Human Resources Director 14.12

HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR HCAMAG.COM ISSUE 14.12

2016 YEAR IN REVIEW Technology / L&D / Employment law / Leadership development / Engagement

INSIDE HR: ACCENTURE Is digital fluency the key to gender equality?

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A PERFECT PARTNERSHIP Shifting from vendor management to ‘vendor partnerships’

OUT OF SIGHT, NOT OUT OF MIND Your duty of care to travelling employees

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EDITORIAL www.hcamag.com DECEMBER 2O16 EDITORIAL

SALES & MARKETING

Editor Iain Hopkins

Marketing & Communications Manager Lisa Narroway

Journalists Miklos Bolza John Hilton Editorial Assistant Hannah Go Production Editor Roslyn Meredith

Business Development Managers James Francis Steven McDonald Dale Ashworth

CORPORATE

ART & PRODUCTION

Chief Executive Officer Mike Shipley

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Chief Operating Officer George Walmsley

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Managing Director Justin Kennedy Chief Information Officer Colin Chan Human Resources Manager Julia Bookallil

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CEO, CHRO, CFO… CPO? AS ANOTHER year comes to a close, many will be looking ahead to 2017 with relief and perhaps some trepidation. The old saying, “May you live in interesting times”, comes to mind – if nothing else, 2016 has proven we are indeed living in interesting, if not downright disruptive, times: Brexit; a surprise (for some) US election result; military flare-ups in the Middle East; Australia’s fourth prime minister since 2013 … the list goes on.

How about HR? In 2016 we have seen further evolution of the once-humble ‘personnel’ function. Historians may look back on the years 2015–2020 as HR’s ‘coming of age’ years, when the function finally gained the analytical tools and capabilities to help it become a core role on the decision-making team in business.

It’s not before time. Looking ahead, some have hypothesised that the executive board of the future may have a new member – the chief performance officer (CPO) – which will combine HR, finance, planning, operations and strategy. The new role has emerged as a result of the aftermath of the financial crisis, increasing globalisation and the

Some have hypothesised that the executive board of the future may have a new member – the chief performance officer growing impact of digital disruption in the workplace.

The CPO title first rose to prominence in 2009, when US President Barack Obama appointed one of his staff, Anthony Politano, to the position. Politano described the role as having the ‘six Cs’: “Collect, consolidate, and condense performance-related data; communicate the results; collaborate with others; and control and govern the process.”

It’s a combination of skills which may have once rested with the CFO and, more recently, the CHRO. The advent of the CPO is also a sure sign that, with volatile market conditions, the most successful companies will have key functions working together to drive performance across the business.

The HRD team wishes all readers a wonderful festive season. Thank you for your ongoing support. We look forward to bringing you more insights into the world of HR in 2017.

Iain Hopkins, editor

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DECEMBER 2016

CONNECT WITH US Got a story, suggestion or just want to find out some more information?

CONTENTS

HRDirector_au +Hcamag HumanResourcesDirector

UPFRONT 01 Editorial

Is it time to welcome the CPO?

34

FEATURES

INSIDE HR: BOOSTING DIGITAL FLUENCY

15 COVER STORY

2016 ANNUAL REVIEW

Research from Accenture suggests that improving ‘digital fluency’ for women might be the answer to improving gender equality in business

Mental health issues in the workplace

06 News analysis

Addressing the gender stereotypes in HR’s own backyard

08 Upfront: Employment law

How to deal with prolonged employee absence

10 Upfront: L&D

L&D for life, not just for now: KFC’s ‘people promise’

PEOPLE 12 Head to head

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HRD looks back at the key trends, emerging themes and notable challenges for HR this year in five key areas: employment law, technology, leadership development, reward and recognition, and L&D

FEATURES

PEOPLE

OUT OF SIGHT, NOT OUT OF MIND

SERVING UP A GLOBAL HR FRAMEWORK

04 Statistics

Aran Alexander outlines the duty of care every employer has to employees travelling for work

Should employers assist in ensuring the financial wellbeing of employees?

54 Career path

From South Africa to Australia, Tanya Southey shares her diverse career path with HRD

56 Other life

HR has been the ideal profession to enable Alma Besserdin’s passion for helping migrant women

David Klages reveals how Domino’s Pizza Enterprises’ HR approach transcends international borders

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FEATURES

NEVER BREAK THE CHAIN

Constructing a ‘strategic HR value chain’ may transform your standing in business

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HCAMAG.COM CHECK IT OUT ONLINE

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Is your business ready for the New Year?

Dynamic. Agile. Adaptive.

Workplace Law’s Best Practice Employer Checklist Workplace Policies and Procedures Are Performance Management and Disciplinary Policy and Procedures clear and well documented?

Is training in appropriate Performance Management and Discipline Procedures in place for Managers and Supervisors?

Is the Grievance Procedure appropriate for managing complaints of bullying?

Should a Code of Conduct be implemented to set the required standard of behaviour?

Are Policies and Procedures in plain language?

Are Policies and Procedures legally compliant?

Work Health and Safety Forms, Policies and Procedures Is a Workplace Accident and Injury Response Procedure in place and are key people trained?

Is training for Board and relevant Managers in relation to their WHS responsibilities in place?

Do you have an induction plan for all new employees?

Employment Contracts Do the documents refer to Modern Award coverage and classification?

Are the documents compliant with superannuation changes?

Are the employee’s duties to the employer clearly stated?

Are classifications and rates of pay for apprentices, juniors and all other employees correct?

Are allowances, penalties and loadings correct?

Call us on 02 9256 7500 to speak to our Managing Director Athena Koelmeyer about how Workplace Law can assist you with a strategic HR plan for 2017.

Also please visit our website www.workplacelaw.com.au and register for our FREE e-updates to stay up to date on workplace issues and trends. @workplacelaw

Workplace Law is a leading boutique law firm providing legal representation and strategic advice to a broad range of employers including national and multi-national corporations, publicly listed companies, not-for-profit organisations, government authorities and family businesses.

We represent employers in a wide variety of industries in the private and public sectors.

Dynamic. Agile. Adaptive.

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WORK HEALTH SAFETY DISCRIMINATION

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES EMPLOYMENT LAW SPORTS LAW WORKPLACE INSURANCE RISK MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL LAW WORKPLACE INVESTIGATIONS

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STATISTICS

DECEMBER 2016

MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

HOW DO EMPLOYERS MEASURE THE IMPACT OF STAFF MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES ON THE ORGANISATION?

Employers are on the front line in dealing with mental health issues on a daily basis, according to a new study FORMER VICTORIAN premier and beyondblue chairman Jeff Kennett recently called for the performance bonuses of chief executives to be partially linked to the mental wellbeing of their employees. He said pressure on employees is increasing and close to $11bn is lost in productivity each year because staff are unhappy or stressed at work.

Kennett’s sentiments were echoed in the MinterEllison 2016 Managing Mental Health in the Workplace Survey, which found that managing employee mental health issues is of increasing concern to employers.

The research looked at who in the organisation is taking responsibility for mental health in the workplace, what policies and programs organisations implement to manage mental health issues, and what approaches can be taken to better manage mental health issues in the workplace.

The report identified several areas that need to be improved in this area of workplace management, particularly through training programs and involvement by management and the executive team in staff mental health, including at board level.

65% do not quantify the impact of managing staff with mental health issues

20% report number of days absent

56%

of respondents reported a year-to-year increase in the number of mental health cases

38%

44%

94%

have discussed staff mental health issues at board level at least once

of respondents reported incidences of suicide or attempted suicide

of respondents feel that HR has responsibility for the management of staff mental health matters

BETTER TRAINING ESSENTIAL FOR HR A common theme among survey participants is that HR, WHS, legal and management teams need to continually learn about mental health issues, as every situation is different. Here are the most popular methods used to train staff.

HR/ER training on practical case management

WHAT’S IN PLACE – AND IS IT EFFECTIVE? Does your organisation have a formal policy or procedure for managing staff mental health issues?

70.5% Manager training on practical case management

74.1% No 25.9% Yes

70.5%

HR/ER training about associated legal issues

68.5%

Manager training about associated legal issues Access to required documentation for managing individual cases Training by a psychologist

Effectiveness of those policies and procedures

61.6%

10.1% Very 42.0% Somewhat 36.2% Not sure 5.8% Not very 5.8% Not at all

50.7%

47.9%

Board training on mental health issues in the workplace

36.3%

Access to recommended doctors for IMEs

34.9%

0

4

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

10%

consider their policies and procedures "very effective"

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MOST PREVALENT MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES

6% 6%

report lost productivity

94% Depression

use other measurements

94% Anxiety 67% Diagnosed mental illness

47% Addiction

2% report on financial value of lost days

WHAT PROGRAMS OR INITIATIVES ARE IN PLACE?

BUDGETS

Use of EAPs and flexible work arrangements are the most common ways employers are handling employees with psychological ill-health.

Surprisingly, a majority of participants said their organisation makes no or little (up to $20,000 annually) investment in preventative mental health and wellbeing programs.

90.9%

Access to confidential employee assistance program

86.7%

Flexible work arrangements

55.2%

Provision of/access to relevant information

41.8%

Resilience training

38.8%

Wellbeing checks

22.4%

On-site yoga or meditation services

Level of spending according to size of the organisation Zero

38.2%

Free fruit provided in the workplace

32.7%

Free or subsidised gym membership

27.9%

Health screenings

18.2%

On-site massage service

15.2%

Catering for people after-hours

14.5%

Access to a dietician or like services

Up to $20,000 Small (less than 100 staff) Medium (between 100 and 499 staff)

Up to $50,000 Up to $100,000

Large (between 500 and 1,999 staff) Extra large (2,000+ staff)

Up to $200,000 0

5

10

15

20

25

All statistics sourced from MinterEllison’s 2016 Managing Mental Health in the Workplace Survey

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UPFRONT

NEWS ANALYSIS

IS A LACK OF MEN MAKING HR ONEDIMENSIONAL? Women are dominating the HR profession and the consequences can be unexpected and far-reaching. John Hilton investigates IF THE latest statistics are anything to go by, men are not just outnumbered in HR, they’re well and truly the minority.

While this trend is evident all over the world, it is particularly apparent in Australasia.

For instance, within the ASX Top 50 companies around 75% of HR heads are currently women.

Moreover, a survey conducted by the Human Resources Institute of New Zealand

Limited paths to the top HR has long been a desirable career path for women – but this is possibly only because other routes have been blocked. A recent analysis of the top 1,000 US companies found that across the most prominent C-suite titles (CEO, CFO, CIO, CMO, CHRO) and several industries (consumer, energy, financial, life sciences, industrial, technology) an average of less than 24% of

“We need to do away with bias because we could potentially be overlooking really great male candidates in the profession” Lisa Annese found that 84% of respondents said HR was overwhelmingly over-represented by women, with one particularly strident respondent labelling the profession a “pink ghetto” where “talented females within a corporate environment seem to cluster”.

Finally, in Frazer Jones’ Global HR survey of nearly 3,500 HR professionals from around the world, 70% of respondents in Australia were female.

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the top leaders are women.

The research, conducted by people advisory firm Korn Ferry, found that across all of the C-suite positions, the most senior post, of CEO, is held by the smallest percentage of women – at just 5%.

The CHRO role, however, is the only C-suite role where there is gender parity, with women making up 55% of CHROs across industries.

“In our research, we found that women rank higher on key competencies needed in the CHRO role, such as collaboration and negotiation skills, the ability to balance multiple constituencies, and an appreciation for the dynamics of the overall business,” said Joseph McCabe, vice chairman of Korn Ferry’s Global Human Resources Center of Expertise.

Busting stereotypes So, what are the consequences of having such a one-sided gender balance in a profession?

Lisa Annese, CEO of the Diversity Council Australia (DCA), tells HRD that when women are in the majority in particular professions those professions are at risk of being devalued.

“If you have many women congregating in particular professions, as you do in HR, then those careers tend to be less valued in an organisation compared to other careers within an organisation such as finance, sales, engineering or science,” she says.

“However, looking after people is one of the most important roles an organisation can play, so it’s unfortunate that this is the case – but it can be seen in the evidence.”

For Annese, all professions would benefit from having greater gender balance, and it’s vital that we move past the hackneyed stereotypes.

“Women are traditionally seen to have better soft skills, communication skills, language skills and caring skills. But actually the science doesn’t bear that out,” she says.

“Women can still be very analytical, logical and have really good spatial awareness, so you have women who are excellent engineers and scientists.”

Conversely, men can excel at HR, and the real danger is when people start to believe the stereotypes – this is because they are at risk of becoming the myth that people believe to be true.

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Indeed, the view of the DCA is that professions are much more effective when they have a diverse representation of people – for one thing, this will ease the risk of ‘group think’.

Is HR walking the talk?

IT has been branded as the reverse mirror of HR and has come under fire in recent years for the dearth of women and the domination of men in senior roles. And just like major IT employers such as LinkedIn and Google have taken steps to rectify this imbalance, Annese feels there could be more work done to proactively attract men to the HR profession.

“If they were to enter the business world they may see HR as not being suitable for them simply because they are male,” explains Annese.

“I think we need to do away with bias because we could potentially be overlooking great candidates in the profession, and the more we allow gender balance within HR, the more likely we are to accept it within other professions as well. It’s good for business overall and it’s good for individuals.”

Annese also suggests that all the

evidence points towards diversity leading to better performance, better innovation, better engagement and better wellbeing for individuals.

“As organisations, we should always be trying to strive for a more diverse workforce.”

Naomi Mourra, head of HR for Australia

However, if the perception of HR is the fluffy people stuff, that may not be attractive to men.”

However, Klaus Duetoft, senior director human resources at eBay Australia and APAC, says the real question should revolve around capabilities, as opposed to gender.

“I would seek to answer whether we,

“If the perception of HR is the fluffy people stuff, that may not be attractive to men” Naomi Mourra and New Zealand at BBC Worldwide, agrees that having a better gender balance is beneficial in any field because industries that are not diverse risk losing credibility.

“As the role of HR becomes more influential, I think it will be a more attractive role to men,” she says.

“In a company where HR has a bigger role to play, I think you do get more diversity.

as a profession, are bringing in the right capabilities that are needed to help our business leaders and organisations thrive in a rapidly evolving, highly competitive global marketplace irrespective of gender,” he says.

Following on from this, Duetoft adds that it is important to position these requirements towards all new candidates thinking about a career in HR.

PROPORTION OF MEN AND WOMEN IN HR: 1997-2010 100

Men Women

75 Percentage

While recent local statistics are scarce, it appears the proportion of women in HR in the UK peaked in 2007 after more than 10 years of steady increases, at least according to data from XpertHR Salary Surveys. In 1997 in the UK, females comprised 63.8% of HR roles. In 2007 this had risen to 79.3% but has since plateaued.

The US and Denmark demonstrated similar trends.

Looking at universities across the Western world, most of the graduates from HR-focused classes are female. For example, the HRM line at the Copenhagen Business School in 2013 had 18 men and 132 women attending. In the UK, 86% of entry-level people in HR are female, again according to Xpert HR Salary Surveys.

50

25

0

7

199

9

199

1

200

3

200

5

200

7

200

9

200

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UPFRONT

EMPLOYMENT LAW NEWS BRIEFS Precedent-setting exploitation judgment a warning to employers

Frozen yoghurt chain Yogurberry has been penalised $146,000 for the exploitation of four Korean employees in Sydney who were paid $8 per hour from July 2014 to May 2015, which added up to $17,827 in total underpayments. The master franchisor, YBF Australia, was directly involved in establishing pay rates at the store, and did not disclose information about its financial status on purpose to avoid exposure of its infractions. According to Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James, the Court’s decision is a strong warning to franchisors about addressing exploitation in their networks.

