Just Rewards: Reward Your Staff and Reap the Benefits

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JustRewards-text 13/1/04 9:42 AM Page i

JUST REWARDS

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Jamelle Wells gathered ideas for rewarding staff while working as a news and business editor and as a manager. She’s been editor of My Business Success magazine, and a features writer for several publications including My Money. Jamelle has worked for a number of media and government organisations, and is best known for her many years as a senior news reader, editor and business reporter for Radio 2GB and 2CH (the Macquarie Network). She’s currently a broadcaster for ABC NewsRadio and has an MA from the University of New South Wales.

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JUST REWARDS Reward your staff and reap the benefits

Jamelle Wells

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For George, Charlie and Norman First published in 2004 Copyright © Jamelle Wells 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (Cal) under the Act. Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.allenandunwin.com National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Wells, Jamelle, 1963–. Just rewards: reward your staff and reap the benefits. Bibliography. Includes index. ISBN 1 86508 983 4 1. Incentives in industry. 2. Incentive awards. 3. Employee motivation. I. Title. 658.3142 Set in 12/14pt Garamond by Midland Typesetters, Maryborough, Victoria Printed by Griffin Press, South Australia 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Contents Preface 1 How to choose the right rewards

vi 1

2 Health and fitness initiatives

16

3 Family friendly practices

35

4 Cash bonuses and profit share

60

5 Community projects

76

6 Professional and personal development

93

7 Management style

115

8 Special events

133

9 Gifts and other non-cash benefits

153

10 A great work space

165

Bibliography

179

Index

181

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Preface

How you treat an employee, more than any other factor, determines their happiness in the job. And as the race to attract and retain the best personnel hots up, choosing the right rewards for your staff is more important than ever. Winning Australian companies are learning new ways to hang on to their staff. And it’s not all pay rises and bonuses! This book outlines some of the rewards being used by Australian companies of all types and sizes. They’re rewards that range from a winning management style to family friendly practices, and health and fitness initiatives. As a business editor and as a news editor, over the years I’ve come across inspiring examples of small companies who know how to reward their staff, yet the managers of small companies can be incredibly modest. Small business owners often say ‘we don’t have the big budgets to reward staff ’—but as this book shows, you don’t need a big budget to recognise people for their efforts, because the best rewards can cost next to nothing at all. What is evident is that employees who are rewarded for their efforts work harder and are likely to stay with a company for longer. Bosses who recognise the efforts of their employees are posting higher productivity and bigger profits.

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PREFACE

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We used to think of rewards as big pay packets and cash bonuses but those days are over. Global uncertainty, a string of company collapses and controversy surrounding big payouts to company CEOs has led to a winding back of cash bonuses. They’re still around, but they’re more closely linked to performance. The rewards of today revolve more around family friendly workplaces, health and fitness initiatives, time off to do community volunteering and professional development. Pet days, lunchtime yoga, cafes and chill-out rooms, office car and laundering services, special rooms for sick children . . . bosses are finding better ways to keep their staff. I’ve focused on Australian case studies and different examples of how smart bosses are using rewards to get results. While the main focus of the book is on interviews with employees and managers from companies with less than 1000 staff, there are case studies of larger companies as well. If you’re stuck for ideas on how to reward your staff, there are plenty of tips you might be able to adapt to suit your business. In gathering information for the book I was struck by the extremes of how companies treat their staff in Australia. On the one hand there was the terrific generosity of a small business owner who organised surprise dinners for her employees and their families to thank the employees for their hard work. At the other extreme were the phone calls I received from one employee, who said their boss docked their pay by $4 for every toilet break. I’ve always loved listening to people who are passionate about their jobs and it was also refreshing to hear from a Kennards Hire worker who loved his job so much he persuaded his two brothers to come and work for the company. Also amusing was the tale of how when Virgin Blue airlines senior managers go out into the field to work alongside check-in and maintenance staff, there’s nothing the CEO enjoys more than throwing luggage around.

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Some companies can generate that sort of enthusiasm and passion in their workforce. We can learn from them. Some of the rewards companies are offering staff have a distinctly Australian flavour. Like the Melbourne Cup Day functions, end of year parties on Sydney Harbour and yoga classes for workers at a mine in outback Queensland. There are rewards that are getting us recognised as role models overseas. Like the multi award-winning twelve level building MLC Financial Planning has rewarded its staff with in North Sydney. Thank you to the employers, employees and other industry players who gave up their time for interviews. Jamelle Wells September 2003

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How to choose the right rewards

The idea of rewarding staff is not a new one. The most successful companies in Australia have been doing it for years, because they know that recognising the efforts of their employees gets results that range from increased productivity to higher profits. Employees who are rewarded for their efforts are more willing to go the extra mile for a company, to contribute their intellectual capital, and to stay around for longer. Staff who feel valued and appreciated are motivated and that’s good news for any company because motivated people can do a lot to contribute to growth and productivity. Whereas once a big pay packet was thought of as the only way to reward employees, that perception has changed. So too has the notion that only large companies have the resources to reward their staff. Companies of all sizes have come up with ways to reward their employees that extend well outside the realm of salaries and cash bonuses. Many rewards don’t involve money at all, and if a reward is used the right way, it can achieve results, regardless of whether you employ 10 people, 100 or 1000. There’s no one right way to reward a staff member because different rewards work for different people, according to their age and their individual interests. What particular rewards


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work for employees is likely to change throughout their life, and also throughout their career. However, the sorts of rewards employers are using are mostly tied to company culture. They are rewards that are influenced by the particular industry a company is part of, or by the ages and interests of employees. There are the rewards that are given for specific achievements or behaviours, such as meeting sales targets, coming up with a cost saving idea or attracting a new client. Then there are more general rewards given to say ‘thank you for working for this company, we value you as an employee’. These might include flexible work hours, time off to work on a community project or setting up a special work environment for employees. There are also workplaces that provide intrinsic rewards for people— that is, the good feelings they get from the work they do. Rewards can be material or non material. Material rewards might very well include cash bonuses, profit share, gifts, tickets to events, holidays, prizes or superannuation top ups. Non material rewards might be time off to pursue personal interests, or organising a staff function or a special theme day once a month to boost morale. Non material rewards might also include giving staff special training or projects to help keep their job challenging, broaden their experience and boost their worth in the job market. This is important because unlike our parents and grandparents, we no longer stay in the one job until we retire. Young Australians just making their way out into the workforce have witnessed a spate of company collapses and mass retrenchments both here and overseas. At home these collapses have included Ansett airlines, communications group One.Tel, HIH and FAI Insurance. Overseas there’s been the collapse of companies such as Enron. So young workers have a very different perception of company loyalty than that held by their parents and grandparents. While the younger age group is prepared to be loyal to their employer for a period of time, they’re increasingly asking ‘What’s in this job for me?’ and


