Manufacturing Excellence Keeping Australian manufacturing alive Laminex Australia executive general manager, Justin Burgess, and head of People and Performance, Laura Staples, tells Manufacturers’ Monthly about their goal to leave the company in a better shape than they found it, following over 85 years as an Australian manufacturer.
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STABLISHED in Melbourne in 1934, Laminex Australia manufactures high-pressure laminate, compact laminate and wetarea panelling, decorated MDF used for cabinetry doors, raw particleboard and MDF in their various sustainable plants across Australia. As a subsidiary of Fletcher Building, the business has expanded over more than 85 years to become one of the largest employers in their domain. With an underlying focus on culture, the company is passionate about keeping Australian manufacturing alive. “Our focus is to really innovate and be quite smart, and to lean in and think about how to compete in a global market,” Laminex Australia executive general manager Justin Burgess said. “I passionately believe we can do that and be successful. I think that creates a unique proposition for us to challenge the status quo and not be afraid to reinvent ourselves, to stay relevant in Australian manufacturing.”
experiences and various initiatives across the business designed to make it a great place to work.” In choosing a clear business model and strategy, then embedding that within the team’s growth mindset, the culture became more fluidly articulated and was able to evolve over time. This strategic direction created a natural progression in building the right team, as it became easier to integrate new people into the business. Additionally, a mantra of “surprise and delight” in the HR team sparked initiatives with an innovative and fun approach. “We wanted to make sure that we looked at things differently,” Staples said. “Whether it was teaching sales strategy through a board game called ‘Sales Experience’ – which we designed, created and rolled out across 250 sales leaders – through
to celebrating our internal thought leadership with our ‘Laminex Learning Bites’ podcast and recognising all the great leaders that we have internally that can teach our employees. We’ve made sure the things that we’ve done celebrate culture and were innovative and unique to our organisation.” Another innovative employee experience that Laminex Australia introduced was “Laminex Live,” an internal TV show that has been successfully run for two seasons with an external host, following different themes. According to Staples, the last season was centred on better understanding strategy. “We had Justin on for each episode to talk about each strategic pillar, and then we incorporated stories from across the business in the various segments,” she said. “This either highlighted various people
around the business, or we brought in external thought leaders to teach and educate on interesting topics.”
Work From Anywhere Another element of Laminex Australia’s success, both as a manufacturer and a business, was implementing a flexible work model called Work From Anywhere for nonoperational employees. While the COVID-19 pandemic played a role in fast-tracking this model, as it has done for many Australian businesses, Burgess said it resulted in a more stable environment. “Ultimately, we started to unpack it and it offered a whole heap of other upsides for us,” he said. “It opened up the pool of talent across Australia; we weren’t necessarily thinking of a domicile in Melbourne, which enabled a lot of people to move and be comfortable, which we would
Workplace culture One of the strategies that Laminex Australia have implemented to secure a competitive edge as an Australian manufacturer was to transform their workplace culture. This has led to achieving a place in the Australian Financial Review’s Best Places to Work in 2021 list, in the Manufacturing and Consumer Goods category. “This has been about three or four years in the making, and the transformation journey has really been a result of defining what our culture was going to look like and creating an aspirational state for us to aim towards,” Laminex Australia head of People and Performance Laura Staples said. “Then we implemented a range of employee 34 MARCH 2022 Manufacturers’ Monthly
The HR team at Laminex Australia created and rolled out their own “Sales Experience” board game to teach sales strategy.
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