Sacked worker reinstated, despite anti-Muslim comments

A BHP Billiton truck driver was sacked for anti-Muslim and homophobic comments made to other employees at a Hunter Valley site. He was unemployed for a number of months before an appeals process began at the Fair Work Commission. It was then ruled that the dismissal was too harsh as the comments had not been personally directed at anyone in particular and were consequently “mid-range” in severity. However, one commissioner has challenged the “mid-range” ruling given that such derogatory comments could pose an immeasurable impact on employees’ mental health.

FWC decision reminds employers to be clear on termination dates

Following the FWC’s finding in Mohammed Ayub v NSW Trains [2016] FWCFB 5500, employers have been urged to be clear on when a date for termination of employment will take effect. The FWC Full Bench stated that the “general principle” is that an employer must communicate to the employee using plain language and

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show by conduct that the contract is terminated. Where communication is in writing, it must have been received by the employee in order for the termination to be effective. Employers are urged to specify how the letter is delivered to the employee (whether it is by hand, by express post, etc) and if sent by mail, to ensure it is registered or couriered so there is evidence that the employee received the letter.

Airtasker and workers’ rights

Workplace Law has warned that the ubiquity of Airtasker, an online service that facilitates outsourcing of tasks to workers who can bid for the job, has made workers vulnerable to sham contracting and underpayment. Recently, Unions NSW released a report revealing how the system allows minimum pay rates, with no health and safety protections. Since Airtasker takes 15% of the agreed rate and has affiliations with other businesses, Unions NSW considers it a labour hire agency. As a result, affiliated businesses may be liable given the accessorial liability provisions of the Fair Work Act 2009.

Appellate courts clarify scope of WHS charges

Following two recent decisions of the appellate courts of the Northern Territory and Queensland, in order for criminal charges under the Workplace Health and Safety Acts to be considered valid, elements of an alleged offence must be presented clearly.

The two decisions in S Kidman & Co Ltd v Lowndes CM & Director of Public Prosecutions [2016] NTCA 5 and Archer v Simpson Transport Pty Ltd [2016] QCA 168, have reaffirmed that the elements of an alleged offence for WHS prosecutions must be clear. Employers should identify if a complaint has the required elements of a valid charge and consider all options within proceedings; the prosecutor may amend a charge if it is found defective.

HOW TO DEAL WITH PROLONGED EMPLOYEE ABSENCE In case of prolonged absences, employers must find the balance between meeting the employees’ needs and maintaining business goals Employees who have used up their accrued personal sick leave are entitled to be away on leave without pay for a further three months in any 12, according to Ross Jackson, partner at Maddocks. Thus, employers must consider how to handle prolonged absences without compromising the company’s operations.

“It’s incredibly important to manage that properly and not to inadvertently pay people when they have actually exhausted their entitlement to paid personal sick leave,” he told HRD. Jackson explained that an employer is entitled to enquire as to an employee’s state of wellbeing and health without appearing to harass the employee.

“If the absence becomes prolonged and it’s looking like the person might be taking it all in one block or they are leaving and coming back (which adds up to more than three months in any 12), you are entitled to obtain a medical opinion – not just a medical certificate, but a medical opinion,” he said.

The first port of call would be to ask the individual to provide the employer with consent to obtain a report from their health practitioner on diagnosis and prognosis, how long it is likely to last, and when/if it will get better.

It’s then important to enquire if there are any steps the employer could take to enable this person to perform the inherent requirements of the employment.

This is to be distinguished from giving

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them another job that they could do.

Jackson cited Cosma v Qantas Airways Ltd (2002) FCA 640, which involved a luggage ground attendant who could no longer lift heavy items.

“Qantas was successful by showing there were no adjustments it could make to that job that could avoid the lifting component,” he said. “[Qantas was] not obliged to create another job that the person could do.”

Employers must consider how to handle prolonged absences without compromising the company’s operations A best practice employer with a good, reliable employee might be able to offer another job if they have one that the employee could do, Jackson explained. However, the law focuses on the adjustments that could be made to the job the person was contracted to perform, to enable them to perform it.

“Act in accordance with the medical evidence and get the medical report from the treater,” advised Jackson. “If that report is not comprehensive or the consent isn’t forthcoming or it’s inadequate in some way, then if it’s reasonable to do so, the employer has a right to provide a lawful and reasonable direction to an employee to attend an independent medical examination for the purpose of the employer ascertaining what that employee can safely do.”

Q&A

BULLYING AND UNDERPERFORMANCE Jonathon Hadley Partner GADENS

Fast fact Safe Work Australia defines workplace bullying as “… repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker that creates a risk to health and safety”.

This definition is very much in line with that used by the Fair Work Ombudsman (under the powers of the 2009 Fair Work Act).

Can a disciplinary process be conducted concurrently with a bullying investigation?

One of the most common issues arising from a performance management process is a complaint of bullying or harassment.

The complaint can either be in relation to a person conducting the disciplinary process, or another person within the organisation.

Complaints of bullying or harassment will more often arise as a result of the disciplinary process; however, they may also arise shortly beforehand if an employee senses that they may be the subject of an investigation.

In either circumstance, employers are not automatically restricted from proceeding with both processes concurrently. There is no specific legislative requirement which requires the suspension of either process. In some cases, it may be operationally vital that the disciplinary process is undertaken and finalised expediently (for instance, where an employer’s policy requires it).

However, when assessing whether it is appropriate to continue both processes concurrently, employers are encouraged to first consider whether the claim of bullying could be related to, or adversely affect the legitimacy of, the disciplinary process. An example of this may be where the disciplinary process relates to performance issues and the complaint relates to the person responsible for assessing the employee’s performance.

How should HR proceed while handling these two processes?

Employers wishing to proceed with both processes concurrently should ensure that the following steps are taken, where appropriate: (a) Both processes are kept separate and distinct. It is essential that the persons involved in the disciplinary process are not also involved in investigating the complaint. Where HR cannot facilitate this, or where the complaint involves senior management, employers should consider engaging an external resource to investigate the complaint. (b) Follow internal policies and procedures. Employers should ensure that they follow all internal policies and procedures when undertaking both processes. (c) A clear and defined process for investigating the complaint is established. Employers should ensure that there is a clear process in place for investigating the complaint. (d) If possible, remove the subject officer from both processes. It is often the case that the subject of the complaint will be a person intricately involved in the disciplinary process. Where possible, this person should be removed from a decision-making role in the disciplinary process. (e) Keep clear and comprehensive written evidence of the decisionmaking process. In addition to further bullying claims, employers also risk a claim under the general protections provisions where disciplinary action has been taken following a complaint of bullying.

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UPFRONT

L&D UPDATE

L&D FOR LIFE, NOT JUST FOR NOW KFC’s L&D initiatives ensure young employees have ‘employability skills’

“What we didn’t want to do was replace the job of a career counsellor at school, because our people aren’t trained to do that,” said Phipps. “We wanted to start a conversation and then get team members to go home and talk to their parents, carers, schools or career counsellors to go further.”

Phipps added that the average age of KFC’s employees is anywhere between 15 and 20.

The goal of #myplan is to provide a framework to engage team members in self-reflection

KFC Australia prides itself on giving its employees the best career opportunities, whether within KFC or beyond. Thus, #myplan was developed to improve employee engagement and retention, and to identify a distinct talent pipeline.

Rob Phipps, KFC Australia’s chief people officer, said the development of #myplan involved looking at the reasons why its employees love working there. “One of those insights was that we’re very good at developing people,” Phipps told HRD. Direction and input was sourced from the Career Industry Council of Australia, the National Retail Association and the Department of Education to build a base for the #myplan

NEWS BRIEFS

program and ensure that the initiative was “industry best practice”.

The goal of #myplan is to provide a framework to engage team members in self-reflection, self-evaluation and SMART goal setting. This helps them understand the ‘employability skills’ obtained while working at KFC, as well as recognise career opportunities both within and outside the company.

The completed plan then forms the base for discussion and collaboration with their managers, parents and career advisers to encourage commitment to achieving their goals.

To support managers throughout this process, a manager component was also developed.

Don’t overlook orientation for internal hires

Promotion or job changes within a company should still come with induction and orientation, according to Lisa Stirling, chief people officer at Ceridian, in order to help employees adjust to the new role and new expectations. She explained that most companies do proper onboarding with new hires but not for existing employees, who are “too often left to ‘sink or swim’”.

Stirling suggested that managers should start by checking in with internal hires to understand their strengths and needs, and to help them connect with the new team to ensure a smooth transition.

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The program consists of two modules.

The employee module is an online module that is activity based and auto-populates a goals form with short- and long-term goals. It provides information on career options at KFC and steps to take to help employees achieve their goals.

The manager module assists managers in preparing for goal-centric discussions with their employees. It also provides coaching and mentoring skills, and a guide for how they can assist employees in achieving their goals.

Although the program is not compulsory, KFC has seen some very positive results, particularly from the management team. More than 80% of all managers have been through the manager module and over 95% of these managers have found the module useful in preparing them to assist their employees in developing and achieving their goals.

Why companies should invest in apprenticeships

“No workforce training method packs as much punch as an apprenticeship,” said Nicholas Wyman, CEO of the Institute of Workplace Skills and Innovation. In the US, every dollar put into an apprenticeship program yields US$27 return in productivity and innovation.

Unlike internships, apprenticeships “combine hands-on training with college coursework, and is paired with scalable wage increases”, Wyman added. A good program provides targeted skills training and is aligned with the needs of the community and the expertise of employers and educators.

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Q&A

Arthur Richardson National solutions manager Easy Authoring

Fast fact The University of Denver held crisis simulations that immersed learners within a humanitarian crisis. Working with hired actors who played the part of those with dire needs, participants learnt how to stay cool and calm in high-pressure situations.

HOW SIMULATIONS BRING L&D TO LIFE Why are simulations such a powerful workplace learning tool?

Simulations imitate real situations, processes and systems which can occur in a workplace. The power of a simulation is that it provides a risk-free environment in which a learner can explore, make decisions and – importantly – make mistakes without any real consequences. Learners can be placed into a workplace environment which they recognise, and are required to observe and make decisions in relation to the specific circumstances displayed in the scenarios.

Feedback can be provided to the learner as they move through the simulation, or at the conclusion of the simulation. Depending on the responses the individual makes during the simulation, a team leader, supervisor or manager can assess the level of competence of the individual and provide appropriate reinforcement, feedback or remediation.

How can simulations complement a traditional L&D program?

Simulations can be used in variety of ways in a traditional learning program. They can be used as the stimulus for a learning program – as the hook that captures the learner by placing them in a real situation and asking them what they would do. They can also be used as the learning program itself, in which the learner is guided through a simulation, or as reinforcement at the completion of a traditional learning program (eg “OK, we’ve talked about it; now you try it”). Finally, they can be used as an assessment activity.

The rise, fall and future of MOOCs

In 2008, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) were introduced by colleges and universities to offer free courses to underserved populations.

However, reports show that the popularity of MOOCs has plateaued and many universities have no plans to implement them, as they can be the least effective method for students most in need of educational resources.

However, in its recent report on MOOCs, the Association for Talent Development suggested that MOOCs would persist in the corporate world as more companies would develop them once “more talent development professionals learn to design them”.

Scenarios within the simulation can be constructed so that learners interact with the content in a variety of ways. This could include challenging them to respond to a specific question, problem or situation; working through a situation from another team member’s perspective to solve or react to an issue; identifying and/or selecting items to complete a task; time-based activities; exploring a scene and explaining what they have discovered; or dealing with distractions.

In what learning situations can simulations be used in the workplace?

Simulations have been used for many years in sectors such as the airline industry and the military.

Increasingly, they are being used as an effective learning strategy in many workplaces. There is almost no limit to where simulations can be used.

Examples of learning with simulations include customer conversations in banks, shops, and call centres; work hazards such as working in confined spaces, working at heights, or handling goods; occupational violence scenarios such as armed robbery or aggressive customers; business computer applications and processes; the operation of equipment and tools; and inappropriate workplace behaviours such as bullying, discrimination and harassment.

Today, the richness and breadth of simulations in the workplace is increasing significantly with the advent and uptake of technologies such as 360-degree cameras, virtual reality and augmented reality.

Resilience training for Immigration Dept

The Immigration Department is implementing resilience training to protect the mental health of its officials, particularly those employed in detention centres, involved in investigations and border operations, or are exposed to trauma and tragedy in their work. Recent figures showed that workers’ compensation claims for mental stress at the Immigration Department doubled between 2014 and 2015. The government has invited private organisations to bid for a contract to train 1,000 Immigration and Border Force officials each year.

Cultural training app launched for workplaces

The Special Broadcasting Service, Multicultural NSW and International Education Services Limited have collaborated to launch the Cultural Competence Program, a mobile app and online training tool designed to help Australian organisations exercise cultural diversity. The program will help employees understand Australia’s diverse cultures and practices by exploring topics such as cross-cultural communication, addressing stereotypes, and unconscious bias. It consists of eight multimedia learning modules, including activities and interviews featuring real stories. www.hcamag.com

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PEOPLE

HEAD TO HEAD

GOT AN OPINION THAT COUNTS? Email hrd_editor@keymedia.com.au

Should employers assist with employee financial wellbeing?

Australians are stressed about their personal finances, meaning stress-related illness is on the rise. What role can HR play?

Vicki Doyle

Director corporate superannuation AMP Financial wellbeing can be an important contributor to our overall happiness.

But we know that more than one in four Australian workers, or 2.86 million people, are experiencing financial stress.

In addition to the effects it has on the person, financial stress has an impact on the business.

Research shows financially stressed employees lose on average 6.9 hours of productive work per week and are absent four days per year due to stress-related sickness. This equates to $47bn in lost annual revenue for employers.

There’s real value in employers supporting financial wellbeing in the workplace.

Encouraging people to set goals, engage with their finances, and seek financial help when needed can alleviate financial stress. It will help to make Australia’s workforce more productive, add to the economy, and help more Australians achieve their goals.

Alec Bashinsky

National partner people & performance Deloitte Many organisations provide both internal and external vendor financial planning services to their employees. In some cases this is seen as part of an employee benefits offering or as part of a broader wellbeing strategy that enhances the offering from the mental, emotional, spiritual and physical wellbeing pillars to providing specific financial advice.

Whilst there are many pros and cons to assisting employees with their financial wellbeing, my view is this is something an organisation should not be involved in, apart from providing access to banking services, etc. The main reason for this is if the advice fails or backfires the employee will blame the organisation for approving or endorsing this assistance and has the propensity to disengage the employee or create an adversarial position between them and the organisation.

Jennifer Noble

Total rewards manager, Australia & New Zealand SAP We’re conscious of managing the fine line between our employees’ professional and personal lives. We offer a holistic health and wellness program – A Better Me – whereby a menu of options is available for employees to select (across financial, physical and psychological), based upon their specific needs. We don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach.

For financial wellbeing we engage with established partners to educate employees to make the best choices and decisions, but steer away from recommending organisations or services. The topics covered, such as estate planning and optimising superannuation, are informative but general enough not to be construed as advice. We do, however, ensure that our employees are supported with appropriate levels of insurance coverage.

FEELING THE HEAT: WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO EXPERIENCE FINANCIAL STRESS? Women are more likely to experience financial stress, with 30% stating this is the case, compared to 19% of males, according to AMP’s 2016 Financial Wellness report. Financial stress is most common in the accommodation and food services industry, in which 35% of employees are stressed. This is followed by healthcare and social services (32%), administration and support services (31%) and retail (26%). Fifty-four per cent of casual workers are financially stressed compared to 22% and 27% of full-time and part-time workers, respectively. The number of employees experiencing financial stress in the mining industry has jumped over the past two years, shifting from 9% in 2014 to 26% in 2016.