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‘What can I get out of it that will take me on somewhere else in a few years?’. Both men and women from this generation, sometimes referred to as generation X, are now choosing a more flexible lifestyle. Many new employees see their tenure as brief and want maximum return for a very short time. This view is a quantum leap from twenty years ago. There is even a perception held by some that if you’re in a job for too long, other prospective employers see you as stale, and not able to easily adapt to a new work environment or accept change. Many Australians are changing careers quite late in life because they’ve been retrenched or they plan to retire much later than their parents did. Government think-tanks are constantly trying to come up with contingency plans for our aging workforce of the future. This aging workforce is also changing the perception of what a reward is. Employees are now asking for salary packaging which often involves an employer paying superannuation above statutory requirements, paying for income protection insurance policies for staff and contributing to health fund premiums. Another big change in the Australian workforce is the large number of women who are leaving large organisations for smaller ones because they can’t break through the management glass ceiling of larger companies in some industries, or because they need greater flexibility to balance their work life with their family life. There’s also been a huge influx of employees from different cultural backgrounds, bringing new expectations about what a reward is. Finding ways to keep good employees has become more important over the past two decades with people changing jobs more frequently. An employer is expected to pay employees a fair wage and to provide them with safe working conditions, and in return that employer is entitled to expect a fair day’s work. But to encourage people to more than just go through the motions, they need to feel respected and valued. Employees who take pride in what they do will not only


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contribute their ideas to the running of the business, but can also be an invaluable marketing tool. They can either enhance the image of the service or product your business provides, or they can discredit it. The saying ‘people like to do business with people’ rings true. How many times have you not gone back to a shop or restaurant because you’ve received appalling service? We live in a society of choice, where many companies are vying for our business. Personally I don’t go back to restaurants where I have to trip a waiter over to get a menu, to shops where staff have no product knowledge, or to organisations where the person on the other end of the phone makes me feel as if my call is a huge inconvenience. Why should I, when just down the road there’ll be another organisation that also has a great product but can back it up with pleasant competent staff who provide fantastic service. Staff who feel recognised and rewarded can boost your reputation as a good employer, because they talk to other people in their industry about their job. Equally, staff who feel they’re being unfairly treated or never recognised for their efforts also talk, and news about bad employers travels just as fast. Successful companies are also rewarding their employees because of the high cost of replacing them, and not just in monetary terms. When someone leaves, there’s the cost of advertising their job or going through a recruitment agency, the down time while interviews are being held and while the new person’s being trained. Not to mention the fact that staff who leave to work for one of your competitors usually take some of your customers with them. Then there are the indirect costs such as the stress it places on your other employees. If you end up putting the wrong person into the job, you usually have to live with them for a three-month trial period and this can create even more stress on co-workers. Despite the many good employers in Australia, there are also those who expect staff to perform well, no matter how badly they treat them. There are also those who fail to pay



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award wages, those who break the law in relation to sick pay, holiday pay and maternity leave, and those who break antidiscrimination laws. Then there are companies who are simply petty in their treatment of people. I once had an employee phone me to report that their employer docked their pay by $4 every time they took a toilet break. An employee at another organisation claimed their pay was docked for having personal photos on a work desk. Yet the very same companies expect staff to turn up to work with buckets of enthusiasm. By the same token there are other companies in Australia who have, over the years, retrenched large numbers of people due to restructuring, and have asked senior managers to take pay cuts, but have had initiatives in place to treat staff fairly and with respect in doing so. While money is important, it’s the day-to-day experiences people encounter at work that shape their perception of whether or not they are valued. Most of the surveys conducted on the best companies to work for in Australia reveal some sort of link between preferred employers or ‘employers of choice’ and a healthy financial performance. One of the most comprehensive surveys has been conducted by Human Resource consultants Hewitt Associates in conjunction with the Australian Graduate School of Management and the Australian Financial Review’s BOSS magazine. For the past three years Hewitt Associates has sought feedback from hundreds of companies in Australia to come up with the results of the annual ‘Best Companies to Work for in Australia’ survey. The survey released in 2003 found that the best employers had 13 per cent revenue growth between 2000 and 2002 compared with only 7 per cent for other companies. The best employers also posted an average profit growth of 21 per cent in the same time period, in comparison to minus 44 per cent for other companies (Hewitt Associates 2003). Over the three years the survey has been conducted, the researchers have also found some of the best companies to work for were often more likely to offer bonuses such as cash,


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shares, vouchers, or other forms of recognition for meeting solo or team goals, reaching anniversaries of service with the company, or coming up with innovative ideas. When it comes to what rewards companies are choosing for employees, the Australian Institute of Management’s annual salary survey for 2002 found that the most common material rewards offered to executives were mobile phones, company cars, professional subscriptions, laptop computers and airline club memberships, whereas the most common material rewards offered to wages staff (employees not in executive positions) were discounts on company services or products, self education expenses, income protection insurance, life insurance and car parking. The survey found that the most common type of cash incentives offered to staff were company bonus schemes followed by performance based pay, profit sharing, hiring and retention incentives, and sales commissions. The Institute says this result varied from the 2001 survey which found performance based pay the most common type of variable reward offered to staff. The survey also found that staff given the chance to take part in variable cash reward schemes were in certain jobs, while the length of time an employee had been with a company had very little influence on whether or not they could be eligible for the cash incentives. Another finding was that more senior employees were offered greater flexibility with salary packaging and a wider choice of benefits, while many less senior staff were offered less flexible packages incorporating salary and superannuation only. Profit sharing was most often connected to overall company performance, while sales commissions and performance pay were associated with individual performance. Share options were offered to 6.9 per cent of employees across all levels of employment (AIM 2002). Whatever reward system you put in place will depend on the particular culture of your company, but what most companies who have successful reward programs in place do have in



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common, is that they’ve set up their benefits and rewards after consultation with staff and they regularly solicit staff feedback. The most successful reward schemes come from redesigning the workplace culture, or they are set up to reinforce an existing culture. A staff rewards budget for a company might be several thousand dollars a year; it might be a few hundred. It doesn’t really matter, as long as it works for you. It also seems that material rewards aren’t the only ones that motivate people at work. Employees also get intrinsic rewards from work that is meaningful to them and a job they feel they have some sort of control over. Study after study of workplaces in Australia has revealed that while material job perks might be attractive, having a sense of control over their work and good management are what’s most important to employees. For example, a survey of 2300 decision makers and employees from over 400 organisations across Australia was commissioned by Leadership Management Australia. The survey found that when asked which five factors would have the most positive influence on their performance at work, 45 per cent of employees rated being given responsibility and independence as being the most important factor in job satisfaction, along with having interesting and challenging work, which also rated 45 per cent. These were followed by having a reasonable salary or pay on 41 per cent, having a good working relationship with the boss on 39 per cent and having a good relationship with other staff on 37 per cent (LEAD 2001). Melanie O’Connor, Director of consulting group Strategic Human Resource Solutions, and lecturer at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management, says in the past few years in Australia, there’s been a much more stringent linking of rewards with performance and a tightening up at all levels as companies become more professional with their management techniques. ‘Large companies are increasingly trying to cut costs and increase productivity, and because payroll associated costs are huge, business owners are taking steps to get more for


