BUSINESS SERVICES
FOOD: THE SECRET TO CREATE AND MAINTAIN A GREAT WORKPLACE Capricorn’s alliance with Woolworths at Work can help Capricorn, Australasia’s largest automotive cooperative, has more than 23,000 automotive business owner Members across Australia and New Zealand. That translates to many hungry staff to keep healthy, happy and alert when at work. While there are so many employee engagement theories being used by businesses, there is one rather obvious one that tends to get overlooked: food. While food and eating is a basic human requirement for survival, it is also something that is incredibly social as we naturally tend to eat in groups. This makes food and eating a very powerful tool to help create and maintain an excellent workplace culture. Massively successful companies like Google and Facebook identified the workplace culture power of food several years ago, providing their staff members with lunch and healthy foods to eat all day every day.
and it is also a chance to chat and get to know each other better. If you really want to supercharge that feeling of camaraderie, consider providing the lunch for your staff. It doesn’t have to be every day, perhaps just once a week or month, but it will help to put everyone in a great mood. It also helps to make staff members feel more valued, which also leads to longer staff retention. Similarly, providing a well-stocked snack bar with free and healthy foods to eat not only creates excellent goodwill within your team, it can also improve productivity. According to World Health Organisation research, eating healthy food during the day can boost your brain power by as much as 20 percent. This is opposed to staff members heading off to the shop to get energy drinks and chocolate bars during breaks which lead to a blood sugar spike and the inevitable crash that then makes them lethargic and unproductive.
Accepting that every small business cannot take it to that extent, there are the following food related ideas that you might like to leverage with your own team, no matter how large or small.
Providing options like nuts, dried fruit and protein bars will give your team members an energy boost without the crash effect. Another option is to offer any fresh fruit with a decent shelf life that is quick and easy to eat such as bananas or easy-peel mandarins.
Make lunchtime an event: eating lunch together in a designated place is brilliant for building relationships between staff members and management. It encourages open communication,
Food is also a great way to reward the team for a record sales result or to give someone who has earned it a hearty pat on the back to celebrate a milestone.
If you’re ready to embrace the idea that the way to an employee’s heart is through their stomach and you’re keen to leverage the power of food to build a great workplace culture, then Capricorn says taking advantage of its alliance with Woolworths at Work is a must. Woolworths at Work is now available to Capricorn Members, which means you can order groceries and everyday essentials from Woolworths on your trade account and have them delivered directly to your workshop. This makes it so easy to have quality food available at your workplace, promoting a healthier and more rewarding working environment for your team. Capricorn Members earn reward points with every dollar spent and get free next day delivery when they spend more than $99 (where available), while also enjoying Woolworth’s “Fresh or its Free Guarantee.” Capricorn says this is a smarter, easier and healthier way to shop and a very easy way to create and maintain an excellent workplace culture through good food. To find out more, visit www.capricorn.coop/shop
NEED HELP IN RUNNING YOUR HIGH VOLUME SERVICING BUSINESS? Have you considered employing an apprentice?
Having an apprentice or two in your team can improve the productivity of your business and taking on a person that has completed a preapprenticeship is a simple way of taking on staff that are job ready and ready to hit the ground running. Finding suitable staff for your automotive workshop has always been a challenge, in fact the automotive industry has experienced a skills shortage for a number of years. So why not train your own staff to do the things you need them to do your way? By taking on an apprentice you are helping address this skills shortage and are giving someone meaningful employment and the skills to help them start a lifelong career in the automotive industry. 96
Australian Automotive Aftermarket Magazine June 2021
Teaching an apprentice, sharing your years of knowledge of servicing, diagnosing, and repairing vehicles can be very rewarding. Apprentices can work as part of a team servicing vehicles, preparing vehicles for pick up, keeping your work areas safe and clean and looking after your parts and stock levels. After some experience and as they become more confident, they can go on to the more complex jobs in the workshop. Box Hill Institute explains that it has an employer program that is designed to take the hassle out of employing an apprentice in your business. The program gives AAAA members access to their Certificate II pre-apprentice students that have the required skills and knowledge to start their automotive career as a productive member of your team.
If you are interested in taking on an apprentice and being part of the program, please call Roger Phillips or Mark Liberto on 03 9286 9623 or email them at automotive.programs@boxhill.edu.au Box Hill Institute is a leading provider of automotive training and is located in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs with campuses in Box Hill and Lilydale. For more information, visit www.boxhill.edu.au