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FEATURING:

29-30 March 2017 • Luna Park Sydney

Anna Meares, Track cyclist champion and Australia team captain, Rio Olympics 2016 David Mallon, Head of Research, Bersin by Deloitte Lucinda Brogden, Commissioner, National Mental Health Commission Sally Kincaid, Chief Human Resources Officer, QBE Insurance Barb Hyman, Executive General Manager, People & Culture, REA Group Chris Blake, Executive General Manager, Corporate Affairs & People, Australia Post Anjanette Murfet, Human Resources Director, Coca-Cola Peter Hartnett, HR Director, Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Steve Cox, Managing Director, Dymocks Retail Corry Roberts, Vice President HR, Thales

AWARDED AUSTRALIA’S BEST BUSINESS EVENT

A very positive and thought provoking experience with a great diversity of speakers.

- HR Director, The Australian Ballet

Silver sponsor

Exhibitors

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D S S T

r

COVER STORY

2016 YEAR IN REVIEW HRD’s Annual Review takes a look at the significant milestones, events and trends who have shaped the HR profession in 2016 16 INTRODUCTION

26 EMPLOYMENT LAW

A round-up of key trends and most influential leaders in 2016

Accessorial liability and five other key trends from the year

18 TECHNOLOGY

28 LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Mobile technology and big data & analytics will dominate HR in the year ahead

How new technology, new approaches to instructional design and new content are transforming leadership development

22 L&D

30 ENGAGEMENT

The rise and rise of virtual and augmented reality in the L&D space

Engagement in 2017 will mean focusing on people analytics

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ANNUAL REVIEW

INTRODUCTION

SNAPSHOT OF 2016

POWER PLAYERS Who are the most viewed HR professionals on LinkedIn? In September the networking giant released its 2016 ‘Power Profiles’, a list of the most connected professionals. In 2016 the list includes:

From the collapse of ‘rank and yank’ employee rating systems to the skills in demand, here are some highs (and lows) of 2016 SKILLS IN DEMAND In September, LinkedIn revealed its Top Skills of 2016 – the skills that are most sought after

by Australian employers. IT and technical skills dominate the list, with two exceptions: HR benefits and compensation, and corporate law and governance.

The Top 10 Skills of 2016 are:

Statistical analysis and data mining

SEO/SEM marketing

Middleware and integration software

HR benefits and compensation

Network and information security

Susie Babani CHRO, ANZ Stephanie Gillies APAC talent acquisition strategy & transformation director, Accenture David Sayer chief operations & talent officer, Ogilvy Australia Rachael Powell chief people officer, Xero

Mobile development

User interface design

Web architecture and development framework

Algorithm design

Corporate law and governance

A TOUGH YEAR FOR…

Sehr Ahmed global chief people officer, IFM Investors In addition, it was a great year for….

• Peter Hartnett, head of people

& culture, Sanitarium – HR Director of the Year at the Australian HR Awards

Amazon: An article in the New York Times called Amazon a “bruising workplace” in which managers said they went into annual appraisal meetings as if they were preparing to go to court. In other words, they had to amass a lot of material to justify whether an employee should stay or go. The ‘rank and yank’ practice saw the lowest-rated employees regularly dismissed in order to create a workplace of only highly productive employees. However, the article was strongly contested by Amazon and a number of employees who argued it was not representative of their time at the company. In late 2016, the firm announced it was launching a new annual review process, “which focuses on our employees’ strengths, not the absence of weaknesses”, according to a spokesperson.

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• Tash Macknish, national manager, OD & HR, Data#3 – Gold winner of HRD’s Employer of Choice award (500+ employees)

• Adrian West, head of HR Australia

& New Zealand, Cisco Systems – Cisco Systems picked up Aon Hewitt’s ‘Best of the Best’ citation at their annual Best Employer Awards

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HC ONLINE’S MOST COMMENTED ON ARTICLES OF 2016 1. Philosopher slams HR departments, 13 July 2016 Philosopher and business consultant Alain de Botton believes employers are reluctant to address employee dissatisfaction, perhaps because they see a split between ‘cultural’ and ‘business’ backgrounds. “People who come from cultural backgrounds are instinctively suspicious of businesses,” he said, whereas “CEOs are instinctively very shy about psychological material”. And just as suspicious are employees: he attributes employee dissatisfaction partly to the HR department. “These guys have a dual role, hiring and sacking. They are also accused of speaking the language no one else understands. It’s warm and kind, but it’s not true. The truth is, my boss can sack me any minute.”

2. PwC abolishes employee dress code, 2 Jun 2016 Just weeks after one receptionist was sent home for refusing to wear high heels, the Australian arm of PwC officially abolished its traditional employee dress code. Sue Horlin, who was just stepping into the human capital leader role at PwC Australia, said the move was actually about keeping up with what industry competitors can offer as well as driving innovation at the firm. Previously, men were expected to wear fine knitwear, smart shirts with collars, tailored trousers, traditional suits and dress shoes or boots. Women had to wear similar attire, with additional options of tailored dresses, shirts, smart shirts or blouses and business-style shoes or boots.

3. Domestic violence leave under fire, 26 Sept 2016 The Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) expressed concern that the domestic violence leave proposed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) could lead to entitlements for perpetrators as well as victims. In a submission to the Fair Work Commission in the ongoing 4 Yearly Review of Modern Awards, the union called for 10 days of paid domestic and family violence leave in all modern awards. However, Ai Group has responded with its own FWC submission, saying that a clause proposed by the ACTU stating that those ‘experiencing’ family or domestic violence were entitled to leave was vague and unclear and could be interpreted as entitling perpetrators of domestic violence to a period of leave – a claim the ACTU strenuously denied.

4. Bullying conviction under WHS laws a salutary warning to businesses, 15 Jun 2016 The June criminal conviction of an employer for the persistent and serious bullying of an apprentice represented a stark warning for employers. Wayne Allan Dennert was fined $12,500 by Geelong Magistrates Court under workplace health and safety (WHS) laws for bullying by himself and other employees of an apprentice who suffered anxiety and depression as a result of his subjection to physical, verbal and psychological abuse over a period of two years. The case was unusual in that the employer was convicted under the workplace health and safety regime rather than the Fair Work Commission’s anti-bullying jurisdiction.

KEY HR TRENDS 2016–17 Bersin by Deloitte’s 2016 Perspective Report identified nine HR trends.

1. The revolution of performance management With the knowledge that employees want to contribute to organisational success as well as achieve their own goals, leading companies are using their performance tools to better cater to staff growth, creating systems that measure and manage performance with regular and ongoing feedback.

2. Real-time engagement evaluation Companies are embracing digital tools that allow them to survey employees more regularly, and obtain deeper insights about their staff. Using this technology, employees feel more comfortable sharing their personal observations and feedback with their employers.

3. Growth in people analytics There’s been a shift in data analytics in recent years, from a focus on generating ‘data warehouses’ to actually using that data for predictive modelling. In fact, the latest report suggests that the percentage of HR companies using predictive modelling within their business has doubled over the past three years.

4. The evolving market for learning The corporate learning marketplace is rapidly evolving due to an increasing rate of job change and new ways of thinking about what learning is. We now consider learning to be more dynamic and self-directed.

5. Changes to the talent acquisition process The digital age has provided unprecedented public access to company information, employer rankings and salary figures. With websites such as Glassdoor, the talent acquisition market has become increasingly transparent.

6. Growth in contingent workforce management In the US, 40% of workers are considered to be employed on a ‘contingent’ basis. Increased demand for contingent workforce management systems and ‘gig networks’ (including contractor management) has propelled this growth.

7. Merging HR tools and team management We’re moving away from tools specifically designed to help HR, towards those that help employees work more effectively. Systems such as Workday’s new LMS are designed to help employees find their next position within the company, then identify the training resources relevant to obtaining that role.

8. Wellness and fitness apps to improve engagement Companies are putting more and more emphasis on work-life balance, understanding the role it plays in fostering a sustainable workforce.

9. Self-service, AI and robotic process automation Aided by technology, HR can now focus on employee journey maps and experiences – in other words, automating the processes for employee career and job transitions.

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ANNUAL REVIEW

TECHNOLOGY

ALL CHANGE

It’s been a year of change for technology vendors, and 2017 is shaping up to be just as disruptive

HR TECHNOLOGY is big business – big to the tune of US$14bn being spent by organisations globally each year. Fuelled by the need for mobile and analytical capabilities, the industry is being shaken up by smaller, more nimble disruptors.

HR industry veteran Josh Bersin described it this way to Forbes: “The story is simple

vendor. Although it specialises and works with clients on Chris21, Silverdrop will take a holistic view of each client’s technology needs. The company can provide auditing services, health checks, assistance with system integration, and maintenance and performance improvements.

“What we find is that very few organisations

“There’s a good mix of knowing when it’s time to upgrade and taking the right amount of time to choose technology” Gerard Barwell and has repeated itself. Just as a cottage industry of online recruitment, learning, and performance management vendors disrupted incumbents in the early 2000s (prompting SAP to pay US$3.4bn for SuccessFactors, Oracle to pay US$1.9bn for Taleo, and IBM to pay more than US$1.1bn for Kenexa), a new set of disruptors are doing it again.”

In this context, HR professionals can rightfully claim to be confused or daunted by the prospect of changing or updating their HRIS. It’s no surprise that a company like Silverdrop HR and Payroll Services, headed

by Managing Director Gerard Barwell, is excelling. Silverdrop is not a technology

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have a single HRIS; they have many,” says Barwell. “We’ll come in and deal with any issues they’re having. As an example, we often find that where the symptom is will not be where the actual cause of the problem is. We might be brought in to look at integration with a finance system but find the actual cause is their time and attendance system, which is not providing the data to the payroll system and therefore the finance system cannot operate.”

Decision time In recent years, Barwell has noticed an increase in HR involvement in technology decisions, and notes there are “some very savvy HR directors”

who are almost running an end-to-end process, from selection to implementation – all without getting their IT team involved.

Fortunately, Barwell reports that Australian HR professionals are, on the whole, smart adopters of new technology.

“There’s a good mix of knowing when it’s time to upgrade and taking the right amount of time to choose technology,” he says. He adds that this is in stark contrast to his experiences in Asia where a lot of the decision-making was purely based on price and “many decisions were being made based off PowerPoint demonstrations”. In Australia, where HR has technology that works well, even if it’s a little dated, they will take steps to combine new technology with the bits that are no longer working effectively.

Big vs small All of which feeds into the eternal debate: is an integrated system best or does best of breed hit the mark?

Barwell says the big vendors are still pushing the “ideal vision” of having a single, all-encompassing system. However, in his 18 years in the game, he has “never come across a single organisation that has been able to do their full-length HR operations in one system”.

“You cannot get away from having multiple systems, and people are increasingly realising this. It means the integration of systems is becoming a much more dominant element in the tech space.”

While Workday, SAP and Oracle battle it out with newcomers like ELMO for the 20,000-plus employee market, at the lower end – any employer with fewer than 2,000 employees – Barwell has found there are many more options.

“This is enabling many organisations to get on board with new features and functionalities without having to outlay the costs involved with Workday or Oracle,”

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WHAT’S THE KEY TO A SUCCESSFUL IT/HR RELATIONSHIP?

he says. “There’s so much good-quality technology at a low price, but it’s also flexible and smart. It can be implemented quickly, there’s a lower cost to maintain it, and being a cloud solution it means you receive automatic upgrades without going through the hassle of on-premise solution upgrades.”

Integrating systems With best-of-breed system uptake on the rise, Barwell sees integration as being necessary on three levels.

“I think it comes down to communication between the parties,” says Barwell. “I find that where the IT and HR teams communicate well, they’re doing better. From IT’s perspective, security is top of mind, yet HR can often see that as an excuse: IT is simply blocking my new systems from being implemented. To bridge this gap, HR professionals need to become more tech savvy and have a better understanding of the IT decision-making processes. It helps if everyone is on the same page, but when we look at communication, HR is naturally generally better at people-to-people communication than the IT team. Therefore I think HR need to be the drivers of increasing the communication between the two teams.”

Staff level integration. What are your employees able to see with your data? “If you don’t integrate correctly you might end up having different mobile apps for three or four different HR systems – for example, you might have in place an ELMO, a Chris21, a PageUp, etc, and they all have their individual staff views. But the optimum result is presenting a single employee view where they

have an interactive staff portal, no matter how many back-end systems you have in place. A disruptive player in that market would be Mumba.”

Horizontal integration. That is, entering an employee’s details once and then having the data shared between multiple systems. “What we’re seeing growing in that

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ANNUAL REVIEW

TECHNOLOGY Brought to you by

LET ME ASK YOU A QUESTION ABOUT… Barwell is frequently asked questions around three critical HRIS areas.

1. Best of breed or ERP? “If they’re looking at best of breed, what are the integration options?”

2. Cloud vs on-premise? “Even though most of the sales and marketing speak out there is focused on the cloud, you’ll still find a huge number of organisations that have their core HRIS running on-premise, or often they’ll have a mix of cloud vs on-premise solutions.”

3. What’s the overlap? “HR wants to know how whatever they are buying will overlap with other systems.

Vendors will have multiple pieces to their offering. Frontier, for example, has very strong payroll with some HR. RITEQ has a background in rostering and time and attendance, but has now introduced data analytics. ELMO’s background is learning management, but they have things like recruitment and performance management on the side. Just about every system has core strength and then a ‘plus something’ – and it’s the plus bit that HR may struggle with. A lot of the decisionmaking comes down to how you deal with system overlap.”

SILVERDROP HR AND PAYROLL SERVICES Gerard Barwell is the Managing Director and Founder of Silverdrop HR and Payroll Services. He has worked in the HR industry since 1998 and has also worked in the Telecommunications and Data Hosting space. Gerard has had hands-on experience with various HRIS platforms as a Trainer, Helpdesk Manager, Consultant, Sales Manager and Systems Partner.

Silverdrop provides effective HR Technology solutions that enhance organisations’ success.

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space is the IDAM solution – identity and access management. It used to be that people were satisfied using an active directory for sign-on, so you’d have the same sign-on. These days, horizontal integration is appearing more and more with multiple choices of IDAM solutions.

One example is Unify Solutions.”

Big data integration. From a big data perspective, this means ensuring you have a single dashboard or presentation layer at least, for all staff details, no matter how many back-

The other big trend will be around big data and data analytics. Barwell cites RITEQ, which traditionally played in the time and attendance space but now has data scientists in place to start looking at trends in the data being generated by clients.

“We need to look at data by starting with the end in mind,” he says. “When data scientists look at data they’re not just seeing numbers on a page; they’re looking to answer the critical questions that a business is asking. What we’re getting to is actionable data. Don’t just provide

Barwell has simple advice to HR practitioners looking to integrate multiple systems: take your medicine up front end systems you’re using. “Over the last couple of years I’ve found that most systems have moved towards a greater ability to integrate with other systems. Web services is a good example that has improved in this area. Employers are becoming increasingly interested in real-time data and are moving away from data warehousing.”

Barwell has simple advice to HR practitioners looking to integrate multiple systems: take your medicine up front. “If you spend a bit more time and money getting better automation and integration up front, you’ll be set for the next five years. If you don’t take that extra time/money up front you’ll end up with much higher costs over time.”

Future gazing Looking ahead to 2017, Barwell says we’ll see discussion turning into action when it comes to mobile technology.

By ‘mobile technology’ Barwell specifically means a single interactive staff portal where everyone can see data in real time across all the systems in place.

information for information’s sake but tell me what I can do with it.”

Even more exciting, Barwell predicts ‘game changer’ technology will revolutionise HRIS platforms, along similar lines to the shift from traditional mobile phones to smartphones. Rather than simply updating their interfaces but leaving the processing and back-end untouched – perhaps resulting in a 2–3% improvement in capability and efficiency with each upgrade – this new era may see up to a 20–30% improvement in those same areas. These gains, he adds, will likely come from IDAM integration and better data analytics tools.