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their investment.’ Melanie says reward systems used by smaller companies in Australia are often more unstructured, with non costed perks and without systems of performance evaluation in place. However, she insists this is not necessarily a bad thing because it allows greater flexibility and a more individual approach to staff rewards, although small companies sometimes struggle with the measurement aspect of staff rewards. This lack of performance appraisal has also been attributed to larger companies. In 2002, human resource leaders from 64 organisations in Australasia took part in a global survey of more than 1000 organisations in 47 countries. The survey was conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers who distributed the questionnaire between June and August 2002. Only 14 per cent of survey participants from Australasia have all employees completing performance reviews, compared to 40 per cent of organisations globally. In addition, only 42 per cent of Australasian survey participants have all senior management completing performance reviews (Pricewaterhouse Coopers 2002). One trend in rewarding staff by companies in Australia over the past few years has centred on family and work strategies. Flexible work hours, time in lieu and parental leave have been used to try to give employees flexibility to balance their work and family life. As a reward system, family friendly practices engender a great deal of staff loyalty. Compared to the US, there’s a smaller emphasis in Australia on cash rewards such as profit share and stock options, and again this probably isn’t a bad thing because the failure of poorly designed profit share schemes has contributed to the collapse of a number of major companies. The lesson to be learned from all of this seems to be to avoid rewards that focus on short term profitability only—that is, rewards that encourage staff to earn a quick buck, regardless of longer term outcomes. Short term rewards usually only benefit a handful of staff and quite often mean that funding for things



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that would be of long term benefit to the company, such as training budgets, go out the door. The notion of rewarding staff can be particularly challenging for small to medium sized companies who don’t necessarily have a large budget to spend on reward programs. However, the advantage they do have over bigger companies when it comes to rewarding staff is flexibility. The companies mentioned in this book have been chosen to illustrate particular staff rewards, but chances are the rewards are part of an overall package, and reflect a management style that tries to do the best thing by employees while at the same time remaining focused on the needs and goals of the company. If a company provides one great way of rewarding staff, it’s also probably introduced a host of others. And most of the employees interviewed by me say that without solid management and a job they find interesting and empowering, all the perks in the world won’t keep them loyal to their employer.

How rewarding employees can benefit your business ■ ■ ■ ■

■

Staff who feel valued are more productive and take pride in what they do. Staff who feel valued are the best staff to have as ambassadors for your company. Staff who feel valued will contribute their intellectual capital to the running of your company. Staff who feel valued and appreciated are likely to try to reach company goals, meet sales budgets and come up with cost saving measures. Rewarding staff encourages them to stay and helps you avoid the high cost of recruiting and training new staff.


10

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Rewarding staff sends a positive message to not only the employee who’s received the reward, but to other staff members as well. It tells them you appreciate your employees’ achievements and successes and don’t take them for granted. If you don’t reward your staff well your competitors will.

Tips on using staff rewards

✓

Some of the best rewards are the simplest. They are rewards designed in alignment with the organisation’s culture. And when rewarding staff, short term profitability needs to be balanced with long term goals. To keep the rewards fair you need to look at the value of everyone’s role in the company. A small, team-based organisation is an ideal situation in which to distribute profits, whereby everyone gets the same amount, but there is ultimately some value judgment involved, and to keep rewards as fair as possible, performance metrics need to be put in place. It’s also important not to copy rewards used by other companies verbatim. They must be adapted to suit the individual needs of your organisation and your staff. People feel empowered by choice. If possible, offer employees a choice of rewards. You also need to clarify what you are trying to achieve with a reward. Is it to attract staff, keep them for the long term, or a combination of a number of things? Know your organisation. What are its values and culture? Is it driven by individuals or team players? Know your staff and what drives them. Is it money or something else? Do they need a weekly or monthly reward or can they wait until the end of each year for a reward such as a cash bonus?

✓



✓

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Involve your staff in the process of setting up a reward system. Melanie O’Connor says many employers jump in at the remuneration end and don’t do the necessary setting up. Use rewards that foster not only profits but also staff development, research and customer development. Rewards can be used to thank star performers for their outstanding efforts or to try to motivate poor performers. The trick to using rewards for motivation is to recognise small changes in behaviour, even if it still isn’t quite ideal. You also need to be very specific with poor performers: for example, ‘The way you’ve done this is a great improvement but we still need to achieve this.’ A reward should be appropriate for the particular achievement. To avoid creating losers and resentment between staff members in the workplace try to reward everyone who achieves company goals whether the goals are financial or behavioural. Your employees are then competing against set criteria and not against each other. If you do give out individual rewards make it very clear to all staff why a reward has been granted so as to avoid claims of favouritism and bias. Other staff should be able to easily see why their colleague has been given a reward. Consider having team rewards in addition to individual tewards. Rewards should be goal based and should try to achieve financial or behavioural outcomes. The latter might include acquiring new skills, producing work of exceptional quality, finishing a project early, doing something extra special for a customer, identifying and solving a problem or suggesting a cost saving measure. Formal rewards such as bonuses or gifts should be given out immediately to have the best impact, otherwise the behaviours the rewards have been granted for tend to be forgotten about. Rewards should also be made public. Make sure you celebrate your staff ’s successes. Be generous with praise. Don’t forget to reward behind the scenes people and casual and part-time staff when appropriate—they are often forgotten about but casual and part-time staff now make up a large part of the workforce.

✓

✓


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Rewards to avoid

✗

Formal rewards such as cash bonuses or gifts don’t work if they’re set up as something staff expect or take for granted. People should be paid an appropriate salary to come to work and carry out the duties in their job description to the best of their ability. They’re also entitled to receive basic training and to work in a safe and clean environment. While informal rewards such as flexible working hours or staff functions might be seen as a ‘thank you for choosing this particular company, we value you being here’, or an effort to make the workplace more fun, formal rewards such as cash bonuses should be seen as a special ‘extra something’ to say thank you for putting in the hard yards, to provide encouragement, or for achieving specific goals or outcomes. Rewards don’t work if they create fierce competition between staff members and encourage unethical behaviour. For example, your staff might achieve quick sales to meet a monthly bonus target but if they’ve lied to customers, or burnt bridges in your industry, in the long term it’s your company’s credibility that loses out. Rewards that are set up with unrealistic expectations don’t work. There are some things over which your employees have no control whatsoever. They shouldn’t be penalised for this. For example, to pay your staff a basic below industry average wage and then promise huge monetary bonuses for an outcome that’s near impossible to achieve creates poor morale. Chances are you’ll post a high staff turnover and will cease to attract the best performers. Make sure your rewards are on par with those offered by other companies in your particular industry. You need to check out what the competition’s offering their staff and come up with something of rival value. To feel properly rewarded, staff like to think you’re offering them something of equal or better value than your competitors.

✗ ✗ ✗



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✗

Rewards might not work if they’re always discretionary. They can create jealousy and bad feeling if the same people get them time and time again, if there’s perceived favouritism or if you use rewards to play off one staff member against another.

The tax effectiveness of staff rewards Although the tax implications of staff rewards change frequently and you should check with your accountant if in doubt, when it comes to non-cash staff rewards, some are more cost affective than others. According to Garry Addison, a senior tax advisor with CPA Australia, there’s been a gradual winding back of such rewards since the Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) was first introduced in 1986. This tax applies to most non-cash benefits that might be provided by employers, including things such as entertainment, staff lunches and dinners outside the workplace, as well as Christmas parties outside the workplace, and expense reimbursements. It’s generally calculated by determining the equivalent cash value of the benefit and then applying a rate of 48.5 per cent to this amount. Since this rate is the same as the top personal tax rate, some employers feel it is usually not worth providing taxable fringe benefits to lower income employees. Some of the more attractive benefits for higher income employees, in particular, are those which are either taxed concessionally under other arrangements (such as superannuation or employee share plans), or exempt from the FBT. Motor vehicles come within the latter category and thus can be a useful benefit for many employees, if either provided directly by the employer or via a novated lease arrangement. Garry says one of the most cost effective rewards for both employees and employers is for the employee to salary sacrifice into superannuation, but there are special rules governing this and the amount has to be decided


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on at the beginning of the year. Younger staff might be more reluctant to salary sacrifice because they’ll have to wait much longer to access the money.

