsworth, CEO, REDI.E

Tracey Shillingsworth, CEO, REDI.E

The team has embraced virtual technology and alternative service delivery methods. Tracey has helped the organisation adapt by bringing the power of community to the forefront in an isolating environment. REDI.E called on age-old traditions and the collaborative endeavours of their esteemed Elders: talking, keeping communities informed and ensuring they receive valuable feedback.

With respect to their recruitment strategy, REDI.E is using this time to proactively build their talent pool and keep potential candidates warm and engaged through email marketing and social media.

“Talent pooling is very important to us because we have such a wide exposure of work opportunities in Western NSW. Talent pooling allows me and the senior executive team to communicate with the right people and not waste months advertising for roles. Our whole recruitment process has been significantly reduced. It’s fantastic for employers to know that there are candidates in your pipeline who are already familiar with and appreciate your brand and are interested to work with the community.”

REDI.E is continuing to promote and share their employer brand and Employee Value Proposition (EVP). They’re sharing honest stories about the challenges their team members and communities have faced with physical distancing restrictions and working from home. (A number of news sources have shared why organisation should promote employee stories now more than ever.)

“We’ve provided our team with a lot of flexibility. Our team is very skilled and we’ve been providing additional leadership, mentoring and support for them during this time.”

Embracing work-from-home and eLearning solutions

Aside from talent pooling, other organisations have used the past few months as an opportunity to invest internally in their team through digital learning solutions.

City of Nedlands was fortunate to implement their eLearning platform prior to lockdown going into place in March. They managed to make the work-from-home switch quite efficiently.

“We managed that change quite well by identifying everyone who could work from home, making the transition in three days!” said Shelley Mettam, Manager – Human Resources and Organisational Development. “We have a great IT department and we’re mostly working from the cloud.”

Shelley Mettam

Shelley Mettam, Manager Human Resources & Organisational Development, City of Nedlands

“Now, we’re phasing back onsite work and we have some outdoor workers, but not everyone will return or work from the office at once. Our team has a good capacity to work from home and we’ve set them up with all the tools they need to work effectively.”

While their team members have been working hard, City of Nedlands has used this opportunity to offer training.

“We’ve started offering training to our management team and we have plans to expand this out. There is certain mandatory training, such as fraud, that everyone has to have. We plan to have a training library where people can self-select the topics they’re interested in learning about. We’re going to obtain feedback from managers about what kind of training they think their team would be interested in.”

Making the switch from in-person conferences, seminars and meetings to eLearning has helped them make cost savings.

“It’s certainly helped our budget; it’s a very cost-effective method of delivering training. Even as restrictions ease, we want to encourage our people to do online learning and webinars instead of meeting in large groups. We did some thought-awareness training and everyone found the system very easy to use.”

The Council is currently making arrangements to facilitate the transition back to the office.

“It’s an ongoing process and we’ll likely offer work-from-home options for our people into the future. We have a rotating roster of people coming in and out, and we’re taking a flexible approach to start times. We’re working with managers to determine who can work from home. It’s an opportunity for us to free up parking, reduce long commute times, and offer our people greater flexibility.”

Increasing engagement through corporate wellness initiatives

At Employment Office, we’ve experienced a number of changes too. While our team members were working from home, we’ve hosted fun virtual events outside of office hours, as well as only daily video conferencing to share good news stories and stay connected.

As we’ve returned to the office, we’ve establishing seating arrangements so everyone is at a safe and comfortable distance, increased cleaning initiatives, free parking, hand sanitising stations, and recommendations to wash hands, limit meeting areas and comply with physical distancing regulations.

We’ve also kicked off a new initiative to increase engagement through corporate wellness. Our home-grown charity Healthy Workplaces designed a new, free app, called Step Forward. The Step Forward app that’s keeping people across Australia and around the world active and engaged by encouraging them to reach 10 000 steps per day.

Step Forward app

Get involved in Step Forward!

We’ve had a number of sponsors and participants from all around Australia. Participants can join the sponsored event weeks, and take as many steps as possible for the chance to win prizes.

“The second week of the Step Forward challenge was sponsored by my organisation,” said Susanne Mather, Executive Director for Employment Office. “I thought this is a sporting event that I can actually win! And that was very fun and exciting.”