“My slant on HRIS is that for the last 10 years there hasn’t been much innovation,” Barwell says. “It has been quite incremental.

With HRIS, it’s still the case that to get more out of the system you have to put more hours into entering data into a solution. That’s not right.

We should be moving towards being able to process data at the hit of a button or being able to get outputs without so much work.”

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ANNUAL REVIEW

L&D

THE FUTURE IS HERE

With immersive technology starting to take hold of the corporate L&D space, HRD gains some insights into where L&D is heading and what is shaping this future path

IMAGINE YOU are the HR director of a leading department store chain. Your HR team’s traditional means of inducting and onboarding new seasonal staff was to send them some ‘must read’ documents the week prior to them starting, and then on their first day have them spend time meeting with their supervisor as well as with a peer in order to be ‘shown the ropes’.

use the cash register and process EFTPOS payments. And that’s just the start – in a few short years onboarding will likely embrace the same augmented reality technology utilised in the perhaps unexpected tech hit of 2016: Pokémon Go.

Moving with the times A number of key elements are coming

“An LMS is an LMS; it’s your learning strategy and the content that’s going to make the difference” Marc Havercoft In 2016, suddenly that seems quaint.

While inducting and onboarding will always require the human touch, the L&D elements of these processes are being revolutionised.

Today, two weeks from starting in the job, a new hire can potentially use their mobile to be introduced to their direct manager and perhaps a future colleague, and be shown the location in which they will work. In addition, video technology can demonstrate how to

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together to help transform corporate L&D. Apart from technology, chief among these key elements is the desire of employers to create cultures of continuous learning. Marc Havercroft, VP of Business Transformation and Advisory, SAP SuccessFactors, defines these cultures as being critical to any business moving forward into the digital age. Learning in this era is being impacted on by two disparate but related components.

Firstly, there’s leadership’s fear about being able to grasp the shift towards ‘Industry 4.0’. “As leaders, it’s the ability to take their business into the digital age,” Havercroft says, adding that it’s no surprise that companies like ANZ Bank have for the first time appointed people to their board who have both a digital focus and digital skills.

Secondly, there’s been a shift from the employees’ perspective. They want to proactively manage their own careers now and into the future. “Today, one of the biggest reasons people pick a certain organisation to work for is not so much for the work they’ll do; it’s more about what they’ll learn on the job. Continuous learning is going to be a mainstay of the EVP for many organisations,” says Havercroft.

While once it was a ‘tick the box’ exercise in risk mitigation, especially for compliance training, today both employers and employees realise it’s in the interest of both parties if learning is self-directed and enjoyable.

Research from Deloitte states: “Employees at all levels expect dynamic, self-directed, continuous learning opportunities from their employers.”

With change being the new normal, Havercroft suggests that employees are perhaps more interested today in keeping their skills sharp. “Anything that will ensure their skills don’t become obsolete will help,” he says. “Everyone wants to remain a valuable asset in the work environment. Selfdirected learning to me also means relevant content on mediums that are based on the individual’s wants and expectations.”

What role does technology play in such a world? Havercroft suggests it’s a lever to execute and harness change – but it’s the learning content that remains critical. “An LMS is an LMS; it’s your learning strategy and the content that’s going to make the difference.”

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BUILDING ON HUMAN NATURE He likens technology to a car, which will get someone from A to B, but it’s still important for the driver to know where A and B are.

“That’s why I think technology facilitates continuous learning and facilitates the growth of individuals and organisations.

However, you must know where you’re going,” he says.

L&D and the cloud This last point is where cloud technology plays a critical role.

The cloud is simply information and knowledge stored in a central location – a

Marc Havercroft of SAP SuccessFactors outlines how the best learning technology builds upon basic human behaviours.

“Peer-to-peer learning is what we do best as human beings. It’s why we set up buddy systems at work. It’s why classroom education has been the default for so long and why we have internships in the workplace. You can be an expert in something, but your social relationships are a big influencer on how you learn or try new things. Traditionally we would have viewed peer-to-peer as having someone physically sitting next to you. But today you could be collaborating with someone on the other side of the world via channels like SAP’s Jam collaboration tool, or you could be interacting on wikis. Peer-to-peer technology simply draws on how we learn and how we interact with each other as humans.”

data warehouse or similar. In the L&D space, the cloud allows employers to store greater knowledge and content, and also provide access to that knowledge and content across multiple digital platforms. This might mean

learning via a YouTube video at home or a learning portal at work – or anything in between. The cloud also provides the ability to easily distribute and add to that knowledge – a major boon for employers interested in

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ANNUAL REVIEW

L&D Brought to you by

4 LEARNING TRENDS Mobile learning Online learning using tablets, phones and laptops allows learning to happen anywhere, at any time. In a gig-based economy, employees could live anywhere in the world, making mobile learning an important aspect of an organisation’s L&D strategy.

Microlearning Similar to mobile learning, microlearning also strays from the traditional course model and delivers small nuggets of information via mediums such as short how-to videos or text-based instructions.

Self-directed learning In traditional L&D models, HR and management gave limited learning options at specific times. With changes in technology, learning has become more employee-centric; they can learn how and when they want.

Immersive learning One of the most recent trends in learning is immersive technologies.

Some of these technologies are virtual reality, like Google Cardboard and Oculus Rift. These allow learners to immerse themselves in any environment in real time. They could help teach employees how to react in dangerous or high-risk situations.

SAP SUCCESSFACTORS SAP SuccessFactors is the global provider of cloud-based human capital management (HCM) software. The human capital management application suite integrates onboarding, social business and collaboration tools, a learning management system (LMS), performance management, recruiting software, applicant tracking software, succession planning, talent management, and HR analytics to organisations of all sizes across over 60 industries.

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capturing the knowledge of their employees in a central portal.

Eventually, virtual reality and augmented reality-based technology will be additional mediums through which learning can be delivered. However, Havercroft says success is not really dependent on technology; that’s just the medium through which learning is delivered. Instead, he suggests HR leaders concentrate on: • relevant content • the medium that works for their business and their workforce • measuring the success of any initiative On this last point, he suggests that measuring engagement is not enough.

learning space, primarily through its on-premise/ERP platforms, and now with its cloud-based SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite, including the SAP SuccessFactors Learning solution. The cloud enables employers to deliver learning through mobile, video, peer-to-peer, and eventually virtual and augmented reality.

However, given these monumental changes in the L&D landscape, SAP SuccessFactors has shifted subtly from being an L&D and talent management solutions provider to being more involved on the content creation and consulting side.

“We realised that many clients need help in taking what I’d call 2D content and

The cloud enables employers to deliver learning through mobile, video, peer-to-peer, and eventually virtual and augmented reality “Engagement to me means I know what I’m doing and I’m doing it well. It’s really about productivity – because productivity means bigger profits.”

Citing the earlier example of induction and onboarding in the department store, Havercroft says the manager’s time to get a new hire up to speed could potentially be reduced from two weeks to a few hours; productivity is therefore increased for both the employee and the manager. “When you consider the manager’s salary and the employee’s salary and how much business the company does in the two weeks in the lead-up to Christmas, suddenly you get a clear idea of the impact on the bottom line. That’s the power of learning – when it’s linked to commercial outcomes like that,” he says.

A focus on content as much as technology SAP has a long history in the corporate

making it 3D or 4D,” says Havercroft. “It’s taking the traditional employee manual and saying ‘would this work better as a video?’ or ‘could we utilise augmented learning or peer-to-peer learning here?’ We’re urging clients to ask, ‘what are we actually trying to teach people here?’”

He reiterates that technology will be a platform for executing on strategy and getting there more quickly, but employers and individuals must be conscious of where they are and where they want to go before they utilise the latest technology.

“If you’re moving an employee manual from paper to online, if that manual is rubbish to begin with, it’ll still be rubbish online. So it’s bringing that technology and the content together in a holistic offering.

“We must harness the power of technology and not be scared of it; however, we must do that in a way that ensures we still deliver the outcomes we want.”

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ANNUAL REVIEW

EMPLOYMENT LAW

2016: THE YEAR OF ACCESSORIAL LIABILITY HR directors and corporate leaders beware: the FWO is taking legal action against individuals who contravene the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). Athena Koelmeyer outlines the repercussions “involved in” a contravention if the person: • aids, abets, counsels or procures the contravention; • induces the contravention whether by promises or threats; • is in any way, by act or omission, directly or indirectly, knowingly concerned in or party to the contravention; or • conspires with others to affect the contravention.

Generally, where it is established that an employer has committed a contravention and an individual is “involved in” that contravention, both parties can be held responsible for the same offence and can be subject to separate penalties.

Notable decisions

IN 2016 we have seen an increase in the Fair Work Ombudsman’s (FWO’s) efforts to pursue directors and managers, including HR and payroll managers, for their involvement in contraventions of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (FW Act).

Legal action against individuals is made possible through Section 550 of the FW Act, which aims to personally expose those who

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are the controlling “hands and minds” of an organisation. Section 550 intends to make decision-makers liable for their decisions, removing the opportunity for them to hide behind the “corporate veil”. This is generally referred to as “accessorial liability”.

Accessorial liability attaches when an individual is “involved in” a contravention of the FW Act. An individual will be taken to be

During 2016, accessorial liability was addressed in a number of notable decisions, including FWO v Oz Staff Career Services Pty Ltd & Ors [2016] FCCA 105 where an HR manager was ordered to pay a penalty of $9,920.

In that case, the employer had been unlawfully deducting meal allowances and administration fees from employees’ wages.

The employer admitted to contravening the FW Act by doing so. However, the HR manager denied any involvement.

The court found that the HR manager

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was aware of the deductions and knew that they were unlawful. This was sufficient to show that the HR manager was “involved in” the contravention and subject to a penalty.

Throughout 2016, the courts repeatedly said that where an individual had previously had contact with the FWO, they would be taken to have knowledge of workplace laws and, accordingly, contraventions of the FW Act that occurred after contact with the FWO would be treated more seriously.

This was the case in FWO v AIMG BQ Pty Ltd & Anor [2016] FCCA, where the director of the employer was also the director of an associated entity that had had previous dealings with the FWO. Those previous dealings included the director signing an enforceable undertaking committing to properly paying all employees engaged by companies of which he was a director. When it was discovered that this employing entity was not paying its employees correctly and had failed to keep proper time and wages records, the FWO took legal action against both the employer and the director. The court found that the director’s previous dealings with the FWO made his contraventions of the FW Act more serious and the court ordered the director to personally pay a penalty of $8,160.

In the past, most cases involving accessorial liability and underpayment issues have required the company involved to back-pay wages to employees. However, a case from 2016 has altered that formula as an individual was held jointly and severally liable for restoring underpaid wages to former employees.

In that case, FWO v Step Ahead Security Services Pty Ltd & Anor [2016] FCCA 1482, the company involved in the contraventions only operated for a short time and the court considered it likely that the company would soon be wound up, resulting in an inability to back-pay outstanding wages to former employees. The court ordered that the sole director and the employer company would be jointly and severally liable for the amounts underpaid, meaning that if the company

KEY 2016 EMPLOYMENT LAW AND IR TRENDS The rise of the sharing and gig economy – When are contractors actually employees and who is really controlling the work? Questions about the employment entitlements of drivers, riders and taskers dominated in 2016.

The FWO and underpayments – Every week the FWO has announced that it has recovered underpayment amounts for employees either by working with employers or through the legal system. The FWO is showing no signs of altering its course, so we expect a continued push for wage rectification and examination of supply chains into 2017.

Out-of-hours conduct issues – Out-of-hours conduct can impact on an employer’s reputation and business interests and can include an employee’s actions on social media. We have noticed an increase in the amount of disciplinary action and number of dismissals occurring as a result of out-of-hours conduct.

Employees behaving badly and the management of unacceptable conduct in the workplace – This year saw a number of cases about employees lashing out angrily or using bad language in the workplace.

As a result, we have noticed an increase in unfair dismissal cases centred on issues of conduct, and an upward trend in the industry’s discussion of how to manage unacceptable conduct.

The rejection of enterprise agreements for minor technical deficiencies – This year saw an increase in EA applications being rejected by the FWC for minor procedural issues, especially surrounding the Notice of Employee Representational Rights. Employers, unions and the FWC have all expressed their frustration with this issue at some point this past year.

could not back-pay the wages, the director would be personally liable for paying that amount (a total of $22,779.72). In addition to the underpaid wages, the director was ordered to pay penalties amounting to $51,400.00 and the employing company was ordered to pay penalties amounting to $257,000.00.

The FWO will also pursue individuals for their contraventions of the FW Act even after their involvement with an employer has ended. This is demonstrated by the decision of FWO v Sona Peaks Pty Ltd & Anor (No.3) [2016] FCCA 6015, where the court made an ‘attachment of earnings’ order (sometimes also called a garnishee order) against a former director of an employer who persistently failed to pay the penalty ordered against him.

The individual in question was the sole director and secretary of a company that underpaid its restaurant workers. As result of the underpayment contraventions, the director was ordered to pay a penalty of $23,715.00, which he didn’t pay. To recover the amount, the court made an attachment

of earnings order that required the director’s new employer to regularly contribute a portion of the director’s wages into a fund until the penalty was satisfied.

Future safeguarding Collectively, these cases demonstrate that the FWO is ready and willing to involve individuals such as directors and HR managers in contraventions of the FW Act, and is prepared to hold those individuals personally liable for a range of penalties and underpayment amounts.

We don’t see this trend changing in the near future, so when looking to 2017, HR professionals should ensure that employees are being paid correctly, that they have good record-keeping practices in place, and that if a problem is identified it is dealt with appropriately, not ignored.

Athena Koelmeyer is the principal and director of Workplace Law. For further information, phone +61 2 9256 7500 or visit workplacelaw.com.au.

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ANNUAL REVIEW

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

BUILD IT AND THEY MAY NOT COME Mark Busine, managing director of DDI Australia, outlines the key shifts in leadership development THE FIELD of leadership development and learning is moving fast. New technology, new approaches to instructional design and new content areas are all quickly changing the landscape in which we operate. At a broader level, a number of macro trends are impacting the workplace and the context within which leaders operate and learn. Table 1 outlines some of the major shifts that are informing our approach to learning design and leadership development.

Early in my career I was fortunate to work

leadership development. While it is easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of exciting change, we, as practitioners in the field, should never lose sight of some fundamental workplace learning questions that underpin our practice.

Before I address some of these questions, I want to highlight some of the risks I see as we look to embrace many of these emerging trends and technologies in the field.

Navigating risks One of these risks is the tendency to operate

“Accelerating leaders is a business imperative and as such requires deliberate focus” Mark Busine, DDI Australia with a group of individuals who I still regard as pioneers in the fields of instructional design and technology-based learning. While they themselves were early adopters of technologybased learning and understood its enormous potential, they were acutely aware of the risk of viewing technology as a panacea for all learning situations.

This early ‘schooling’ has continued to inform my own thinking and approach to workplace learning and, more specifically,

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from a platform of ‘build it and they will come’. In others words, provide the learning – in whatever form – and assume that people will readily embrace it. This is particularly so with some learning platforms where we assume that simply making a variety of technology-based learning assets available will be enough to support learning. Another risk is blindly embracing a broad set of assumptions or stereotypes about different groups of learners (eg, all millennials prefer

mobile and social forms of learning). A recent report by McKinsey&Company found that “millennials benefit from hightouch learning no less than workers from previous generations do. Younger employees may spend more time online and be more comfortable with mobile applications. But they should not be forced – and, in our experience, don’t desire – to engage solely with digital learning tools”.