Garry Addison’s tips to consider when coming up with staff rewards ■ ■

■

■

■

■

■ ■

An employee is fully taxed on any cash bonus you give them. Certain minor benefits with a value of less than $100 and which are provided irregularly and/or are hard to value are not subject to the FBT. Any amount of $100 or more is. Light meals provided to staff on a working day are not subject to FBT and are a tax deduction for your company if they’re held in the workplace. Staff lunches and staff functions held outside the workplace are also not subject to FBT but the expense cannot be claimed by the employer. An employee’s meals, accommodation and travel expenses while travelling for work purposes are not subject to FBT and are tax deductions for your company. The cost of providing a staff fitness centre, a ‘chill out’ room, staff kitchen or any other improvements to the physical workplace to make it more pleasant for your employees are not subject to the FBT and are a tax deduction for your company. The cost of life coaching or personal development courses for your staff would be caught by the FBT. Staff training courses are probably not subject to FBT providing that you can claim a deduction for the expense if your company directly incurs the cost. These are a tax deduction for your company.


HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT REWARDS ■

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Chocolates, flowers and other small gifts given to staff may be free of FBT if they come within the minor benefits rule mentioned above. Newspapers and magazines used in the workplace are not subject to the FBT and are a tax deduction for your company Subsidised child minding in the workplace for the benefit of employees is exempt from FBT but is not exempt if provided outside the workplace. The cost of health and fitness courses staff attend outside the workplace is subject to the FBT if the cost is met by the employer. The cost of certain health seminars (relating to preventive health care and work-related counselling) provided for staff in the workplace is subject to FBT. Other benefits which are deductible to the employer and exempt from FBT include certain work-related items (e.g. laptop computers, briefcases, calculators, business related software, corporate credit card membership fees) and items used primarily for business purposes (e.g. mobile/car phones and airport lounge memberships).


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Health and fitness initiatives

Health and fitness plans are being offered by companies of all sizes in Australia as a reward to their staff. They’re the sort of reward that says ‘thank you for working here—we care for your wellbeing and value you as an employee’. They also make people feel good about the company they work for. For many organisations, the plans are part of salary packages and companies who have health and fitness initiatives consistently report less absenteeism and greater productivity. They can also be a great boost for staff morale and can encourage team work. People who exercise regularly report higher energy levels, increased concentration and greater confidence and say they’re more able to cope with stress. Over the past few decades, technology has lowered our activity levels and hours spent at keyboards have led to a whole new range of work related injuries. Technology has also meant that often when we’re not physically at work we’re answering work related enquiries after hours on mobile phones or working from home on laptop computers on weekends. Researchers have found the most common excuse people give for not exercising is a lack of time, followed by a lack of motivation. And with most people now spending longer hours at


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work than they do anywhere else, there seems to be a greater need for employers to introduce health and fitness programs. Many companies that regularly rate well in surveys of the best companies to work for in Australia, feature some sort of employee health and fitness initiative. However, the introduction of health and fitness initiatives depends very much on the culture of the particular company. Some companies that reward staff well in other ways haven’t bothered with health and fitness initiatives as their employees have indicated they’re simply not interested in them. Programs offered by companies in Australia now go way beyond the traditional in-house gym or subsidised gym memberships. They’re often more about a holistic approach to health and lifestyle changes. Employers are now subsidising a range of health education programs and seminars. With in-house gyms usually out of the price range of smaller businesses, personal trainers are offering the use of their own facilities or organising outdoor activities during lunch hours. What’s on offer depends on the ages and interests of staff and how much you want to spend. To your employees, a health and fitness program conveys the message that the company cares about them, and has an interest in their wellbeing. It also conveys a positive image of the company to potential employees and to the wider community, helping to set you up as an employer of choice. Corey Hinde, a Personal Trainer and Nutritionist from Nutrafit Training Systems, who specialise in corporate fitness packages, estimates that within the next five years all companies in Australia with more than 100 staff will reward their staff with some sort of staff health and fitness program. ‘Employees are starting to expect it, especially executives. It’s a culture that’s strongest in the finance, consulting, banking and accounting industries,’ he says. In the United States larger companies such as General Electric and DuPont have for many years been reporting on how staff health and fitness programs have led to lower sickness related absenteeism rates.


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According to Corey Hinde, employee health and fitness programs in Australia are becoming more and more sophisticated. ‘There’s now a greater variety of programs available and stronger competition in the fitness industry to provide good service. There are lots of corporate fitness providers, but their job is no longer as simple as getting people to go to the gym in their lunch hour.’ Most workplace health programs now incorporate not only physical activity but also education about the risks of smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, and awareness of cancer, heart disease and stress. Health professionals are regularly bought in to give short talks on a range of issues. In Australia, companies have largely followed overseas trends in encouraging employees to be more health conscious, but we’ve also adapted them to suit our own needs. Healthy Business, a company that has set up wellbeing programs for a number of organisations, says feedback from their clients is always positive. According to the company’s Director, Louise Heyward, while the effect fitness programs have on staff productivity levels is hard to monitor, positive effects such as lower absenteeism rates are much easier to measure. She cites the example of one client, the Corus Hotel in Sydney, where an investment in a staff health and fitness program is paying off. ‘Just one year after the program was first introduced, the hotel reduced staff sick days by around 17 per cent, and there’s also been a reduction in workers compensation claims she says. Other clients Healthy Business has tailored fitness packages for include Nokia, Fujitsu, Canon, Tasmania’s Forestry Commission, and a number of telecommunications companies and call centres across Australia and New Zealand. Like Corey Hinde from Nutrafit, Louise Heyward believes employers in Australia are fast catching on to the idea of staff health and fitness initiatives for their staff. She says it caught on overseas before here because, in the US for instance, for many years, employers have been paying



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health insurance premiums as part of salary packages and have been looking for ways to keep both premiums and the number of claims down. ‘That’s partly why they’ve introduced the programs, and incentives for staff to attend them. A lot of American companies have also sent their staff to work here, so the staff expect some sort of program as part of their employment agreement.’ Heywood says while many overseas companies have staff to run their health and fitness programs internally, in Australia it’s mostly outsourced. She says a health and fitness program has the potential to not only help reduce absenteeism rates and boost productivity, but can also contribute to educating people about a healthier lifestyle outside of work. ‘Australia now has a very real obesity problem and because of the health risks associated with obesity, anything that can be done to help combat that can’t be bad. Employers are starting to feel it makes sense to have some sort of program even if it’s on a very small scale.’ Leichhardt Fitness Studio, based in Sydney, is a great example of a training consultancy that develops programs for smaller companies who want to reward staff with subsidised health and fitness programs. Small groups of between four and ten employees at a time can come to a fully equipped fitness studio, or a trainer comes to their workplace and takes groups of staff to a nearby park or outdoor area. With the trainer they do everything from walks, runs and other cardio workouts to basic weight training, boxing, fit ball exercises and outdoor activities. Training programs are designed for people of all ages and fitness levels, and the cost is subsidised by their employer. Walk into this studio any day of the week and you’ll find people of all ages and occupations, including people who’ve never previously stepped inside a gym. Personal Trainer at the centre Sharon Muletic, says the group workouts are particularly good for team building, as staff try to make them fun and non competitive. She says for many people, coming to a small


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training studio or having a trainer come to the office is a huge reward because it’s not as daunting as going to a large and crowded gym. ‘Here people have the support of not only a qualified trainer, but also their co-workers. Group training is a very social activity, a good chance to get together and have a laugh outside the office.’ Sharon says even though they might only see employees from a particular workplace once a week, they give them goals to aim for and set them small tasks between visits. One group they’ve worked with in this way is eight staff members from a Portmans fashion store outlet in the CBD. ‘We might ask staff to keep a diary of their eating habits, or to write down what other exercise they do during the week, such as walking or using stairs instead of the lift. People don’t change their lifestyle overnight, but gradually they begin to think more about how they’re looking after—or not looking after— themselves.’