Susie Mather

Susie Mather, Executive Director, Employment Office

Interestingly, many people don’t reach the recommended minimum 10 000 steps per day.

“I was really surprised when everyone started on the Step Forward App that, not only was I not averaging 10 000 steps per day (which I thought I would have been!) but no one was. That was a big realisation for us all.”

Interestingly, our people have found that health initiatives like these have positive, unexpected flow-on benefits.

“During the week I averaged 32 000 steps per day, what I found was that it had a long-term residual effect on my fitness,” said Susanne. “Ever since then I’ve been stronger and fitter, which has been great!”

Feedback from our team members has been that they’ve loved participating in the weekly walking challenges.

“I really liked being able to see where everyone was at,” said our Shortlisting & Selection Team Leader Christie Pollock. “That gave me more motivation to keep walking (sometimes well into the night!). And although I felt like I needed a week to recover, I’m aiming to make 10 000 steps per day my new normal.”

Andrea Davey, CEO of Scout Talent Group, participating in Step Forward

Andrea Davey, CEO of Scout Talent Group, participating in Step Forward

During this period of re-adjustment, many organisations are using this time to adapt and invest in long-term initiatives for the future. Changes to the workplace will flow from these realignments, and those that prioritise physical and mental safety of their employees will succeed.

If you’re interested in exploring talent pooling, eLearning, or corporate wellness solutions, contact us on 1300 366 573 or email info@employmentoffice.com.au.

Should you recruit for experience or education in healthcare?

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Healthcare recruiters will always have the dilemma of choosing between hiring for education or experience. Should you hire a candidate who recently graduated and only has one year of experience, but has a master’s degree from the number one ranked program in the country? Or do you take the candidate who has a degree from a less-known institution, but has 12 years of experience?

Deciding between the two can slow down your recruitment processes. So what’s the solution? There’s no one right answer, because both talent demographics are important to the long-term success of your organisation.

Get the best of both worlds by attracting a good mixture of young, academically-inclined employees and those with on-the-job experience. Design a recruitment strategy to target and hire both types of candidates. These demographics have different needs and therefore, require different attraction and engagement methods. Here’s how.

Attracting new healthcare graduates

While hiring graduations is a cost-effective strategy that can invigorate your existing workforce, they’re in high demand, especially in healthcare.

Understand what this talent demographic is looking for in an employer. 87% of millennials state development opportunities are important in their desired roles. Healthcare providers need to provide opportunities for their younger employees to remain competitive both in their own role and in their industry. Can you use this as part of your recruitment advertising or employer branding strategy?

When it comes to shortlisting and selection, this talent pool can be snapped up quickly. Use powerful closing strategies to seal the deal, such as speeding up the process and using the power of influence. Impressing them with an efficient process and unique offer if a great way to win candidates over your talent competitors.

Also, many graduates choose to work with healthcare providers where they completed their internship programs. Do you have a strong internship strategy, and are you connecting it effectively with your recruitment initiatives? (Internships can be a game-changer for your talent pipeline but they come with risks and time commitments, as you will need to structure their program thoughtfully and get buy-in from your people who will be guiding them through their learning goals.)

Establish partnerships with local universities and programs to reach students before they graduate and stay competitive.

Attracting experienced healthcare professionals

Baby Boomers are starting to leave the workforce at a rapid rate. By some estimates, 10,000 retire each day. This has a big impact on healthcare organisations whose workforce consists of a large number of employees in their sixties.

Experienced nurses and healthcare professionals retiring creates knowledge gaps where graduates aren’t up to specialist level by the time the older workforce retires. While there’s no way to prevent boomers from retiring, healthcare organisations must establish workforce planning and proactive recruitment strategies to prepare for these departures. This will ease the burden associated with having to continually hire new individuals to fill vacant positions that are left behind by senior level employees.

Hospitals, clinics, aged care and other healthcare providers need to revamp their approach to hiring by putting together an attractive benefits package to make their positions more attractive.

A strong employer brand goes miles in attracting the best healthcare talent. Highlight the benefits your organisation offers outside of salary. For example, career progression, flexibility, workplace wellness programs and employee social events.