There are two questions we need to constantly remind ourselves of: why people learn and what draws someone to a learning situation. How do these relate to the learning needs of an organisation and what implications do they have for the type of learning and development resources we provide? Finally, what happens when there is a disconnect between the reason for learning and the approach or resources that an organisation provides?

So why do leaders learn and/or what draws them to a learning opportunity?

TABLE 1: THE SHIFTING LEARNING LANDSCAPE From

To

Controlling meaningful learning experiences

Unleashing engaging learning ecosystems

‘Content first’ learning design mentality

Simultaneous consideration of content, access, and technology

Sequencing content

Sequencing and searching content

More static, text driven content

Video/animation driven content

One size fits all/limited consumption options

Self-insight and sciencedriven personalisation

Designing and launching programs

Launching and iterating assets

Longer face-to-face interactions

Injection of shorter/flipped/ spaced interactions

Learner focused

Learner and community focused

‘Rear view mirror’ impact measurement

Experience analysis and predictive impact Source: Development Dimensions International, Inc., 2016.

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DEVELOPMENT FOR TODAY’S LEADER

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Advance to a new role/level. Leaders and organisations recognise the need to develop new skills and acquire new knowledge as people advance and/or move to a new role or level. This is based on the simple reality that the skills and knowledge at one level of the organisation may be very different to those at another level.

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recognise the need to improve their knowledge or skills in a particular area. This is more formal than curiosity and often requires deliberate focus and practice. The drive for self-improvement is typically underpinned by a specific need to enhance certain skills and/or build one’s knowledge and understanding of a subject.

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Compliance. This is a legitimate and necessary reason for learning in many organisations and industries that operate under specific guidelines and regulations.

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Source: Development Dimensions International, Inc., 2016.

also addresses the inherent risk of operating on the basis of ‘build it and they will come’.

For example, if you are looking to accelerate leaders within your organisation, relying on curiosity and self-improvement is a real risk.

Accelerating leaders is a business imperative and as such requires deliberate focus. This means putting in place structured development that prepares them for the needs of future roles and levels. Simply making a portfolio of learning assets available and ‘hoping’ they will access and make sense of these assets is a highrisk development strategy for an organisation focused on accelerating leaders.

In the end, all learning contexts will exist concurrently so it is not a case of choosing one or the other. However, when building learning assets and resources, it helps to direct our focus to the right areas and learning assets (which will often have multiple applications).

At DDI, we have been thinking a lot about the development of today’s leaders and how we organise and develop learning assets aligned to their need for engagement, learning and

growth. Assets that engage are designed to address the need for a leader to commit to change and growth. Learning assets address the different delivery modes and instructional design approaches that support the acquisition of new skills and knowledge. Assets that support growth are those that sustain the learning and maximise the transfer of knowledge and skills to performance.

There is no doubt the future of workplace learning and leadership development is very exciting. New technology and new learning trends will profoundly reshape the way we approach leadership development.

In the end, we must never lose sight of the fundamental purpose of what we are here to do – to support workplace learning and development and ensure it is grounded in sound thinking and rationale.

DDI stands for Leadership Insight and Growth. Obsessed with the science of leadership; four decades of experience and results, across thousands of organisations in 93 countries. Let us show you the art of leadership possibilities

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ANNUAL REVIEW

ENGAGEMENT

PEOPLE ANALYTICS: THE KEY TREND IN EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

From an increased focus on people analytics to the rise of the employee experience, employers in 2017 look set to take a holistic approach to employee recognition and engagement. Alan Heyward, executive manager, accumulate, reports People analytics: increasing sophistication

I’VE BEEN in this industry for over 10 years, and the pace and nature of change within the employee recognition and engagement landscape constantly amazes me. Over the past 12 months, that changing landscape has been characterised primarily by the far more

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strategic lens through which organisations are viewing their employee recognition and engagement initiatives. That has manifested itself in a number of ways, perhaps the most significant being the new light in which organisations are viewing their employee data.

As a senior contact from one of our largest financial services clients noted recently, many organisations have for a long time invested heavily in sophisticated data analytics in the customer engagement sphere; however, that’s where the focus has traditionally ended. He agreed that there are plenty of untapped opportunities to apply that level of sophistication internally, to drive significant engagement among both employees and customers.

We have seen this wheel starting to turn for a number of organisations over the past 12 months. Growing numbers are using their employee recognition data to generate a range of important insights, with most using them to help optimise the performance of their recognition programs. Others are using them to draw correlations and, ideally, causal relationships, between recognition and overall engagement levels. Some are feeding recognition data insights into their broader talent identification and key influencer initiatives. A far smaller number are looking to match recognition and engagement data with sales and customer data, to create a clear picture of key drivers at critical stages of both the employee and customer life cycles.

While focusing on employees first to drive

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organisational growth is not a revolutionary concept, we expect to see far more organisations seeking to more effectively mine the rich employee data sets at their disposal.

Focus on the employee experience Countless multinational organisations are considering, or have already implemented, a global HRIS. And it is difficult to have a discussion relating to employee recognition platforms without also mentioning API integration. Add to that the trend towards organisations seeking to make far better use of social enterprise platforms such as Yammer, Slack, Chatter and Confluence, and a clear pattern begins to emerge. It’s a pattern of organisations seeking to create a more seamless, engaging employee experience across their various technology

again, Yammer (and others) is simply the enabler; it’s about a broader organisational issue of empowerment and connectivity.

The richness of the data provided via these channels will continue to add a further dimension to the people analytics discussion.

Keeping the finger on the cultural pulse The desire to monitor real-time employee sentiment is not new, but it is likely to shape the engagement strategies of growing numbers of organisations over the coming 12–24 months.

The degree to which some companies have reinvented their performance appraisal frameworks is well documented, with a deliberate move towards more regular performance-oriented conversations. In a

The desire to monitor real-time employee sentiment is not new, but it is likely to shape the engagement strategies of growing numbers of organisations over the coming 12–24 months touchpoints and at various stages of the employee life cycle.

The majority of these organisations also understand that when it comes to recognition, as with many other employee touchpoints, technology is simply the enabler. Growing numbers are ensuring they assess how the technology supports their strategic objectives and operates within their recognition framework, rather than evaluating platform features and functionality in isolation.

It seems clear that the strong focus on Yammer and other social enterprise platforms will continue as organisations seek to better leverage the inherent power of employee communities to drive collaboration, knowledge-sharing and engagement. As one client put it, “it’s about blending professional conversations with personal interests”, in the interests of creating a more “robust, collaborative employee community”. Once

similar vein, many companies have begun questioning the efficacy and reliability of annual engagement surveys, in favour of mechanisms that enable them to monitor their cultural health more regularly.

It seems clear that companies will continue to employ mechanisms such as pulse checks (daily, weekly, monthly), onboarding surveys and exit interviews as means by which to continually review and refine key aspects of culture more broadly, as well as specific elements of the employee life cycle.

Once again, these mechanisms add a critical element to any people analytics initiative.

The right expertise The more strategic, holistic focus on employee recognition and engagement appears here to stay for the immediate future.

We expect organisations to become far more sophisticated in their use of employee data.

TRENDS TO WATCH FOR IN 2017 Increasing levels of sophistication in the use of people analytics Recognition and other employee data sets will increasingly be used to optimise the performance of recognition initiatives and inform organisational decision-making.

1

A focus on the employee experience A more holistic view will enable organisations to identify opportunities to improve engagement at every stage of the employee life cycle.

2

More effective employee sentiment monitoring Channels such as pulse checks, online forums and communities, surveys and interviews will gain further momentum to provide more frequent insights into cultural health.

3

A shift in ownership and accountability Once the sole domain of HR, ownership and accountability for employee recognition and engagement will become more prevalent at a broader organisational level.

4

As a result, organisations engaging third parties for recognition, and indeed many other elements of their people strategies, are increasingly seeking a partner with expertise, rather than simply a vendor with a platform.

Additionally, ownership and accountability for employee recognition and engagement are beginning to reside at an organisational level, rather than being the sole domain of the HR team.

It will be an interesting year ahead in an uncertain economic environment, but it seems clear that employee recognition and engagement will continue to have a significant role to play. accumulate, a Qantas Loyalty business, partners with many leading Australian brands to help drive employee engagement and loyalty. Talk to us today to find out more. info@accumulate.com.au; accumulate.com.au

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FEATURES

RECRUITMENT

SNOOZE AND YOU LOSE As the pace of change continues to escalate, employers in the technology sector are missing out on key talent due to lengthy recruitment processes.

Roger Brant suggests there are key lessons here for all employers

AUSTRALIA IS already experiencing a talent shortage when it comes to the technology sector, and as a nation we are competing for the best talent to ensure they don’t go overseas where they can demand more money and benefits.

To make sure we don’t miss out on top talent, hiring managers need to be quicker with their offers to secure the right talent, and to have more processes in place before even placing the job ad, or risk losing candidates at the final hurdle.

Sometimes things change and there are unforeseeable delays during a recruitment process. However, in general, most obstacles can be identified and ironed out with planning prior to launching the recruitment campaign.

Chatting with key people in the technology

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industry has highlighted for me that there are certain activities that will assist organisations in successfully recruiting new staff.

Hiring managers need to be involved early in the process Too often hiring managers will enter the recruitment process later rather than at the beginning. Placing the importance on the candidate is paramount. David Bolton, head of product delivery at ING DIRECT, agrees. “The recruitment process is hightouch. The hiring manager really needs to be involved throughout the process, particularly at the beginning. After an introduction has been made via the internal or external recruiter, if the next meeting is with someone at the bottom of the chain,

HOW LONG IS TOO LONG? A 2014 survey of more than 1,300 jobseekers by recruiters Robert Walters found the following: 79% of jobseekers are turned off from a job by a long recruitment process.

77% of respondents believed that a full recruitment process (from applying for the job to receiving a written employment contract) should take less than one month; only 3% believed it should take more than two months.

71% also believed they should only have to undertake two job interviews before receiving a job offer.

91% said they had at some stage applied for a job and never received a response.

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you run the risk of not getting the right engagement in the process.”

Paul Keen, CTO at Airtasker, likes to be involved in the recruitment process at the beginning. “Utilising specialist recruiters is pivotal because of their networks and how they work hard to secure the right candidates; however, I do the first interview as it demonstrates that I am invested in the candidate and it provides me with the opportunity to articulate the vision,” Keen says.

Get a good hiring process, be agile – and move quickly Understanding and designing an effective and efficient hiring process is critical, according to Christopher Logan, senior development manager at MYOB. “You have to make the process as straightforward as you can and make sure all stakeholders are on the same page. From receiving the CV to a confirmed acceptance of an offer should typically take two weeks.” Logan advocates a three-stage interview process for his technical roles that incorporates testing, technical expertise and cultural fit.

Engagement Ensuring that you have a continued focus on engaging talent across the broader talent community is critical. Given the competition for the best talent, particularly from overseas, companies need to be constantly reaching out to engage with potential candidates in different ways.

This is not only good for brand awareness and reputation but also enables an organisation to build a relationship that can hold them in good stead should recruitment processes become protracted. If candidates like your business and have an insight into it, they may be more likely to hold out for your offer in a competitive market.

“Having a good reputation is critical in engaging potential talent at all levels,” says Keen. “Engaging with potential talent via apps like Meetup and building strong relationships with the graduate community

HASTENING THE PROCESS: TOP TIPS Ensure relevant approvals are in place before starting the hiring process.

Understand the process post verbal offer – who can help you and how? Work closely with your internal stakeholders and agree the process in advance. Have a signing process in place.

Be the first person to engage with the candidate after they have been introduced by the recruiter.

This builds engagement and shows that the role and the candidate are important.

Impress the candidate! Show enthusiasm for your organisation; articulate the journey they will go on should they join you.

Ensure internal stakeholders in the interview process are aligned in the approach. Keep the interview process as concise as possible. Manage expectations. If it’s a four-step process, try to do two or three of the steps in the same day.

Turn around from verbal offer to written offer should be within hours, not days.

Speed, agility and a well-organised process are key to gaining a consistently good hit rate in hiring the best talent by providing access to interesting projects is another way to maintain strong engagement.

Allowing graduates to contribute in an opensource environment, for example, gives them real experience, and as a medium- to long-term strategy it’s great for engagement, particularly for a company our size.”

At MYOB, Logan focuses on fostering a ‘grow and create’ environment. “My job is to create the best developer environment and culture that is possible,” says Logan.

He demonstrates this philosophy through engagement with everyone from schools through to retraining experienced technology professionals. “We will see more and more people come into technology from left field and from more diverse backgrounds,” says Logan. He adds that this requires greater engagement across a broader candidate market, not just within technology.

The new normal The competition for talent is fierce. What is clear from these discussions is that long-term engagement strategies are critical. Companies that have robust, efficient and stakeholder-led recruitment processes will put themselves ahead of the competition. It is clear that the hiring process is not to be taken lightly.

Speed and a well-organised process are key to gaining a consistently good hit rate in hiring the best talent.

The key message is to ensure consistent conversations are being had with the talent community you are engaging with, and doing it on their terms.

Roger Brant is the general manager of Davidson Technology.

Visit: davidsonwp.com/technology/

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INSIDE HR

ACCENTURE

BOOSTING DIGITAL FLUENCY Research from Accenture suggests that improving ‘digital fluency’ for women might be the answer to improving gender equality in business 34

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AS MORE women break through the ‘glass ceiling’ in STEM studies (science, technology, enterprise, mathematics) at K-12 and tertiary level, the workforce of tomorrow is beginning to take shape. To accelerate the process, the federal government has announced its ‘Innovation Agenda’, promising to invest $13m over the next five years to tackle key issues and overcome the cultural, institutional and organisational factors that discourage females from studying and pursuing careers in STEM. In line with this, Accenture ANZ has revealed equal representation of men and women throughout its ANZ leadership team, which comprises employees from managing director level upwards.

HRD sat down with Jordan Griffiths, the inclusion and diversity lead at Accenture Australia, to discuss how his company is making inroads towards 50/50 male/female representation at all levels of the business.

HRD: Can you outline your role at Accenture?

Jordan Griffiths (third from left) and the Accenture team

Jordan Griffiths: Instead of being part of the HR team, my role is part of the business.

Effectively, I’m the executive sponsor for our inclusion and diversity program. I sit on our leadership team in that role and also in a

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INSIDE HR

ACCENTURE

WOMEN IN STEM

DIGITAL FLUENCY IS THE ACCELERANT

Only one in four IT graduates and fewer than one in 10 engineering graduates are women. Further, women occupy fewer than one in five senior researcher positions in Australian universities and research institutes, and around one quarter of the STEM workforce overall.

To close the gap, the federal government is investing $13m over five years to encourage more women to choose and stay in STEM research, related careers, start-ups and entrepreneurial firms, including: »»supporting the expansion of the Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) project to include more Australian science and research institutions »»establishing a new group of ‘Male Champions of Change’ focused on STEM-based and entrepreneurial industries »»partnering with the private sector, community groups and educational organisations to foster interest in STEM and entrepreneurship among women and girls and celebrate female role models in STEM through a new grant program

If governments and businesses can double the pace at which women become digitally fluent, we could reach gender equality in the workplace by 2040 in developed countries and by 2060 in developing countries.

business capacity I’m managing director of Accenture Strategy’s Finance and Enterprise Performance practice. The differentiation between sitting in HR and sitting in the business is important. It means that we, as an organisation, are sponsoring it from the business’s perspective. It’s not HR saying ‘enough is enough, we need to do more’.