How rewarding staff with health and fitness programs can benefit your workplace ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Reduce the number of staff sick days. Lower the number of injury related compensation claims. Boost productivity levels. Lower staff turnover rates. Encourage stronger levels of concentration. Increase energy levels. Increase efficiency of staff. Promote a positive image of the company to potential employees. Promote a positive image of the company to the wider community.


HEALTH AND FITNESS INITIATIVES ■ ■ ■

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Improve workplace morale. Lower stress levels in the workplace by helping staff to let off steam. Encourage team work.

Tips on rewarding staff with a health or fitness program

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Decide how much you want to spend. Building an inhouse gym is out of the question for most small to medium sized companies, due to the cost. However, if your budget allows this you will need an area closed off from the office. You’ll also need to buy or lease equipment, maintain the area and provide professional supervision. The gym will need to be open to give employees access before, during and after work. More viable alternatives for smaller companies are personal training packages or fitness classes for small groups of employees in a venue run by a trainer, at a nearby gym or outdoors. Trainers can come to you with everything needed to run a class including music, boxing and weight training equipment. Most employers choose to subsidise gym memberships or training programs for employees. This not only reduces your outlay but may help motivate employees to stick to the program because they are contributing to the cost. Some companies also reward staff by extending programs to employees’ families. A gym or personal trainer may offer you a discount rate for signing up several employees at once. Reward staff by getting a number of quotes and proposals from trainers who specialise in employee fitness programs, and then letting employees be in on the final decision. It’s a highly competitive industry and you should be able to get a program that is just right for your company, no matter how big or small. Look for people with some sort of

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tertiary training and ask for examples of what they’ve done for other companies. Look for trainers who are creative and up with the latest trends. They’ll need to be good communicators and able to motivate people who may not have previously done much exercise. Use surveys to determine what your employees want and what particular health problems they may have. This is something a fitness trainer can help with, by organising a health check day where medical professionals do basic height– weight checks, blood pressure and cholesterol checks. With an aging workforce predicted in Australia over the next few years, you may also need to include gentle exercise such as yoga, aquarobics or pilates as part of your program. Choose a program that provides variety and choice and change the program regularly. Also decide whether you’ll give staff time during working hours to take part in the program or only make it available during breaks and outside of working hours. Reward staff by monitoring their progress in the programs. Employees who want to be involved will appreciate the motivation and encouragement. Fitness trainers can keep a record of staff attendance and progress and staff feedback is also important. Through informal discussions or brief surveys every few months you can gauge your employees’ reactions to a health and wellbeing program. Changed absenteeism rates and sick days taken can be easily monitored. Other changes such as improved morale and stronger team work can be observed by managers or staff themselves. While not everyone may be willing to take part in health and fitness programs, Corey Hinde from Nutrafit estimates an average of 30 to 35 per cent of staff tend to stick to them over a long period of time. He also says attendance rates can drop off over winter if staff aren’t kept properly motivated and the benefits of health and fitness programs tend to vary from company to company. Don’t forget any staff involvement in community sporting events or charity

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fun runs is a great publicity opportunity. Consider putting your company logo on T-shirts or trying to get a mention in a local newspaper. Staff shouldn’t be forced to take part in health and fitness programs and equally they shouldn’t be penalised for not taking part in them. Some other health and fitness initiatives you might be able to reward your employees with include a lunchtime walking club or outdoor group activities (running, cross training, outdoor adventure days, bushwalking, rock climbing or sailing). Reward staff with a lunchtime team sports competition—cricket, basketball, netball, volleyball, hockey or tennis competitions. Also consider swimming coaching, aquarobics, or provide employees with vouchers for gym classes such as aerobics, pump, step, gentle exercise or circuit. Reward staff with subsidised personal fitness training or training for small groups of employees such as yoga, pilates, thai chi, meditation, self defence or quit smoking programs. You could also offer seminars and workshops—in the form of one-off weekly talks or six to eight week courses. Topics might include weight loss, pre and post natal health care, injury and rehabilitation, neck care for staff who spend long hours at desks, diabetes, dental and eye care, cancer, back care. If possible video the seminars and talks or try to get a copy of some brief notes about the topic discussed for staff who haven’t been able to attend on the day. Healthy Business runs a six week course called ‘Stress Arrester’ for the workplace, that focuses on managing and reducing stress in a pro-active way. It includes six presentations covering stress management, the stress response, relaxation, nutrition, communication skills, lifestyle planning, and a health and fitness appraisal. Healthy Business also offers a back care education program that concentrates on reducing

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serious back injuries in the workplace. ‘Back for Good’ includes four manual handling and back care education sessions that can each be tailored to run for 60–90 minutes. The package also includes a fitness appraisal and posture profile with a physiotherapist. The course ultimately aims to reduce the number of workplace injuries and their associated workers compensation claims. Their Healthy Start Program for new clients includes a fitness assessment and nutrition analysis, six sessions with a personal trainer and one session with a life coach. Reward staff with subsidised massages. Some practitioners offer half hour seated lunch hour massages, where they bring their equipment to the workplace—a welcome reward for staff who sit at a desk all day such as call centre employees. While massage is often thought of as an indulgence, there are many health benefits associated with it. Devotees of regular massage report lower stress levels, reduced aches and pains, and higher energy levels. Theme days such as eye care days and back care days are also a healthy reward for staff. Have a visiting practitioner set up in your workplace for a day or for a few hours and staff can collect information and have check ups. You could also offer free medical checks such as blood pressure and podiatry checks. Reward staff with healthy cooking classes. A great way to not only pick up a few tips on how to prepare healthy food, but also a social event for groups of employees. A monthly newsletter with health tips, advice and competitions is a good idea. This is something a fitness consultant can put together and either email or deliver to your office. Each month you might want to profile a staff member who’s made progress in their fitness program. The newsletter could also include details of upcoming classes or special events. Staff should be invited to contribute to the newsletter.