Danila Dilba Health Service strengthened their employer brand through a careers video, written and video employee profile stories, their careers website and more.

“[This] helped us strengthen our employer brand and market our unique employee value proposition across Australia. Along with the branding project we revamped our website and careers pages which helped us attract quality applicants.

“Our employer branding initiatives have been very successful in ensuring we receive our fair share of quality talent. It’s helped us in both recruitment and retention. We’ve retained a greater number of employees as we’ve opened more leadership positions,” – Sulal Mathai, HR Manager, Danila Dilba Health Service.

Promote your unique differences from your talent competitors, sharing this message across your careers website, recruitment advertisements and social channels. Talent pooling is another effective, proactive recruitment strategy to inspire and educate your audience about your offering. Being proactive, strengthening your employer brand and building a talent pipeline will ensure your success in healthcare recruitment.

Nurture your pipeline and keep them engaged through emailing marketing and your social media channels. This way, you’ll have a warm and qualified group of potential candidates to market new roles to and fill your positions more quickly.

Instead of choosing between experience or education, design a recruitment strategy to target and attract both talent demographics. With a bit of thoughtful planning, finding the right mix and creating a balance will set you up for long-term success.

Looking for advice about recruitment advertising or employer branding to attract the best candidates to your healthcare vacancy? Schedule a discussion with our Recruitment Specialists, call us on 1300 366 573 or email info@employmentoffice.com.au.

Ideas for increasing productivity in healthcare and NFP

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There are a number of ways healthcare and not-for-profit organisations can increase productivity and improve workplace engagement and happiness. But one of the biggest secrets to do this is actually: time outside of the office! Here are five steps to encourage relationship-building outside the workplace and the results you can expect to achieve.  

Organisations that empower their people to deliver their best work continue to attract high-quality talent and boost productivity. Many healthcare and not-for-profit organisations design their workplaces to maximise productivity by offering things such as healthy snacks, the right tools and resources, and attractive employee spaces. While these perks are great and certainly contribute to a strong, productive working culture, but one of the biggest secrets in energising and boosting employee productivity is actually…time outside the workplace.

This might seem counterintuitive, as time spent out of the workplace is time not producing results; but research reveals that giving employees frequent out-of-office breaks doesn’t have to compete. In fact, providing consistent opportunities for people to walk away from their workspace and decompress, for example, in the form of an off-site lunch hour, yields higher rates of engagement and performance.

Furthermore, with employees spending more than 90 000 hours in their workplaces across their lifetime, team members who form strong friendships with their colleagues are more enthusiastic and productive in their jobs.

So, how can you promote interaction outside the workplace to boost productivity?

Designate a budget

Out-of-office activities takes thought, planning and a budget. So, “budget for bonding”, by including offsite activities as part of your financial planning. You will be sure to see return on investment as you grow your culture, foster meaningful workplace connections, and provide a change in scenery for stress relief.

Offer short off-site experiences

Consider designing short and frequent opportunities to interact. For example, pair your new hires with two or three people from different departments and provide them an off-site lunch during their first week. This helps both new and tenured employees get to know each other in a way they may not typically have the chance to.

You may also like to design a “co-worker coffee program”, allowing your people to take short breaks together outside the office (or even via video chats if you have multiple locations).

Offer team building

The end of the year is a great time to offer team building activities after your people have put in hard work all year long. From mini-golf, painting and bowling, to lawn bowls, barbeques or Christmas lunches, the opportunities are endless.

But don’t just stop with one end-of-year activity. Create frequent activities throughout the year. Quarterly events are a great way to build this strategy into your culture and create consistency.

Invite family and friends

Inviting your employees’ significant others, friends, family and children to events gives people the chance to integrate their personal and professional life, allowing them to feel more support and engaged in their work.

True leaders not only understand the value each employee can have on productivity, but also the sacrifices they make in being away from the significant people in their life. Celebrating family and friends gives your team members the chance to demonstrate their achievements with the important people in their life.

Use trial and error

Like all initiatives, encouraging your employees to interact outside the workplace may rely on some trial and error. Your organisation will have its own unique needs, so continue to learn as you go and tailor accordingly.