I’ve been in this role just over a year and I was thrilled to be asked by our country managing director to undertake it. It’s something I’m passionate about. Gender diversity and inequality is not just a problem that pervades Accenture but it’s also an important issue for our clients. However, each and every day we see that having the right mix of skills, resources and experience across background, religion, sexual orientation, gender, and so on is critical to driving innovation. If you don’t have people from those different experiences or contexts then

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2X SPEED: 45 yrs to reach gender equality

Developing countries

Accenture’s Getting to Equal report looked at gender equality in the workplace in three specific areas: how women use education in preparing for work; how successful they are at finding and keeping a job; and how they do in advancing in their careers. In measuring women’s progress in education and workplace participation, Accenture looked at data from the World Bank regarding education enrolment and labour participation rates.

For advancement, Accenture looked at pay as well as OECD rates of women in managerial roles. The research shows that digital is helping to drive improvements in these areas for women. you’ll get the answer from the normalised point of view. You won’t be reaching for growth or trying anything different.

HRD: What is Accenture seeing in terms of gender equality in Australian business?

JG: There’s a lot of media attention around women on boards, but it’s just as important for equality to be achieved at all levels of the business, from executive ranks to lower-level management and down to entry-level roles.

In terms of STEM roles, the core root cause of inequality is that there’s simply not enough female talent out there. It’s systemic, and it comes from entry level – not enough females are undertaking STEM training at school and university and this feeds into the employment market and the opportunities after landing a first job. If you don’t have a 50/50 male/female pipeline it’s always going to be a bit skewed.

I’m encouraged by Malcolm Turnbull’s Innovation Agenda. I think he’s picking up on the need for Australia to have a more digitally literate workforce. Businesses need to be doing a huge amount to support that agenda – everything from internally removing barriers to female participation to partnering with schools and universities and supporting more women taking up STEM subjects.

HRD: It’s much bigger than one company, isn’t it?

JG: That is absolutely correct. What I’ve picked up on over the past year is how critical it is for businesses to be networking with other businesses. We’re networking with our clients, which include some of the biggest public and private organisations in Australia, to sponsor the issue and band together to do things differently. In fact we’ve just signed a memorandum of understanding

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with one of our clients – a top 10 ASX-listed company – that outlines what we’ll both do as organisations to make a difference. It’s that ecosystem of joining together that makes a difference. What can Accenture do on STEM by itself? We can do our little bit and encourage it. We can go and talk to schools like we do. We can sponsor programs to encourage girls to take up coding and boost digital fluency, but it needs to be part of a unified front. Fortunately there are many forums starting up to encourage more collaboration and networking around this to fix some of the more systemic issues.

HRD: Why has Accenture focused its efforts on improving digital fluency?

JG: One of our core businesses is digital, and as part of doing that work for our clients we’ve done lots of research. The key finding of our digital fluency research was that if we double the pace of digital fluency for women – meaning access to mobiles, to the Internet, to have the ability to work anywhere, to be online or collaborating with colleagues overseas and to have info and analytics at people’s fingertips – then we will reach gender equality in the workplace much faster. In fact, the research found that we could do that 25 years faster than if we remain at the current pace, which will take 50 years.

The Digital Fluency Model that we created enables us to understand not only how digitally fluent women are compared to men, but also how much that fluency is helping to drive positive changes in their education, their employment experience and their advancement at work.

It tells us that Australia needs to do more to encourage young females to be digitally savvy.

That’s everything from undertaking coding study, to using apps and even playing with simple games or networking through digital channels. That then spawns recognition and understanding of that technology. From there we can break down inequality.

MEN VS WOMEN Why do men score better than women in digital fluency in more than three quarters of the 31 countries Accenture studied?

Men

Women

Men use digital more frequently than women

76%

72%

The millennial gap is even wider

80%

75%

Men are more proactive in learning new digital skills

52%

45%

»»Accenture research shows that 49% of working women and 56% of millennial women aspire to hold leadership positions. »»In Accenture Australia & New Zealand, women currently represent 32% of the workforce – however, there is 50% female representation within the ANZ leadership team. »»Accenture’s global target is to hire 40% women by 2017.

Source: Accenture’s Getting to Equal report

“Not enough females are undertaking STEM training at school and university and this feeds into the employment market” Jordan Griffiths HRD: How does Australia rank, and what else did your research reveal?

JG: Australia is quite digitally fluent; we’re in the top three countries surveyed behind the US and the Netherlands. That survey also found that digital fluency was critical to becoming more knowledgeable and connected. It kind of goes without saying that in the next few years we’ll see employers scrambling to implement the same type of technology that people use in their personal lives in the workplace.

One last thing which proves my point about innovation is that in developed countries, 61% of surveyed women want to start their own business in the next five years. The only way they can do that is if they have that entrepreneurial spirit, they have the tools, knowledge and skill sets and are equal to their male counterparts. It’s only possible through increased digital fluency.

It’s an encouraging report, but there’s still plenty to do. It doesn’t mean it’s solved just

by doing a report. It just proves that digital is helping to create a more equal world in Australia.

HRD: Accenture’s leadership team in Australia and New Zealand now has equal representation of men and women. How important is that equality at a leadership level and what does it foster in the workforce?

JG: It’s critical that there’s equality at that top level. Things start from the top, and we’ve been very focused on making sure our leadership team is split 50/50. Our overall gender split today is 32% female workers, 68% male. We want that number to be 50/50 and that shows we have work to do. We have various programs to improve gender equality throughout the organisation, and we’re proud that our female graduate intake this year is above 50%. That puts positive upwards pressure on where we currently are, and helps us build that balanced pipeline.

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24/11/2016 1:19:10 PM

FEATURES

VENDOR MANAGEMENT

A PERFECT PARTNERSHIP Researching, selecting, managing and assessing vendors is an overlooked but critical component of effective HR strategy; however, with so many ‘moving parts’, HR can often feel overwhelmed. Peter Szilagyi provides his model for effective vendor partnerships

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YOU KNOW that small prediction HR thought leaders made about the HR role being more about strategy and integration than processing and administration? Well, we are certainly on the way. In all areas of HR, from hire to retire, we see these changes. These changes are driven by a number of factors, not least of which is a growing digital landscape that has simplified work and accelerated outsourcing and offshoring. With all these moving pieces the consequence for HR practitioners is to be stronger at integration, and vendor management in particular. Now, if this is so important, ask yourself whether you have spent time ‘sharpening the saw’ in respect to how you deal with vendors. Let’s look at vendor management in some detail and identify how to become better integrators.

Vendor landscape Firstly, it’s worth noting that our friends in procurement can give a lot of insight into vendor

management, otherwise referred to here as vendor partnership. The reference to ‘partnership’ as opposed to ‘management’ is an important one, and while I know that might cause some debate, success as an integrator fundamentally requires more of a collaborative mindset (ie one of building a close partnership) rather than a transactional mindset (ie one of managing a third party). In some ways this distinction is irrespective of whether the engagement is singular or ongoing in duration.

Therefore, if there is any nugget of advice in this article, it is that you should collaborate closely with your internal procurement team. While you play an important role as a functional expert (in assessing, selecting, and partnering with vendors) procurement teams have this as their core capability, and engaging procurement on a regular basis for advice and support is paramount.

To understand what we mean by a partnership, let’s look at a vendor landscape

for HR (there are many different models), a typical vendor life cycle (yes, like for an employee there is a life cycle for vendors), and then the key skills you and your team need in order to be effective integrators. Table 1 shows a model for different vendor arrangements.

As you can see, there are three basic classifications HR can leverage: consulting/ advisory, information technology, and process outsourcing. Irrespective of your role in HR you would have come across these arrangements either on the client side (ie the business that is procuring the services) or the supplier side (ie the business – vendor – that is providing the service). Of course, not every client business is the same, nor is every vendor business, so the services rendered and how they are consumed varies from one company to another. The distinctions are there to think through different models and therefore to support understanding the behaviours required to be most effective.

Table 1: HR vendor landscape Type Description

Service example

Vendor example

Consulting/advisory • Provision of advice, recommendations or project management services • • • • •

Remuneration benchmarking Employee engagement advice/services Employee relations case advice Project management support Recruitment services

• McKinsey, Deloitte, PwC, IBM, Accenture • Korn Ferry, Mercer, Aon Hewitt • Herbert Smith Freehills, Minter Ellison, Holding Redlich

Information technology

Process outsourcing

• Provision of technology services on premise or in the cloud

• Provision of services to execute transactions or activities.

This could be one-off or ongoing process outsourcing

• Solutions could be end-to-end on-premise (eg SAP), or in the cloud (eg Workday) • Solutions could be function-specific in the cloud (eg Workable or Linkedin)

• One-off services like medical or background checks • Outsourcing and/or offshoring of HR processes like payroll, recruitment, mobility/relocation services, workers’ compensation, etc

• SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle/Taleo, Microsoft • Workday, Cornerstone OnDemand, SABA • Google, Apple, Custom Apps • LinkedIn

• • • • •

Impact

Strategic vs tactical Short-term vs long-term

Coverage

Across multiple services Across multiple business units Across multiple geographies

IBM, Infosys, Accenture Manpower, Kelly Recruitment agencies (various) Training providers (various) Corpsec, Kinnect Health

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FEATURES

VENDOR MANAGEMENT

Defining vendor partnership As you can see from Table 1, there is a great variety in terms of the types of services offered.

Fundamentally, however, the biggest distinction relates to impact and whether the vendor service offering is strategic or tactical and whether the duration is short-term or long-term. This distinction is shown in Table 2. As you can see, vendor relationships that are long-term (whether they are strategic or tactical) require a partnering mindset. This is equally true of short-term engagements where there is a strategic impact on the business. Let’s look at the difference between partnering and transactional mindsets.

Transactional mindset A transactional mindset [light blue in the table] has a short-term perspective for the provision of services. If the provision of services isn’t of the quality expected, the service can be quickly terminated and a new one negotiated with a different vendor. The focus of the transactional mindset is fundamentally on the contract for service, the output and the cost charged.

Importantly, a transactional mindset is not a bad thing, as long as the service provided is tactical and short-term. Unfortunately, it is very easy to apply a transactional mindset across all the quadrants, and this is equally true from the perspective of both the client and vendor.

Ultimately, the application of a transactional

mindset to long-term or critical engagement is how relationships break down – and that breakdown can happen rapidly and early on.

It’s easy to see when vendor relationships have broken down. The vendor fails to

requires focused effort on the part of both the client and vendor to grow the relationship for the benefit of each party.

It’s easy to see when vendor relationships are working well. There is commitment to the

“Great vendor partnerships don’t happen magically, and they require a lot of energy and engagement” Peter Szilagyi deliver the service provided, client teams and customers complain about a mythical ‘them’, and there is discussion about what is and isn’t being provided against the contract and how expensive ‘they’ are for what ‘we’ get. On the other hand, the vendor complains that the client is varying the scope or has unrealistic expectations – ‘they’ just don’t understand.

relationship across all levels of the organisation.

There is appropriate information-sharing to build mutual capability, and a regular cadence on performance, status and issues. The focus in discussions is equally on the value delivered against cost and the potential value of work.

Partnership mindset

Great vendor partnerships don’t happen magically, and they require a lot of energy and engagement. That energy and engagement is required across the vendor life cycle – from the time they are first engaged through to when that engagement is reassessed and ended or extended (all contracts eventually come to an end). Let’s look at the five steps in a typical vendor life cycle.

A partnership mindset [dark blue in the table] is fundamentally different to a transactional mindset. A partnership mindset has a shared view of value in the relationship and a collective problem-solving orientation, and supports collective action on risk and issues. The language and mindset is fundamentally about ‘we’ and not about ‘us or them’. The partnering mindset

Vendor partnership across the vendor life cycle

Table 2: HR vendor business impact Impact

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Tactical

Strategic

Long-term

• Ongoing requirement for work • Provision of services conducted is transactional and high frequency and ongoing • Provision of services is isolated to one business unit, one country or one service type (eg recruitment) • Minimal switching cost of changing vendors

• Ongoing requirement for work • Significant impact on business results (cost reduction, productivity) • Provision of services could be transactional or complex and span multiple geographies, business units and services (eg multiple HR processes) • Large switching cost of changing vendors

Short-term

• • • •

• • • •

One-off requirement for work Requirement is simple in nature Minimal impact on business direction and outcome Requirement is mainly driven by capacity

One-off requirement for work Requirement is complex in nature Significant impact on business direction Requirement is mainly driven by capability

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Step 1: Business need and requirements In this step the business need should be understood, with a supporting change program to ensure all parties are effectively engaged and aware that current services will change. Business requirements should be defined to a very specific level of detail; this is both from the perspective of engaging the business through the change program but also ensuring the right level of detail is provided to prospective vendors so they can understand how they fit into the business model.

Step 2: Assessment and selection In Step 2 there is a formal process of assessment and selection. At this point several vendors are identified and assessed against key criteria (such as the initial business requirements identified in Step 1) to determine which is the best vendor to fit the business on dimensions of offering, cost, innovation, track record, etc. This starts with a thorough process of desk research, a request for tendering documentation (ie demonstrating how the vendor can meet the requirements), interviews, product demonstrations and references.

Step 3: Contract negotiation At this stage a vendor is selected and contract negotiations occur. These actions are typically owned and led by the procurement or legal team – and depending on the size of your organisation many of the vendor interactions before signing a contract are partnered heavily with procurement.

Step 4: Service delivery This is where the rubber hits the road and the bulk of the effort and time in a vendor relationship occurs. Here the service is delivered, outcomes assessed, and payment for services are made. This step could take several months to several years.

Step 1: Business needs and requirement Partnering behaviours

Transactional behaviours

• Senior executive support and commitment • Business requirements are minimally documented • Business requirements are thoroughly documented • Minimal change management and communications • Strong change management program back to the business to the business • Engagement with vendors is largely done in isolation from the business Step 2: Assessment and selection Partnering behaviours • Open and transparent discussions from the client on the business problem, need and requirements • Open and transparent discussions with the vendor on what they can deliver (ie without overpromising).

• Reference checks to validate vendor offerings and feedback to the vendor outcomes

Transactional behaviours • Limited information-sharing on the business problem • No thorough due diligence on reference checking and validation • Limited open dialogue on what is and is not possible

Step 3: Contract negotiation Partnering behaviours • Establishing commitments and provisions for: - governance and engagement - reporting performance - escalations management - continuous improvement • A shared view on value creation, with incentives to improve performance • All internal relevant parties are brought into the process and have a contribution to make (IT, procurement, legal, etc)

Transactional behaviours • Minimal consideration of governance, engagement, performance reporting, escalation management and continuous improvement • Limited involvement from senior leaders and other key stakeholders • Heavy focus on cost/price

Step 4: Service delivery Partnering behaviours • Thorough program of work to transition services to the vendor (ie transition management) • Change management initiatives are thorough and all key stakeholders are aware • There is a collective effort to improve the service overtime • Regular engagement and governance to review performance • Escalation mechanisms are in place • Team members focus their time on both service delivery and improvement

Transactional behaviours • No investment in project to transition the service (it is thrown across the fence) • Business is not aware of the change in service provision • The service is provided and received with limited review of how to fix problems. Issues are not viewed systematically (or in pattern) • Minimal governance and senior leader involvement

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FEATURES

VENDOR MANAGEMENT Step 5: Assessing outcomes At this final step the vendor arrangement is reviewed. All vendor relationships should be periodically reviewed, ideally annually, but that is typically defined by the nature of the contract. At this point there should be no surprises for the vendor or for the client.

Improving your partnering capabilities With the above points in mind let’s look at how you can improve your partnering capabilities.

The five points below describe some principles of working with vendors. Based on these principles, how do you assess your capabilities and behaviours?

Vendors will only be effective if you help them (that is, what you sow you shall reap)

1

• Have a good understanding of the business you are supporting and its business requirements.

• Give the vendor appropriate context to be most effective in executing its role. At the pre-contract stage give a full view of business requirements and pain points. At the postcontract stage give comprehensive training on the business operations, information about organisational structure, etc.

• Ensure there is participation through both organisations on continuous improvement and issue resolution. Senior leaders through to operator team members need to have a sense of involvement and accountability.