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Case Study—Nokia Telecommunications company Nokia Australia has won a string of awards for being a preferred company to work for, and employs around 160 people in its Sydney office. Nokia’s staff health and fitness initiatives are thought of as some of the very best available. The company’s Sydney offices moved to a new building at Pyrmont in September 2001 and staff provided input into the design of a state of the art gym on the ground floor. Head of human resources for Nokia Australia, Lee Murphy, describes a subsidised health and fitness program as a way of not only helping to improve productivity in the workplace, but also as part of a reward package to give something back to staff in return for performing well. The company says its interested in the wellbeing and development of employees and also the wellbeing and development of their families. ‘While we have a very low staff turnover for a company in the telecommunications industry, replacing new staff can be expensive and my mission is to try to retain good people.’ According to Lee Murphy, Nokia’s philosophy is not to micro manage people, but to focus on outcomes and to put a lot of trust in staff to do their job well. The company tries to employ people with good interpersonal skills and it does hire staff with appropriate skills from other industries. Nokia identifies what employees want in health and fitness programs and indeed in all aspects of their work environment through regular surveys and meetings. It also aims to provide consistent leadership and to keep staff informed about company results, targets and market share. The Nokia gym is well decked out with modern equipment and compares favourably with any commercial facility. The company’s health and fitness program has been set up by consultants from Healthy Business. Staff can take part in boxing, swiss ball and pilates classes. There’s no pressure on employees to take part in the programs and information packages about all activities on offer are

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provided. Some staff have been introduced to activities such as yoga or pilates for the first time through the programs offered by their employer. In addition to subsidised membership of the in-house gym, Nokia rewards its staff with subsidised healthy food at a rooftop cafe and free fresh fruit every day. The rooftop cafe has an indoor and outdoor dining area and is a great place to sit for a quick coffee, lunch or a meeting. Nokia also rewards staff with regular health screening days and health seminars, subsidised in-house massages, counselling and ergonomic workplace assessments. While Lee Murphy predicts that in the future employers will have to work even harder to improve the work environment to attract and keep good people, a recent survey of Nokia staff says a lot about the success of the company’s current health and fitness program.

In 2002 Nokia surveyed staff about the company’s health and fitness program: ■ 84 per cent of staff think the program has helped improve morale. ■ 61 per cent believe the program has led to increased productivity in the workplace. ■ 50 per cent believe the program has contributed to greater job satisfaction. ■ 90 per cent of staff have reported greater satisfaction with their employer, after joining the program. ■ 100 per cent of staff have reported greater awareness of their own health. ■ 81 per cent of staff have reported an increased awareness of their family’s health.



One staff member who makes good use of the in-house gym and other health and fitness initiatives at Nokia is 32- year-old Katrina Lindsay who works in human resources. Katrina’s been with Nokia Australia for four years and says she was attracted to the company because of its reputation for product innovation and its strong sense of community in the workplace. ‘Nokia has a lot of respect for the individual, and because it’s quite small, the work environment is friendly. I came here as a contractor and liked it so much I stayed on full time,’ she says. Katrina estimates that more than a third of the Nokia staff in Sydney use the in-house gym or take advantage of the other health and fitness programs the company offers, and she says most of her work colleagues agree it helps them to be more productive in the workplace. She says having the gym on site or being able to do a yoga class or get involved in the lunchtime running group is a great reward for her because her health has definitely improved since she’s worked for the company. ‘It’s really important if you’re desk-bound all day, which a lot of staff here are, and the gym’s also open to family members. It’s quite a unique workplace in that way and our sales figures are continually improving because staff are so motivated.’

Case Study—Coppabella mine Macarthur Coal, the operators of the Coppabella mine near Mackay in north Queensland, introduced a staff fitness program in 2001 to contribute towards improving the wellbeing of its employees and as part of an overall plan to help reduce the mine’s lost time injury frequency rate. Incredibly, that rate has fallen from eighteen in 2000/2001 to less than two in 2001/2002. According to 38-year-old Shane Stephan, the general manager of business development and

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investor relations for Macarthur cCoal, the staff fitness program was introduced after an incident acted as a safety wake up call. ‘Safety management is always important and subject to tough government regulations, but when a truck driver was almost seriously injured by a heavy piece of equipment in December 2001, we decided to implement a major safety overhaul,’ he says. Following that incident, operations stopped at the mine for 24 hours and a special meeting of all site employees and senior management was held at the local town hall. Recommendations from the meeting were then used to create the new safety and fitness program. All staff and contractors have also contributed to a major review of shift rosters. The Coppabella mine is an open-cut coal mine, and staff are subject to similar workplace risks as any other heavy industry. There are up to 270 full-time staff and contractors working at the mine at any one time and the average age of the mine’s workforce is 36–37. Employees include operators of large hydraulic excavation equipment, truck drivers, environment managers, government liaison officers, as well as electrical and mechanical tradespeople. Roughly 15 to 20 per cent of staff at the mine are women. The staff fitness program was first introduced on a three month trial basis. It included onsite yoga classes, which have since been modified to more aerobic activities following staff feedback. The company could have simply reviewed its safety initiatives, but added the free classes as a reward for employees. The classes are held at different times to accommodate the various shifts worked at the mine, which operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As an added bonus, the free classes are also available to workers’ families. While the classes aren’t compulsory, most employees have taken advantage of them, with some attending more frequently than others. Some staff have reported the classes help them stay alert and improve their concentration, which is vital given that fatigue is



considered a major hazard when operating mine equipment. Also, because they are shift workers often working shifts of up to twelve hours, it’s often difficult for some employees to take part in exercise programs outside work. Having access to some sort of exercise program is also important because most of the jobs at the mine, such as driving trucks and operating equipment, are sedentary, whereas in the past coal mining was a more physical activity. Shane says while the classes are supported now, they were initially met with some cynicism. ‘The initial response of most of our employees was to laugh at the idea of yoga classes. Cartoons of people with their arms and legs twisted around their body went up all over the mine site. But once people tried the classes they warmed to the idea. However, there are still some employees who aren’t interested in the classes at all. It’s not their thing and we would never force them to get involved.’ Shane stresses that the fitness classes are part of an overall initiative to foster a more safety conscious workplace culture at Coppabella. The company has stepped up its safety training programs and random drug and alcohol testing. Staff are also rewarded with health check days, with the range of services offered at these continually being reviewed. Macarthur Coal is well aware of the need to do all it can to look after good staff, because although coal mining was once better paid than other area of heavy industry, wages in other sectors have risen and coal mining no longer has that monopoly. Many employees move on from coal mining after a few years to work in the oil and gas industry. ‘There also could be a future shortage of supervisors and middle and senior managers in underground coal mines, because many of the existing ones who are now in their 50s are likely to retire within the next five to ten years. There are currently limited systems in place to train their replacements.’ The Coppabella mine started operations in 1998 and is now one of Australia’s leading exporters of low volatile PCI

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coal, producing about four million tonnes a year. Many steel makers substitute the low volatile pulverised PCI coal for more expensive materials which enables a more efficient and environmentally friendly operation. The mine’s export success has been recognised with a string of awards including the esteemed 2001 Australian Export Award for Minerals, and the 2001 Australia–British Chamber of Commerce Emerging Exporter award.