Creating opportunities for people to step away from work and recharge is a key component of supporting people to give their best and improving retention. So use creativity to design great experiences. Whether you offer co-worker coffees or quarterly team building events, you will see return on investment over the long-term. Offer offsite experiences, and watch engagement, productivity and happiness in your workplace soar.

Preventing burnout in NFP and healthcare 

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The NFP and healthcare sectors are some of the most at-risk occupations of burnout. Here are the main causes and some strategies for preventing burnout to protect your team members, improve workplace happiness, increase productivity and retain great talent. 

According to Safe Work Australia, social, health and welfare support workers are the most at-risk occupations for mental health issues. When hiring and nurturing employees, it is important to prioritise their mental health to retain them over the long-term; not to mention, attract more great talent in the future. 

Burnout is characterised by emotional exhaustion, cynicism and ineffectiveness in the workplace and chronic negative responses to stressful workplace conditions. 

While not considered a mental illness, burnout can be considered a mental health issue. 

Here are some of the top reasons why NFP and Healthcare workers can experience this problem and ways of preventing burnout. 

Burnout is more likely when employees:

  • expect too much of themselves
  • feel as if they work they are doing is not good enough
  • feel inadequate or incompetent
  • feel unappreciated for their efforts in the workplace
  • have unreasonable demands placed upon them
  • are in roles that are not a good fit.

Recognise the signs and symptoms 

Could you recognise the above symptoms in your team members? While prevention is the most powerful solution, it’s important to recognise reduced energy and enthusiasm, lack of motivation and increased errors. Other symptoms can include irritability and increased absenteeism. 

Left unaddressed, burnt out team members can deteriorate into decreased productivity, increase risk of accidents, low workplace morale and increase turnover. 

Offer counselling and support services 

Offer your team members outlets to gain emotional support (i.e. by offering an external counselling service or support groups) or running physical or creative activities specifically designed for stress release. 

Assess workloads and establish reasonable expectations  

For not-for-profit and healthcare organisations, more often than not, there will be competing priorities and limited resources. Can you assess what activities require the highest standards and when is it okay to lower the bar and still meet organisational requirements? 

Use good communication to establish workloads and ensure your team members feel comfortable with their delivery. Use conversations are a chance to check-in and ensure your team members are not expecting unreasonable workloads of themselves. Encourage regular breaks and ensure you are not expecting team members to consistently work overtime. Establish boundaries and enforce reasonable work hours if necessary. 

Encourage social support, respect and physical activity

Fostering a sense of community and inclusivity in your workplace will increase retention over the long term. Support and respect in and between teams will improve happiness and productivity. Promoting physical activity in the workplace has been proven to lower the risk of chronic disease and increase employee engagement and productivity.  Provide training and resources 

Train your leadership team to assess for symptoms of burnout and know how to provide support to your team members. (Also, it may be worth providing training to your leaders to help them understand how harmful behaviour can have negative consequences on co-workers). 

Provide professional development and ongoing training to ensure all your team members feel competent and comfortable in their roles.\

Offer reward and recognition

Do you currently offer your people reward and recognition through things such as awards nights, events or social posts to celebrate small wins? Reward and recognition solves the problem of your people feeling as if their work is unappreciated or unnoticed. 

Communicate with your team members to help them understand how their work plays a valuable role in delivering your overarching purpose. 

While strategies, such as encouraging social support and physical activity, are powerful and effective, they cannot be treated as a bandaid solution to unreasonable workloads and expectations. Train your leadership team to recognise the symptoms of burnout and provide support. Provide training and offer your people reward and recognition so they feel appreciated understand the value of their work. 

Preventing burnout will improve the happiness and satisfaction of your current team members, increase retention and empower you to attract more great talent to your organisation over the long term. 

Schedule a discussion with our Recruitment Specialists here, call us on 1300 366 573 or email info@employmentoffice.com.au.

Techniques for retention: Rural and remote healthcare

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One of the more difficult healthcare areas to recruit for are those healthcare facilities within rural and remote areas of Australia, so when you’ve successfully recruited, how can you retain?