2

Vendors (like employees) need to be held to account with regular feedback that is both positive and adjusting • Be proactive in identifying issues and providing solutions, and look to have a governance mindset (ie creating structures for how issues are regularly escalated, tracked and closed).

• Give honest, transparent and regular feedback and request feedback from the vendor – look to build a virtuous cycle of

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Step 5: Assessing outcomes Partnering behaviours • Contract performance is reviewed frequently (ie ideally, on an annual basis both parties take a step back to look at the arrangement) • There are no surprises and all issues have been raised previously through governance channels (and ideally programs of work have been undertaken to improve issues) • The focus is on value generated and cost paid

feedback (feedback shouldn’t be one-way).

• Have transparent reporting on performance that is visible – hold poor performance to account and recognise and reward good performance.

3

Vendors are organisations and therefore have their own culture

• A vendor’s culture will be quite different to yours – both organisations and teams have a role in partnering. Some questions to consider are: Do you have a counterpart? Do you know their role and challenges? Do you know them on some level other than their daily tasks? (ie what they do outside of work?)

• Team-building across all levels is critically important. This is true of the initial engagement but also right the way through.

Great relationships are built every day, week, month and year. Look to have regular sessions of team-building or improvement.

This could involve: - rotating team members, sitting at the vendor or the client - virtual face-to-face sessions - recognition and rewarding initiatives • Vendors typically operate in remote teams (and often in different countries and different time zones). Consider how effective your team is in operating in a virtual environment.

Vendor partnerships need to be set for success from the start to the end – it is a journey

Transactional behaviours • There is a strong focus on cost in any renewal (vs value) • Contract performance is reviewed only when there is a critical failure or at the end of the relationship.

• Discussions on issues can break down into a focus on punitive actions (ie who pays for mistakes)

alignment, communication and influencing skills, behavioural/attitudinal change and focus).

• The steps outlined in this article highlight the different touchpoints with vendors.

• Ensure you have a partnership mindset through the life cycle of the vendor relationship.

5

Vendors can and will make mistakes

• Vendors can make mistakes and it’s how they recover from mistakes that defines them (and how you react to mistakes that defines you).

• Ensure you are focused on patterns and trends as much as there is any focus on an individual outcome.

• Where a vendor has not delivered what was required, hold the vendor to account – regular open and transparent expectation setting and feedback is important (this is what drives candour).

Fitting the pieces With respect to vendor management, a key part of being a successful integrator is to have a partnership mindset. It’s never too late to sharpen the saw – and for those who are well-versed in this area, to share your knowledge and build the capability of your own team members and the vendors you partner with. Good luck!

4

• Good partnership requires some of the ‘hard stuff ’ (ie governance structures, meeting cycles, reporting, escalation processes) and the ‘soft stuff ’ (cultural

Peter Szilagyi, CAHRI, GPHR, HRMP, is an experienced HR leader in talent management, transformation and change management.

He is a regular contributor to HRD Magazine.

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24/11/2016 1:20:33 PM

PROFILE

DAVID KLAGES – DOMINO’S PIZZA

SERVING UP A GLOBAL HR FRAMEWORK Moving from local to global is an upsize only the best HR practitioners can handle. Miklos Bolza talks to one global HRD who offers a slice of his knowledge in this area TRANSFORMING A locally based HR structure into a global one is a mammoth order for any experienced HR professional. When Australia-based David Klages, group HR manager at Domino’s Pizza Enterprises (DPE), was asked to establish a global framework, he delved into his 20 years of HR experience in order to create not just a consistent HR operations framework but also a more centralised remuneration structure spanning three continents.

A global player To understand where DPE fits into the Domino’s Pizza empire, it’s critical to know how the company’s operating model works. Domino’s Pizza is an American pizza restaurant chain and international franchise pizza delivery corporation headquartered at the Domino Farms Office Park in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The campus itself is owned by Domino’s Pizza co-founder Tom Monaghan. Founded in the US in 1960, Domino’s Pizza currently has locations in 73 countries, and stores in 5,700 cities worldwide (2,900 international and 2,800 in the US). In most cases, Domino’s has master franchise agreements with one company per country, but three companies have acquired multiple master franchise agreements, covering

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multiple countries – and that’s where DPE comes in.

The rights to own, operate and franchise branches of the chain in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Monaco and Germany are currently owned by DPE. Prior to Klages’ arrival, HR at DPE was

role. “The key focus of my role is executive remuneration, talent and succession planning, diversity and inclusion, and looking at our overarching recruitment framework – so how we are recruiting people into the business and how we leverage our relationships with recruiters and make sure that the talent pipeline is sufficient,” he says.

“If you work as a business partner in HR, you need to understand the business and work very closely with the business leaders as opposed to being locked away in a central HR function” managed by the Australian CEO and local HR teams without the presence of a group HR manager. “There was no real dedicated HR function per se,” he says. Due to rapid growth out of Australia and into New Zealand, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium and Japan, Klages was asked to create a consistent remuneration structure for the now ASX-listed company.

Apart from remuneration, the core components of the global framework are covered by the key responsibilities of Klages’

Under the hood To approach this task, Klages says understanding the history and context of the business was essential. This included meeting with the CEO and executives and looking at the growth trajectory of the business. “If you’re thinking about putting in a remuneration framework or other HR frameworks, you need to understand what’s going to happen in the business over the next few years.”

This was especially important in a business such as Domino’s where acquisitions as well

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PROFILE Name: David Klages Company: Domino’s Pizza Enterprises Title: Group HR manager HR experience: Over 20 years Previous roles »» Head of HR strategy & policy, QSuper »» Director, human capital – performance & transformation, PwC Australia and Japan »» Manager, human resources, Integral Energy »» Director, human resources, TAFE NSW First HR role Manager, workforce planning, TAFE NSW

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PROFILE

DAVID KLAGES – DOMINO’S PIZZA as organic growth were both used to expand the business. Knowing the context of how the business came about and where it was going was crucial to creating this framework, Klages says.

To do this, Klages had to get ‘under the hood’ of how the business functioned – a skill he picked up as a business partner in various other organisations. He had also helped to establish an HR framework for PwC in Japan, transforming HR from a purely functional department to more of a business partner role.

“I’ve always been very inquisitive around why the business is doing what it’s doing and

Consistency across the globe Even though he was hired by the CEO with the remit to launch this global framework, Klages still had to bring the other business leaders on board. To do this, he used storytelling to ensure they really understood the need for a centralised structure.

“As a global business, our people are mobile. We need to make sure that we treat them in a consistent way or else they find out that we’re paying different rates in one country versus another. At least by having a consistent framework, you have one way of being able to explain why there are differences.”

“As a global business, our people are mobile.

We need to make sure that we treat them in a consistent way” what it’s looking to achieve over the next few years. If you work as a business partner in HR, you need to understand the business and work very closely with the business leaders as opposed to being locked away in a central HR function.”

A source of truth One of the biggest challenges when creating this global HR framework was finding a “single source of truth” in multiple disparate systems, Klages explains.

“There’s no common HR or payroll system that’s used across the globe. We also store information in different languages, so trying to understand how people were paid, how long they’d been working, what their experience was, and trying to get that single source of truth was probably one of the biggest challenges that I faced.”

To overcome this obstacle, Klages leveraged the local HR networks and really worked at understanding the business.

Acknowledging that establishing this framework was not going to be 100% complete from the start was also helpful, he adds. “This is something that’s going to be an iterative process, and we’ll need time to iron out any issues.”

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Having aspects such as a consistent bonus approach or long-term incentive plan gives staff comfort that they’re not being treated differently, he adds. This allows people to move around the Domino’s corporate network in a seamless fashion while still aligning their packages with the remuneration practices in their local region.

Time on the ground Actually visiting each location was crucial to developing a seamless, consistent framework across Domino’s, Klages says. “Spending time understanding the culture and differences across each of the different countries you operate in is really important. What are the unique drivers of engagement? What are the local idiosyncrasies? What are the local labour laws that might prohibit you from doing something?”

A one-size-fits-all approach will never work, he adds, since something that applies in one location may be detrimental to staff and the business elsewhere. As an example, he says particular long-term incentives such as stock options that can be provided in Australia may mean the employee is taxed double if they move to France.

In terms of cultural differences, Klages

DOMINO’S AT A GLANCE

5,700 Number of cities globally that have a Domino’s Pizza store. Across Domino’s Pizza Enterprises’ markets, there are over 1,900 stores

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Number of stores set to open worldwide in the DPE arm in 2016

2,500

Number of additional in-store managers, drivers and franchisees sought in Australia before Christmas

26,000 Number of global employees at DPE points to Japan where, if a manager singles out an employee for reward or recognition, it could actually have a negative impact by embarrassing the worker in front of their peers.

“You need to understand what you are getting yourself into and that one-size-fits-all is not going to work. I think going in with an ‘it works here so it’ll work there’ approach is not going to end well.”

To unearth these location-specific differences, it is important to visit all the sites of your business personally, Klages maintains.

Meeting with local management and touring each location several times can help reveal the cultural nuances in each region.

“If you try and do things via distance and telephone, you’re not going to be able to really understand the business. The local site visit – meeting with local team members as well as management – is really critical.”

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24/11/2016 1:23:48 PM

FEATURES

EMPLOYEE MOBILITY

OUT OF SIGHT, NOT OUT OF MIND Aran Alexander outlines the duty of care every employer has to employees travelling for work ’WE NEED you to fly out for meetings next week’ is a common statement in today’s workplace.

As Asia gets ‘smaller’, more employees and managers have regional responsibilities beyond the country in which they live and work. Multinational companies no longer just look in the same office, or even the same country, to find the expertise required to complete a task or solve an issue. Portable project teams are becoming more common as they prove to be an effective business tool. Employees of all levels of seniority are increasingly expected to travel around AsiaPacific for client presentations, meetings and short-term assignments.

The benefits of flying employees in and out are numerous: better collaboration between colleagues, productivity improvements, sharing of knowledge, and having the right people at the company’s disposal. However, with benefits come risks, and companies may

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not be aware of their legal exposure when they send employees abroad for work.

The duty of care across borders Natural disasters, terror attacks, civil unrest, nuclear accidents, military coups and epidemics

In countries with a common law system, such as Australia and New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, employers owe a duty of care, in one form or another, to provide a safe work environment for their employees.

This obligation does not cease simply because

An analysis of different countries’ work, health and safety laws shows that none of them specifically contemplate risks or accidents occurring outside the country (bird flu, swine flu and now Zika) have all occurred in Asia recently. Employers must be mindful that sending employees overseas – even just for a meeting – may give rise to different or increased risks. Out of sight should not mean out of mind, particularly when it comes to your legal obligations to employees.

the employee temporarily leaves the office or the jurisdiction. In fact, an employer in Hong Kong is held to a higher duty of care when sending an employee to work in a less developed location, especially where health risks are not fully known (in that case, mainland China).1

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In Indonesia’s civil law system, various labour laws, regulations and decrees create a general duty to ensure the health and safety of employees at work. This does not expressly extend to work performed outside Indonesia.

However, if the worker remains employed by the Indonesian company during an overseas assignment, arguably, the Indonesian labour law will apply to any work-related incident.

With the development of work safety and health laws over the past two or three decades, various obligations to protect workers have also been enacted into legislation, codes, ordinances and regulations throughout the Asia-Pacific region. An analysis of different countries’ work, health and safety laws shows that none of them specifically contemplate risks or accidents occurring outside the country. However, the broad language used in the laws of countries such as Australia, China, Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong means that there may be legal consequences in those countries (including prosecution, penalties and imprisonment of senior management) if the employee suffers an injury at work while overseas.

Workers’ compensation and accident insurance Regulation relating to workers’ compensation and accident insurance is another potential source of liability for employers. The Law on Occupational Hygiene and Safety, which came into effect in Vietnam on 1 July 2016, applies to “labor accidents occurring outside the workplace or outside working hours but on assignment from the employer”. In Vietnam, employment law must be interpreted in a way that is beneficial to the worker. As such, an injury occurring on a business trip may still subject the Vietnamese employer to workers’ compensation obligations.

Similarly, an employee based in Malaysia, Australia, China or Indonesia who suffers an injury while performing work overseas is likely to be entitled to compensation under the laws of the ‘home’ country.

Hong Kong, like Singapore, is viewed as one of the more ‘employer-friendly’ jurisdictions in the region, with its employment law system being relatively easy to navigate. For this reason, some companies employ workers in Hong Kong

MANAGEMENT AND HR CHECKLIST  Is the destination known to contain risks to health and safety?  Have you checked current travel warnings and advisories?  Have you taken steps to identify any safety risks at the location(s) the employee will be visiting?  Have you arranged an induction for the employee with the controller of the premises (eg local office management or the client)?  Have you provided the employee with information on local risks/dangers?  If risks do exist, have you considered alternatives (eg security measures, postponing travel or video-conferencing)?  Has your company appointed someone to monitor these issues?

and then deploy them around the region. These companies may not be aware that if a worker with a Hong Kong employment contract is injured while performing work outside Hong Kong, the Employees’ Compensation Ordinance expressly applies, and the employer may be liable to pay compensation in Hong Kong.

Harassment and discrimination What if an employee suffers harassment while on an overseas assignment? For example, while Singapore’s Protection from Harassment Act does not impose specific obligations on employers, it does apply if the victim is outside Singapore when the incident occurs.

A Singaporean employer could be vicariously liable if the harassment is perpetrated by a colleague, or if the employer has placed the victim in an unsafe environment. The Hong Kong Sex Discrimination Ordinance, on the other hand, only applies to sexual harassment occurring in Hong Kong and does not extend to harassment that occurs during an overseas business trip.

Mitigating risk For companies with operations in multiple countries throughout the Asia-Pacific, it will be necessary to understand the different obligations under the specific laws of each jurisdiction. However, it may be possible to adopt a best practice approach, including using a checklist prior to an employee undertaking any business travel (see box above).

If an employee does suffer an injury or illness while on a work trip, various questions will arise (see following ‘Risk factors’).

RISK FACTORS  Was the incident in the course of their employment (or, for example, did it occur after hours or on a personal side trip unrelated to their work assignment)?  Does the company have a history of work-related incidents/accidents?  Was the risk foreseeable?  Did the employer take all reasonable steps to keep the employee safe?  Did the relevant managers and directors of the company exercise due diligence to prevent the risk?

Managing risks and keeping employees safe when they are out of the country presents challenges for any company. However, this is not the concern of governments and lawmakers, who are focused on eliminating work-related injuries and fatalities, and industrial disease.

Notwithstanding the differences in law between countries, employers in AsiaPacific are expected to take a proactive approach to protecting the health and safety of all their employees, regardless of their location at any given time. This will require companies, including the highest levels of their management, to provide the thought and resources required to identify and meet their various obligations.

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Li Hoi Shuen v Man Ming Engineering Trading Co Ltd [2006] 1 HKC 349

Aran Alexander is a senior associate, Baker & McKenzie.

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FEATURES

HR STRATEGY

NEVER BREAK THE CHAIN Feeling undervalued and taken for granted in your organisation?

Wesley Payne McClendon suggests that constructing a ‘strategic HR value chain’ may transform your standing in your business OVER THE past 40 years, the pedestrian view of HR has changed significantly. From its infancy as the personnel department, the function of managing human resources has shifted its perceived value as a transactional, administrative mechanism towards a transfunctional, business partnering support service. HR is almost at the stage of working in tandem with CEOs and senior leadership teams as a strategic transformer and trusted adviser.

