Four-day working week

l PORTSMITH

| Nick Dalton

TWO steel fabrication, roofing and engineering companies have introduced a four-day working week across its north Queensland operations in a bid to attract new personnel as they tackle one of the worst skill shortages in the region’s history.

CSF Industries in Cairns and Townsville’s Thomas Steel Fabrications are urging other heavy industrial and construction businesses to consider doing the same to counter the ongoing skill shortage issues as well as providing a more work/life balance for their workforce.

“The skill shortage issue isn’t going away anytime soon so we need to get creative when it comes to recruitment,” said Thomas Steel and CSF Steel operations manager Tony Hogg.

“In our industry and many others in our sector, while the work is very fulfilling as we get to work on many large-scale projects, it is also really hard work and very labour intensive,” he said.

“We thought giving our staff the time to recuperate each week and spend more time doing the things they want to do like fishing, time with family and friends and some downtime for themselves to rest was a good idea.”

CSF Industries consulted their staff across both sites over three months to gauge the desire