According to 2019 research conducted by SARRAH for the NSW Ministry of Health; ‘Factors that influence retention are broadly categorised as professional and organisational, social (family and personal), and financial. These are modifiable to varying extent.’ So, there are many factors which broadly influence a person’s decision to remain working within a remote healthcare facility.

Here’s a few ways you can improve employee retention rates in your remote or rural healthcare facility:

Professional and Organisational Factors

  • Provide a professional incentive to remain. Is there any way your organisation can provide the individual with the incentive of professional development through the ability to complete courses relevant to their line of work?
  • Promote and recognise the work the individual is doing. Highlight how they are really making a difference to the community they are within and their commitment to serving others.
  • Provide mentorships and support to the individuals. Rural and remote healthcare facilities have small teams and often the ability to mentor and emotionally support an individual, especially when their work is high-pressured can increase their likelihood of remaining within your organisation.

Social Factors

  • Focusing on family, if the employee has children, is there any way your organisation can support their education or their childcare costs. This will ease the pressures your employee may face when considering their roles impact on their family.
  • Offering incentives that relate to teamwork and team bonding. Your team is likely to be smaller than that of regional facilities. Are there ways you can provide your team with social incentives, such as quarterly team celebrations and/or team day trips out of your rural location.

Financial Factors

  • While housing can often be cheaper than within cities and inner regional Australia, rural and remote areas can be more expensive for general supplies and things like fuel. If your organisation is able to ease these pressures for employees, this may increase retention. This doesn’t need to be monetary; it could be as simple as providing your employees with breakfast each day or subsidising the cost of fuel when travelling to work.
  • Offering monetary incentives such as a yearly review of pay may help your team feel like their work is valued and that you recognise their worth.
  • Non-monetary incentives like flexible working opportunities and the offer of more than the average holiday days without a change in pay, can help your employees be happier with their work life balance (and therefore their work happiness) without affecting their finances.

Need help with your recruitment process?

Speak to our recruitment experts at Employment Office today. We offer recruitment services that help with end-to-end process and can both advise and execute your next recruitment campaign without removing your control of the process. Call us on 1300 366 573 or email info@employmentoffice.com.au today.

Candidate Shortlisting for NFP and Healthcare: Hiring for Attitude

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While for some industries their main recruitment issue is attracting talent in the first place, for industries like healthcare and the not-for-profit sector, there is a huge pool of potential candidates. The problem with this, is the need to reduce the candidate pool significantly. So how can we do this?

It is a misconception that in the NFP and healthcare industry, it is easy to find the perfect candidate. Yes, there are plenty of people within the talent pool that have the right hard skills to do the job; but many are similar as the required qualifications are so niche to their industry.

This is where softer skills come into play; however, these are difficult to determine from a resume alone and when you could easily have fifty-plus applicants attracted to one job advert, you could spend hours with candidates determining their softer skills.

How can you filter your candidates down before face-to-face interviews?

We’ve come up with some shortlisting techniques that might help you narrow down your candidates and identify those who have the best attitudes ready for final interviews.

1. Phone Interviews

Conducting phone interviews are a much quicker way of directly speaking to an individual and getting a gut feeling of their attitude to the work they will be doing if they were successful. While this is certainly an option that will take some time, it will be significantly less time consuming to speak with each individual over the phone briefly than to organise individual interviews that could last the good part of an hour.

2. Group Interview Days

Split your candidates into a few groups and organise group interview days. By setting tasks and discussion points, you should be able to quickly determine which candidates have the softer skills you are looking for and those who would suit your organisation. The added benefit is seeing how they interact with other people when performing tasks, their potential for growth and their ability to think on their feet.

Shortlisting tip: When figuring out how many candidates you should invite to group interviews, multiply the amount of people you want to hire by 3 and invite that number. This gives you a nice range of candidates and a better idea of how many resumes you need to screen before finding those candidates.

3. Behavioural Testing

This is where behavioural testing could be an excellent option. Using a Candidate Management System (CMS) you can immediately filter through the candidates that will not fit your preferable behavioural style upon initial application. So those who qualify for their hard skills but whose behavioural style doesn’t fit your desired ethos would immediately be apparent.

“This all sounds great, but I don’t have the time to do this!”