While HR practitioners have spent decades trying to crack the code to be able to operate at a strategic and commercial level, most find themselves stuck in the middle – at the bottom end of the value chain – even with the best of intentions. Executive education and short courses including big data analytics, performance management and leadership development can build capability within the HR community. Seldom, however, are these programs executed at their optimal strategic level and ROI validated with tangible business results. Critically, HR’s ability to embed itself in the process of strategic thinking and debate, business planning and decision-making is tantamount to achieving maximum returns.

From transactional to strategic The reality is that HR’s value and ROI potential is determined less by its technical skills and

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expertise and instead more so by the CEO and senior leaders’ perception of HR as being strategically indifferent, neutral or essential to achieving commercial business outcomes.

While technical HR expertise and business acumen are required tools in which to operate at a strategic and commercial level, it is the perceived value of HR – outside the function’s span of control – that is more

Shifting perceived value With this reality as a backdrop, one of the key challenges for HR to move up the value chain is a robust process that assesses, qualifies and quantifies their perceived strategic value in the eyes of the CEO, senior business leaders and the broader organisation. And subsequently, it involves drilling down into the nuts and bolts of HR’s strategic capabilities, expertise

HR’s ability to embed itself in the process of strategic thinking and debate, business planning and decision-making is tantamount to achieving maximum returns likely to influence and determine where HR sits along a strategic value chain. Put more bluntly, senior leaders must, for all intents and purposes, consent to HR engaging with the business at a strategic and commercial level. Without this deliberate and explicit mandate, and ability to influence and change strategic value perception, HR are often limited to a transactional existence regardless of their capabilities and expertise to provide greater value to the business.

and influence, and the tangibility of their commercial outcomes. From this evidencebased perspective, HR can better understand and validate the requirements for changing and solidifying their strategic value.

Defining the strategic HR value chain The strategic HR value chain is built on the basis of three distinctive points along a continuum of value and commerciality for the purpose of providing a framework

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FIGURE 1. STRATEGIC HR VALUE CHAIN Transactional Value maintenance

Transfunctional cost-compliant

Strategic indifference

Transformational

Value-supporting

cost-centred

Strategic neutrality

for assessment, change and continuous improvement. Each strategic point along the value chain is defined as transactional, transfunctional and transformational, and increases in value (utility, worth and usefulness) and commerciality (cost-return, returns on investment and assets, aligned with increased value of inputs, outputs and outcomes). Strategic perception follows along the same continuum in parallel and is defined as strategic indifference, neutrality and essential. The cumulative value and commerciality at each point builds on the strategic capability and perception of HR.

Value and commerciality HR professionals often lament at the frivolity of their strategic value and even more so when considering their level of commercial impact on the business’s bottom line. To make matters worse, having deep technical HR knowledge and savvy business skills doesn’t necessarily guarantee a seat at the table.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that while you can have the best team, you may never get a chance to play in the big game. For better or worse, HR practitioners have never developed a standard approach in which to frame what is likely to be a very similar set of HR value, organisation and commercial characteristics with very nuanced differences in lieu of industry, size and geography.

The development of a practical tool to measure, assess and validate HR strategic capabilities against specific business requirements would seem to be a ‘must have’.

So, too, is the need to periodically self-assess

Value-creating

profit-centred

Strategic essential

and compel others, including senior leaders and internal client groups, to assess the perception of HR along a universal set of strategic HR value and commercial points of difference. At the same time, the assessment tool would elicit valuable feedback and concrete evidence in which to meet critical business needs in real time.

The resulting assessment data serves not only to identify current capability and performance gaps, and development and continuous improvement needs, but also future requirements to be considered for promotion and succession of incumbents, and recruitment and selection of incoming candidates.

There are three broadly defined typologies that form the value and commerciality of HR: transactional, transfunctional, and transformational.

Transactional HR is focused on value maintenance and cost-compliance as a relatively indistinguishable administrative function, often centralised with minimal resource investment. Tasks, duties and responsibilities are likely routinised or even mechanised as a means of maintaining low-cost and mid-to-high-volume processes emphasising economies of scale through efficiency savings. Leaders of transactional HR are typically severely limited in authority and autonomy, and report into operations, shared services or part of a business unitspecific administrative cluster. Leadership, at this strategic point, is valued by indifference with a sphere of influence and control relegated to the role of compliance manager.

Transfunctional HR provides value support services as a cost centre usually through a decentralised business-partnering model with rationalised investment and minimal return expectations. Responsibilities and accountabilities are often prescribed by previous HR service relationships and tend to be viewed with bias. Strategic guidance is provided by senior leaders, but often in isolation and without engagement from or participation with other functional peers.

Leadership in transfunctional HR is valued by neutrality, likely supported as required. As an overall function, transfunctional HR is not responsible for commercial outcomes.

Transformational HR is a value-creating profit centre fully engaged in the decisionmaking process as a member of the senior leadership team. Considered to be an influencer in strategic thinking, debate and business planning, the leader is a trusted adviser to the CEO with responsibility for achieving specific commercial results.

Leveraging real-time human capital data, transformational HR seeks to align the business and people strategy to drive business performance. Reporting directly to the CEO, transformational HR has unfettered access to business leaders and regularly seeks their opinion and perspective. Leaders of transformational HR operate autonomously when appropriate and with unencumbered authority as senior leaders. Leadership is valued as essential to making business decisions that lead to and are accountable for tangible commercial results.

Inputs, outputs and outcomes The basis on which each strategic point is constructed is through a set of key inputs, outputs (see Figure 2) and outcomes (see Figure 3).

Inputs are critical operating elements of the HR function that define the value of what it does, how it does it and where it fits

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FEATURES

HR STRATEGY FIGURE 2. INPUTS AND OUTPUTS Transactional

Transfunctional

Transformational

1. Value proposition (Purpose) Conducting routinised, administrative and transactional tasks with indifferent or indistinguishable value maintenance through centralised function with process-driven cost-compliant focus

1. Value proposition Providing transfunctional support services as a decentralised business partner with neutral value through a prescribed set of functional business responsibilities and accountabilities focused on cost-centre reduction or reinvestment

1. Value proposition Leading a business-driven people agenda providing essential value creation, with strategic requirements evidenced through human capital data, policy and practice utility validated by output and results realised through commercial ROI

2. Value benefit (Assets and liabilities) Instructions mandated by senior leaders to contain costs, efficiencies and replicate savings as an insourced liability

2. Value benefit Guidance given with limited engagement with or participation from functional peers, supportive influence and innovation from an unbiased cost-centre perspective

2. Value benefit Trusted adviser to CEO and senior leadership peers – a strategic thinker and value creator through people management innovation as a profit-centre asset

3. Alignment value (Business and people strategy) No alignment to or engagement in the business strategy

3. Alignment value Having limited alignment to or impact on business strategy

3. Alignment value People strategy aligned directly to the business strategy to drive performance

4. Value fit (Organisation structure and reporting) 4. Value fit Several layers removed from authority and autonomy – reporting Reporting to the CEO, direct report or through a senior leadership into operations, shared services or administrative cluster team or committee with moderate authority

4. Value fit Reporting directly to the CEO as a member of the C-Suite or senior leadership team with unfettered access to business leaders, autonomy and authority

5. Leadership value (Influence and decision-making) Leadership valued by indifference – sphere of influence and control relegated to the role of compliance manager

5. Leadership value Leadership valued as essential – engaged with senior leader peers in making business decisions and responsible for achieving commercial outcomes

within the organisation’s strategic priorities of investing, allocating and utilising resources. There are five inputs: value proposition – purpose; value benefit – assets and liabilities; alignment value – business and HR strategy; value fit – organisation structure and reporting; and leadership value – influence and decision-making.

Outputs, which correspond to inputs, are tangible HR function productivity measures that illustrate and validate the utility of what is being produced, the efficiency with which it is produced and its effectiveness, and where and to what extent the business is able to leverage the output to identify, define and determine commercial return.

Outcomes are defined as the cumulative sum of value-adding inputs and outputs leading to commercial returns at each point along the value chain. Adding input and output value at the transactional end of the value chain culminates in HR outcomes including turnover, absenteeism and job satisfaction. Transfunctional value-adding inputs and outputs result in organisation outcomes such as productivity, quality

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5. Leadership value Leadership valued by neutrality – support only as required, not responsible for return on investment or commercial outcomes

and services. And finally, commercial outcomes are realised by adding input and output value at the transformational end of the value chain. These commercialrelated outcomes include profits, sales, and returns on assets and investment.

Therefore, an increase in strategic value is proportionately tied to an increase in commercial returns. The strategic HR value assessment asserts that senior leader perception is directionally related to HR’s impact on commercial results.

Strategic HR value assessment The purpose of the strategic HR value assessment is threefold: assessment of the HR function’s 1) strategic capabilities against business requirements 2) assessment of HR strategic value and commerciality perception 3) assessment of strategic HR value and commerciality outcome gaps.

Accordingly, there are three key objectives.

The first objective of the assessment is to

FIGURE 3. OUTCOMES Transactional Value maintenance

HR outcomes • Turnover • Absenteeism • Job satisfaction • Commitment • Engagement

Transfunctional cost-compliant

Value-supporting

Transformational cost-centred

Organisational outcomes • Productivity • Quality • Services • Efficiencies • Customer satisfaction

Value-creating

profit-centred

Commercial outcomes • Profits • Sales • Return on assets • Return on investment • Capital market (market share, stock price and growth)

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FIGURE 5.

STRATEGIC HR VALUE ASSESSMENT ALIGNMENT

FIGURE 4. STRATEGIC HR VALUE ASSESSMENT ITEMS 100

Inputs and outputs • Value proposition • Value benefit • Alignment value • Value fit • Leadership value 100

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HR outcomes • Turnover • Absenteeism • Job satisfaction • Committment • Engagement

Commercial outcomes • Profits • Sales • Return on assets • Return on investment • Capital market 50

50

100

50

100

Organisation outcomes • Productivity • Quality • Services • Efficiencies • Customer satisfaction

50 100

50

100

illustrate alignment between HR strategic capabilities and business requirements.

The pre-existing requirement to effectively assess this relationship is confirmation of the alignment between business and people strategy.

Alignment is initiated through the corporate strategy and then articulated quantitatively in the goals, objectives and milestones of the business strategy. And finally, the business strategy is realised at the operational level through functionspecific key performance indicators.

The second assessment objective is to gain alignment of perception among HR, senior leaders and organisation respondents. In effect, the perception of alignment represents the extent to which everyone is actually operating from the same organisation page.

The third and final objective is to identify alignment gaps in specific inputs and outputs that lead to either transactional, transfunctional or transformational HR, organisation and commercial outcomes.

While typologies are generic, they are useful as a starting point for initiating robust discussions with senior leaders to

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100

Self-assessment Strategic capability Value perception Commercial perception 100

define organisation-specific characteristics, confirm business requirements and develop a road map for change.

Post-assessment As a result of the strategic HR value assessment alignment data, HR can validate their position along the strategic HR value chain. Leveraging the data to better understand perceptions – indifferent, neutral and essential – as well as value and commerciality inputs, outputs and outcomes gaps, change management processes applying current and future state information can realistically initiate a plan for sustainable transformation.

The assessment data also provides an evidence-based and robust framework for continuous improvement in which incumbent capability and performance gaps, and development needs are readily

available and allow a cumulative pathway for promotion and succession.

So, too, is the evidence for recruiting and selecting incoming candidates in which the results articulate business requirements for the future. By continuously refining organisation-specific typologies, values and commercial requirements in senior leader discussions and periodic assessments, the business case for HR moving up the strategic value chain is clear.

Wesley Payne McClendon is executive general manager, head of people & capability at Grocon.

He is a senior HR executive, management consultant and thought leader with global experience in blue-chip companies, top-tier consultancies and leading business schools.

His latest book is titled Strategy, People and Performance and is available in Australia from HolisticPage, Booktopia and Emporium Books.

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PEOPLE

CAREER PATH

OUT OF AFRICA

Tanya Southey’s journey from South Africa to Australia has encompassed a wide range of roles in HR

Pre– 1985

DEVELOPS A STRONG SENSE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

Tanya Southey grew up in South Africa in a very small town. She went to an all-girls Catholic school and developed a strong sense of social justice during these apartheid years. ’“Just understanding diversity and different cultures carried through into the corporate world. I remember seeing people not recognised for their own potential. At an early age this was something I was very surprised about.”

1989

LEARNS VALUABLE HR SKILLS WITH LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE Southey joined Liberty Life as an HR manager where she enjoyed working with like-minded people. When Nelson Mandela was released from jail she was suddenly integrating races that in many cases had never worked together before. Part of the role was to bring the social change that was happening in the country into the workplace and transform the culture on a broad scale.

“The change management skills and the interpersonal skills that I learnt were quite unique at the time. I also learnt about how people shift behaviours and perceptions” 2009

MOVES TO THE AVIATION INDUSTRY Following downsizing at GE during the GFC, Southey was offered a role as group general manager, people, at Jetstar. A new industry made for a refreshing change after being in the finance sector for most of her career.

“Learning about the economics of the airline industry and how it is a really tough environment was interesting because everything impacts it – whether it’s the flu, a volcano, terrorism, etc.”

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1985

FINDS HER FEET AT UNIVERSITY

After beginning a science degree it did not take her long to realise that it didn’t align with her personality. Southey then completed a Bachelor of Arts, Legal Studies, at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. This led to her first role at a recruitment company in 1989. She recalled that during the interview phase, if people weren’t white you would have to put a red sticker on their application because many companies would not employ people of colour.

“I remember on my first day being absolutely outraged by that,” Southey recalls.

1997

A NEW START IN A NEW COUNTRY Southey left South Africa to live a safer and more fulfilling life in Australia with her husband and five-year-old daughter. She joined the boutique recruiting company Barber & Bunton. It was a financial services niche consultancy and it enabled Southey to work with the banks.

“The role allowed me to learn what it was like to work with different cultures and different companies in Australia.”

1999

FIRST ROLE AT THE EXECUTIVE LEVEL A role presented itself at General Electric as their operations HR manager, which Southey accepted before moving into an operational development role.

She was then sent by GE to the US, where she set up a global risk HR function.

When the VP of HR in Australia resigned, Southey took that position.

2012

HELPS DRIVE GROWTH AT CUB Following a stint at Sheldon Harris Consulting, in 2012 Southey became HR director at Carlton United Breweries (CUB). Working at CUB has been “exciting” but also not without its challenges; for one thing, beer consumption has generally been trending downwards. Within 12 months of using a behavioural methodology and putting in a swath of efficient processes, the company is in growth mode. In 2016, she became CUB’s people integration consultant.

“The thread through my career has always been transformation, diversity, turnaround and bringing about a high-performance culture.”

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PEOPLE

OTHER LIFE

43%

The percentage of Australians with at least one parent born overseas

25

The number of years ago that Alma Besserdin came to Australia

200+

The total number of languages Australians can speak

REACHING OUT TO WOMEN IN NEED HR has been the ideal profession to enable Alma Besserdin’s passion for helping migrant women to take flight WHEN ALMA Besserdin came to Australia in the early 1990s, she was a lawyer with a degree not recognised here.

“I did not have a professional coach or a mentor. Even today, there are many professional women and men who still have this challenge,” she says.

Some of them are highly educated professionals and don’t know what steps to take to be successful; others settle for a job below their abilities due to a lack of

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confidence in pursuing better opportunities.

Prior to founding Wimmigrants of Australia, Besserdin held senior executive roles in leadership development, HR management and change management, to name a few. These included stints at Coles and Energy Safe Victoria.

“HR skills are invaluable to running Wimmigrants,” she says.

“For the last two and a half decades I’ve been in senior executive roles, and I was able

to help organisations and people transform.”

Working at Wimmigrants involves helping women establish their careers, and enabling them to become leaders in their workplace and communities.

It also includes helping them integrate professionally and culturally into the Australian workplace.

What does she enjoy most about this role?

“I love seeing other women learn and grow, achieving their full potential.”

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