How other companies are rewarding their staff with health and fitness initiatives Healthy cooking classes are offered by a range of companies including MLC Financial Services, Carlton and United Breweries and law firm Mallesons. MLC also runs staff yoga classes and walking groups. Health products company Blackmores rewards 150 or so employees in its plant at Balgowlah in Sydney’s northern beaches with an in-house gym and a staff canteen that stocks healthy food. Employees have access to a range of gym classes along with quit smoking programs. Staff who work for financial services group AMP have access to subsidised gym memberships and health and fitness seminars in Sydney, Parramatta and Melbourne. Westpac bank staff have been rewarded with discounted gym memberships. The company also offers discounted memberships to Gut Busters and Weight Watchers programs. Diageo Australia rewards employees with a one-off payment of $250 towards the cost of any health and fitness initiative of their choice. Employees have used the payment towards



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gym memberships, learn to swim classes and other fitness courses. Lend Lease rewards employees with a range of fitness classes, including yoga and martial arts. Caltex rewards employees with meditation and yoga classes. The Merck Sharp and Dohme site in the Sydney suburb of Granville has won the Heart Foundation’s 2002 Healthy Workplace Award, acknowledging the company’s active encouragement of healthy lifestyles. The 25 hectare site includes factories, offices and laboratories. Employing around 800 people, Merck Sharp and Dohme is one of the country’s largest prescription pharmaceutical companies and a subsidiary of pharmaceutical giant Merck and Co. Inc. Staff in Australia are employed in sales, manufacturing and research. Employees are rewarded with an on-site staff gym with a range of classes, including pilates, cardio boxing, spinning circuit training and personal fitness programs. There are also volleyball and tennis courts with tennis coaching. Staff teams take part in cricket and sailing competitions and enter teams in the annual City To Surf Fun Run. A staff canteen is of particular importance to shift workers. The canteen has a subsidised range of healthy food on offer. Staff also have access to a range of free health checks including free pap smears, breast, blood pressure and cholesterol checks, weight loss and quit smoking programs, and free first aid certificate courses. There’s an on-site massage therapist and the company also provides private hospital insurance cover for all staff. All MSD employees have access to discounted private script medicines (non-PBS) and the company is very pro-active in relation to safety protocols, resulting in more than one million hours worked without a lost time injury.


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Australian Health Management Group, based in Wollongong on the New South Wales south coast, rewards its employees with a range of health management and promotional programs such as health checks, stress management workshops and fruit baskets every week. Staff in the Powerlink head office in the Brisbane suburb of Virginia have access to an on-site gym. Membership is $2 a week and an instructor comes in for two days a week to design individual gym programs and to run fit ball and boxercise classes. Powerlink staff are also provided with free flu shots and the company subscribes to an externally produced monthly newsletter, ‘Well at Work’. The newsletter has tips on health, fitness and nutrition. With around 380 staff based at Mitcham in Victoria, water retailer Yarra Valley Water provides staff with flu shots and an annual health expo. Johnson and Johnson Janssen Cilag staff who work at the company’s office in the Sydney suburb of Ryde have subsidised memberships to an on-site gym. Staff have access to yoga classes during their lunch hour, a wide range of health and lifestyle lectures and a confidential counselling service. Staff committees provide feedback on health and wellbeing issues and frequent attendance at the gym is rewarded with special incentives such as nights out. Most company health programs are also extended to staff family members as are other related programs such as safe driving. Kennards Hire staff have lunchtime touch football and cricket teams and free workplace flu shots. The company pays for quit smoking programs and subsidises patches for those trying to kick the habit. It also provides extensive occupational health and safety training, and has a very low accident rate as a result.



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The 160 or so staff who work at Somerville Community Services Inc., a community welfare organisation based at Casuarina in the top end of the Northern Territory, have been rewarded with a free health and fitness program, including yoga classes during work hours. Flight Centre employees can choose to take part in a health assessment every year by personal trainers. They also have access to subsidised gym memberships in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide, as well as healthy cooking classes. Staff at Sara Lee Household and Body Care are given access to subsidised yoga classes, and subsidised diet and nutrition classes, including a Weight Watchers corporate program. Savings and Loans Credit Union in South Australia runs breast screening and massage days and has staff soccer, netball and football teams. International Gaming Technology in Sydney rewards employees with subsidised on-site massages once a month. A fifteen minute massage ends up costing an employee around $15. Flu injections are provided for free every year to employees and their families and there is an annual Health Fair organised by the Occupational Health and Safety Committee. The Health Fair enables staff to have their blood pressure and cholesterol checked, see a naturopath, check their flexibility, eyesight and other health information all while enjoying a banana smoothie and healthy cooking demonstrations. The company also holds an information session every month where all employees are invited to attend a half-hour lecture followed by a healthy lunch. Biotechnology company Amgen has set up an on-site gym for staff at its offices in both Melbourne and Sydney.


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American Express rewards its salaried staff with a $125 subsidy a year towards gym memberships. Seated neck and shoulder massages are provided for call centre staff in the company’s Sydney office on a regular basis.


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Family friendly practices

One reward that’s become highly sought after by employees in Australia is a family friendly workplace. The notion of setting up a family friendly workplace has in the past been geared around women returning to the work force after having children and issues surrounding paid maternity leave. The political debate about the pros and cons of paid maternity leave, and exactly who should pay for it, continues, but many individual companies have already introduced varying lengths of paid maternity leave that exceed legal requirements, to try to keep their valued female employees. However, there is now a wide range of other family friendly rewards. Companies are using these rewards to attract and keep good employees—both women and men, who need to care for their children or elderly relatives and who want to balance their career with other aspects of their lives. These employers are reaping the benefits because offering staff a family friendly work environment engenders a great deal of loyalty. Employees who are rewarded in this way feel they are being trusted with responsibility and given a great deal of freedom and take pride in the company as a result. While family friendly practices such as flexible working hours or job share arrangements might not


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be appropriate for some workplaces, other employers feel that it doesn’t matter what hours are worked, as long as the job is done well. As the population ages the talent pool is becoming smaller, and companies are seeing the benefits of saving a fortune in recruitment and retraining costs by hanging on to employees after they take parental leave. For example, 195 organisations from both the public and private sector were surveyed on issues affecting work–life balance by consultants Managing Work Life Balance. The research found that following the introduction of work–life strategies these organisations reduced their staff turnover by an average of 3.7 per cent and absenteeism by an average of 3 per cent. They also reported an average increase of 23 per cent in the return rate from parental leave with this return rate increasing to 63 per cent in business services or consultancy groups (Managing Work Life Balance 2002). However, the research also found that while many organisations have parental leave and flexible working hours policies they will need to change their culture to fully accept and support these practices, and in some cases change the way work is carried out. The feedback also indicated the need for employers to properly inform staff about what flexible work practices are available to them and to give managers the skills to manage workplace flexibility and diversity. For a company of any size a family friendly workplace is one that recognises its employees—both men and women— have family responsibilities outside the workplace and that they sometimes need to take time out to deal with these responsibilities. It’s also a workplace where staff can be honest about needing flexible work hours, part-time work or time off to care for a sick child or relative. For larger companies in Australia, family friendly practices also now include maternity leave beyond government requirements, parental leave, subsidised child care, child care referral services and time saver services in the workplace such as on-site dry cleaning, photo developing, car washing and car servicing.