We know hiring for healthcare and the NFP industry can be demanding and time consuming. That’s where we come in. Employment Office can comprehensively screen all of your applicants and determine the best talent from the pool for your vacancy so you can save time and expenses.

If you’d like to hear more about how we can screen your potential hires, contact us today on 1300 366573 or email info@employmentoffice.com.au.

Health, Wellness, and your Employer Brand

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It’s no news that investing in the health and wellness of your staff carries a number of significant benefits for both employer and employee. From higher productivity, to reduced stress levels, lowered absenteeism and reduced turnover, the benefits of a healthy workforce are boundless. But many business leaders fail to realise there is a key opportunity to enhance their employer brand through health and wellness efforts.

More than 70 per cent of Australians consider health and wellbeing as one of the three most important factors for a good workplace, reported a 2015 Medibank Private study.

What’s more is that in an Australian study of 2400 professionals conducted by Robert Walters, one in two professionals would leave their jobs if their wellbeing needs were not met. Wellbeing programs have evolved from simply being ‘a nice perk’ to being an essential tool for employers hoping to retain their talent.

Head of Employer Branding at Employment Office, Mark Puncher says more and more job seekers perceive their place of work as reflection of their lifestyle, and employers need to tap into this.

“With health and wellness considered top of the list as an important factor for 70 per cent of job seekers, a strong employer branding strategy marked by health and wellness initiatives should be at the forefront of recruitment efforts,” he says.

“Via social media, job seekers have an insight into what it’s like to work for a particular company. So employers need to take advantage of this online exposure to celebrate their workplace culture, particularly their health and wellness activities – which is continuing to grow as a major factor for job seekers when considering an employer.”    

Read on to learn how to enhance your employer brand by showcasing your health and wellness efforts.

Implement effective health and wellness activities.

Founding Director of Employment Office, Tudor Marsden Huggins, knows first-hand the positive impact health and wellness activities has on his team.  “We hold monthly ‘buzz nights’ to celebrate team achievements of the past month – and they’ve proven to be wonderful opportunity to get the team outdoors and moving. We’ve kayaked down the Brisbane River, had a blast indoor trampolining, played bowling, laser skirmish and even completed a scavenger hunt across the city. But keeping your team healthy doesn’t have to be an elaborate endeavour. Something as simple as a team run or rock-climbing event, and providing fresh and healthy snacks are some of the easiest but most effective ways to invest in the health of your team,” he says.  

Identify and list your health and wellness activities on your careers webpage! Describe the aim of each health and wellness activity and include pictures of your team having fun. Be sure to note even small things such as providing fruit and nuts in the kitchen and vending machines – these perks go along way when it comes to a candidate envisaging working for your organisation.  

Update your social media pages

Update your social channels frequently with what is going on in the health and wellness space. This allows you to show you’re investing in the health of your staff on a day-to-day basis, and importantly, that your team are engaging in your wellness program.  

Further, you’ll find social media to be a health and wellness tool in itself, enabling you to encourage your team to keep up their great work. As an idea, link all your wellness posts with a hashtag to emphasise the work you’re doing in the space. For example, #<youroganisation>fit or #<yourorganisation>wellness.

There are so many possibilities when it comes to celebrating a healthy workplace culture on social media. You could run competitions in which staff members post pictures of themselves making a healthy choice or a number of steps per day competition. Congratulate different personal health and fitness achievements and of course, post about events that your organisation gets involved in, just to name a few!

Sign up your organisation for larger events

There’s nothing more powerful for an employer brand than real people showcasing the fun they are having as part of your company. Founding Director of Employment Office, Tudor Marsden Huggins says participating in the national cycling charity event, Tour de Office, is not only a powerful health message to his staff, but provides media opportunities for Employment Office to be featured in conjunction with Tour de Office. “Employment Office has participated in Tour de Office since it was established in 2011. In addition to encouraging staff to incorporate exercise into their day and fundraising for a charity of our choice, Employment Office has been able to secure local and state publicity alongside Tour de Office during the event,” he says.

Communicate to your team internally.

Employer branding is about nurturing your employees’ perception of you, just as much as it is about how you are perceived by job seekers. With this in mind, it is essential to remind candidates and employees of the programs and initiates you offer.   

Staff can only get involved in health and wellness activities if they know about them!

An Australian study conducted by Robert Australian concluded, “Many organisations do not adequately communicate their workplace wellness program internally to their employees, which leads to under-utilisation of the program and a reduction in the benefits and productivity that can be derived from improved health and wellbeing levels.”

Including a health and wellness section on internal company newsletters, starting a ‘health board’ in the kitchen where different ideas of healthy activities can be shared, and announcing weekly ‘wellbeing news’ in meetings are some ideas to keep communication on all things health open in the workplace.

Whether you have an established health and wellness program or not, now is the time to invest in the wellbeing of your staff, to reap all the benefits that come with a healthy workforce and a strong employer brand that will attract and retain top talent.

Editor’s note: Employment Office provides tailored employer branding services designed and delivered by senior recruitment and marketing specialists. Partner with Employment Office to leverage your workplace culture and make your employer brand shine.

Great candidates join community-minded companies. Here’s why.

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It always feels good to help your fellow man, but did you know that increasing your organisation’s social impact also makes them more attractive to prospective employees?

A recent study by US non-profit Net Impact found that 53 per cent of workers said a job where they could make an impact was important to their happiness.  72 per cent of students about to enter the workforce agreed.  And most would even take a pay cut to achieve that goal.

As employers, of course we can’t ALL be working on a cure for cancer or  developing ways to end third world poverty, but we can initiate a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program into our workforce plans.

As Millennials continue to dominate emerging workforce trends, it’s important to consider that a large portion of this candidate demographic are preferring to align themselves with business and brands that support worthy causes and are socially aware. Organisations with a co-ordinated and purpose-driven corporate social responsibility program not only engage and retain existing employees, but also attract a younger, more community-minded, candidate pool.

Tudor Marsden-Huggins, Managing Director of Employment Office, established Tour de Office, a corporate charity event and workplace wellness initiative to satisfy the CSR needs of his own growing business.  Five years on, he credits the event with helping to attract socially motivated candidates, while also keeping existing employees motivated.

“Millennials want to feel a sense of purpose at work, and if you can clearly demonstrate how your organisation makes a positive contribution to society, you’ll be in a better position to attract engaged and motivated candidates who want to work for a brand that’s committed to social impact.”

When deciding on a CSR program, it’s important an organisation considers their options carefully, and settles on a program employees will be passionate about supporting, and perhaps incorporate a few synergies with your industry and the work you do.

“You also need to think about CSR initiatives as a long-term commitment.  These programs take a while to gain traction and grow within the employee base.  Pick something you can stick to and make sure you promote it throughout the organisation.  Whether it’s a video on your careers site or updates on social media, organisations must consistently highlight their CSR strategy and results in ways that are easily digestible for millennials,” he says.

When communicating information about CSR, organisations need to share stories of impact rather than drowning candidates in data-driven content, Marsden-Huggins says.

“Millennial candidates don’t want to look at statistics when it comes to CSR programs.  It’s the stories of genuine human impact they connect with. If you capture these stories well and make them easily shareable online, you’ll notice your CSR program can really take your employer brand to the next level,” he said.

Implementing a fun and rewarding CSR strategy has become an essential tool in securing top talent and engaging existing employees. With solutions like Tour de Office available for organisations of all sizes, today is the day to execute a CSR strategy the candidates of tomorrow will thank you for.

Tour de Office is an all-in-one workplace wellness and employee engagement tool which sets organisations up for success in a tried and tested corporate philanthropy event. A great way to boost your workplace culture, Tour de Office can cater to any business size and need, check out the website here or contact event manager Jessika Woolford at jessika@tourdeoffice.com to find out more today.

Office Overtime Reduces More Than Just Your Sleep-In

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[responsive]Office Overtime[/responsive]

Sunglasses over tired eyes, espresso in hand and ten-minutes late to work. Sound familiar? No, we’re not talking about the effects of a mid-week hangover, this is the morning snapshot into the lives of more than a third of employees who work overtime every week.

While late night desk jockeys might impress some managers, meeting urgent deadlines may be at the expense of employee health.

A recent poll by recruitment firm Employment Office found 37% of people work an average of 2-5 hours overtime every week and 22% clock up an additional 10 hours every week.

Although short-term benefits might be tempting, including fuller pay cheques, prolonged periods of overtime actually aren’t beneficial for employers or employees.

A study published in UK medical journal The Lancet last month revealed staff who work 55 hours or more per week have a 33% increased risk of stroke and 13% higher risk of coronary heart disease compared to people who only work 40 hour weeks.

The results led by scientists at University College London reviewed 42 studies from across Europe, the US and Australia. While they couldn’t definitively say long hours give people strokes, the study shows a clear link between working long hours and these serious health conditions.

Putting significantly long days in at work can also result in a number of less serious issues for staff, including increased levels of stress and fatigue, with these complaints often leaving employees feeling burned and  resulting in decreased productivity.

Employment Office Managing Director, Tudor Marsden-Huggins says employers can mitigate negative effects of excessive overtime by implementing an overtime policy which is regularly assessed.

“It’s essential to document an overtime policy, particularly for organisations who deal in shift work or extended opening hours. Establishing a formal rotation of overtime within a team or department will see extra work distributed fairly and won’t leave one person feeling like they are overworked.

“Long stints of overtime can lead to increased absenteeism and high employee turnover. Encouraging employees to turn their emails off over the weekend is a simple way to reduce the desire for staff to be contactable at all hours, and to have a real break away from work when they are out of the office,” he said.

So while it might seem enticing for your people to clock in more office hours, kerbing the chained-to-the-desk mentality will see happy, healthier and more productive staff in the long run

For further information or to arrange an interview please contact Brooke Chapman, Employment Office Publicist on 0407 163 876.

Workplace wellness, can you afford not to invest?

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Does your organisation have a workplace wellness program?  With absenteeism costing Australian business over 7 billion dollars every year, keeping employees happy and healthy is becoming a top priority for workplaces across the country.

And it’s not just smoking and obesity that we need to worry about. As the sedentary lifestyle of desk-bound workers reaches epidemic proportions, encouraging employees to get more physically active is now one of the hottest topics on the corporate agenda.

The World Health Organisation now lists physical inactivity as the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality causing an estimated 3.2 million deaths globally.  With these type of statistics it’s not hard to see why sitting is considered the new smoking.

Recent medical studies highlight sitting for prolonged periods increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and death. An average 10 million Australians spend 77% of their 8-hour work day sitting at a desk. This level of inactivity is causing serious health concerns for employees.

One business owner who realised the importance of encouraging staff to take time out of their day to be active, is Employment Office Managing Director Tudor Marsden-Huggins. To encourage staff to get away from their desks and get moving, Marsden-Huggins established Tour de Office, a continuous cycling relay that takes place on a stationary bike right in the office.

“We came up with Tour de Office because the statistics of sedentary workers suffering chronic disease from being inactive are truly alarming.  We must promote and create awareness of the importance of a healthy work/life balance,” he said.

“It’s an annual charity event and workplace health initiative which sees staff ride stationary bikes in workplaces to raise funds for their charity of choice.  Now in it’s fifth year, 21 workplaces participated in the event in 2015 and raised over $150,000 for worthy causes.

“Tour de Office is unique because not only does it raise awareness of the importance of getting up off your chair to get moving, it also brings both entry level and executive staff together for a great cause,” Marsden- Huggins said.

According to Dale Tanner, chairman of Australia’s first workplace wellness conference, other organisational offerings like gym memberships and healthy cooking classes are really only scratching the surface. Tanner says companies need to initiate true change in their organisational settings.

“We know that really successful workplace wellness programs have all levels of management on board, signed up and participating,” he said.

So what can you do to promote an active lifestyle for your staff?  To get the most out of your team, management must lead by example. Without spending a cent, leaders can bring running shoes to work and take positive actions such as walking up stairs instead of taking the elevator, or having meetings while walking around the block.

However, if you want to instil long term changes in your organisation it’s necessary to invest in a sustainable workplace wellness program. If you ensure an effective program is an organisational priority this financial year you’ll soon experience the rewards of a happier and healthier workforce.

To find out more about Tour de Office, visit tourdeoffice.com