FAMILY FRIENDLY PRACTICES

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With people from diverse cultural backgrounds now in the workforce in Australia, the reward of family practices has extended to giving staff flexible work hours to attend religious and cultural events. Car parts manufacturer Autoliv has around 700 staff in Victoria, about 80 per cent of them women. With 32 nationalities represented among staff members, the company has established a prayer room for its Muslim employees to accommodate their religious beliefs. Family friendly practices are being used as a reward for employees across a range of industries and at all levels of employment. Some recent agreements giving employees in government organisations extended leave for family commitments are likely to set a precedent for practice in the private sector. A 2003 agreement in the Australian Capital Territory has given 9000 public servants there a landmark family friendly work deal. They’ll receive fourteen weeks paid maternity leave, or 28 weeks maternity leave at half pay. The leave will be granted not just to mothers, but to the main care giver—be it mother or father, grandparent, adoptive parent or same sex partner. The deal has been fought for by the Community and Public Sector Union and also includes measures to stop employees working long hours, part-time work options to allow people to care for children or elderly parents, job sharing options and subsidised childcare for parents asked to work outside normal work hours. That’s all in addition to the chance to work part-time for up to two years after the birth or adoption of a child, the option to double annual leave, maternity leave, or long service leave by accepting the leave at half pay, a payment of up to $150 a week for a fortnight to help parents pay for childcare if they have to work during school holidays, a one hour paid breastfeeding break a day for lactating mothers and breastfeeding rooms in some workplaces. A similar agreement has been reached for 1500 employees who work for the Department of Education, Science and


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Training. They’ve been awarded extra leave for family commitments, six months paid maternity leave, and childcare subsidies for school holidays. In return staff will work slightly longer hours (an extra nine minutes a day) and sacrifice part of their salary. And there’s also been the 2003 case of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) persuading several building companies to adopt a ‘Build a Life’ campaign for construction workers. The agreement means in return for often working six day weeks and sometimes up to 60 hours a week, around 1000 CFMEU and Electrical Trade Union members in New South Wales will accrue more rostered days off and be given six long weekends a year, including four days at Christmas, Anzac Day, Labour Day and the Queen’s Birthday and four days at Easter. Companies who have agreed to the arrangements include Grocon Construction, Multiplex Asset Management, Barclay Mowlem Construction, the Walter Construction Group and Thiess. Employer groups argue these initiatives are putting unreasonable pressure on the private sector to match the initiatives, and that the private sector won’t be able to cope, but some companies who’ve had family friendly initiatives in place for years and who are already reaping the benefits, have proven this theory incorrect. While some employers still perceive women who come back to work part time as being less committed to their jobs and some female executives argue they still need to hide their motherhood in case they are overlooked for promotion, the law does protect against discrimination on the basis of caring responsibilities. It is also now a requirement of the 1999 Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act that companies with over 100 staff report on steps they are taking to advance women in the workplace. The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) is a statutory authority located within the portfolio of the Australian Commonwealth Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. The EOWA



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administers the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act and through education helps organisations achieve equal opportunity for women. The EOWA works with employers to improve equal opportunity outcomes for women and lead public debate to increase the rate of change. EOWA’s director, Fiona Krautil, says the companies in Australia who are rewarding staff with family friendly practices are saving big money. She cites the example of the Hollywood Hospital in Western Australia, where the introduction of family friendly practices has resulted in major cost savings due to a 95 per cent reduction in the total number of lost days from 4067 (1994/95) to just 203 in (1999/2000). The hospital is pleased with the result because 70 per cent of its total operating budget relates to labour costs. She also sites the example of Westpac, where she says the introduction of six weeks paid maternity leave six years ago increased the number of staff returning to work by around 30 per cent, saving the company an estimated $6 million in recruitment and training costs. The company says over 80 per cent of its female employees return to work after taking paid parental leave. It also provides access to subsidised childcare for some employees and a range of personal development programs. ‘Westpac realised that if they lost a teller who didn’t return after maternity leave they were losing years of experience and knowledge. It could cost anything up to $30 000 to replace some staff members,’ Fiona Krautil says. For some companies in Australia family friendly practices are still a compliance issue rather than something they use to attract and keep good staff, and these companies are likely to miss out on some of the best talent in the future. And as men become more likely to take parental leave, family friendly practices will be less frequently perceived as a ‘special concession’ for female employees. Fiona Krautil says at the moment family friendly practices are often a bit like a fridge magnet that sits on company policy but that generation X men are increasingly saying they want more time with their


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children. ‘Larger companies such as IBM, AMP, Westpac, the Commonwealth Bank and Lend Lease have carefully structured parental leave packages for all workers. At some stage, everyone needs time out for their family life. What I’m advocating is “work by design” to suit the individual. Small businesses can do this just as well as larger companies by having a culture that’s accepting of flexible work conditions.’ Larger companies leading the way with family friendly practices include technology group IBM which employs around 10 000 people. The wide range of flexible working arrangements on offer include six weeks of paid maternity leave, one week of paid paternity leave, a keep-in-touch scheme for those on parental leave, support for breastfeeding mothers, a school holiday program and a referral service to help staff with work–life issues. The company runs courses for employees preparing for parental leave or returning from it and reimburses employees for childcare costs incurred by unexpected business travel. In Western Australia, resources giant Woodside Energy has flexible work and leave arrangements, paid parental leave of six weeks for a primary carer and one week for a non primary carer. Family assistance is provided if an employee has extra travel or extra work commitments, and relationship weekends for employees and their partner are also allocated. Mining giant Alcoa employs over 5000 staff at its outlets in Victoria and Western Australia. Although most of the company’s staff are men, the company lets them organise other staff to cover for them where appropriate if they have a medical appointment or need to attend a school function. Staff are also offered paid maternity, paternity and adoption leave. Flexible working hours include job share, work from home where possible and part-time work. Employees with sick family members or pregnant wives are provided with beepers, and emergency day-care options are provided, along with information on childcare and aged care. AMP has paid parental leave, work from home and flexible work hours, and the Commonwealth Bank offers staff flexible



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work arrangements, a work–life information kit, a work–life referral and resource service and paid maternity leave. There are also a host of small businesses who have gone to a great deal of trouble to consult with their employees on family friendly practices and, because of their size, small businesses can often be the most flexible when it comes to working hours. As an extension of family friendly practices, companies are also realising the need to introduce education programs to try to help employees achieve a balance between their work and their personal lives. According to a survey of 8000 employees across all occupations by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), four out of five workers want more family workplace laws and a European style cap on working hours. The ACTU’s National Survey of Workplace Issues has found 82 per cent of workers wanted provisions such as paid maternity leave, additional leave to care for sick family members and the option to return part time after parental leave. The survey also found 78 per cent of employees wanted additional leave to care for sick family members (ACTU 2003). This is backed up by a study by the Mount Eliza Business School based on information collected in late 2002. This study found that establishing a balance between work and life is a major challenge for leaders of companies in Australia. The survey was based on interviews with 540 managers and executives in a range of private and public sector industries (Mount Eliza 2002).

How family friendly practices can benefit your company ■

You retain the experience, skills and knowledge of more staff who would be expensive to replace.


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You retain clients who your staff members have built up a relationship with and who are loyal to these particular staff members. There are lower staff turnover and absenteeism rates. Staff are more positive about their work because they’re not as worried about trying to juggle their work with and family life. They appreciate not having to lie about taking sick days off to deal with family matters and they value flexible work hours, part-time work, job share arrangements or work from home arrangements. Family friendly practices help retain good staff who your competitors could otherwise poach. By promoting your business as one that has family friendly practices in place you attract a wide range of prospective employees to choose from. Some prospective employees who have family commitments simply don’t apply for certain positions because they know the job won’t have flexible hours and so they won’t be able to juggle their work with their family commitments.

Tips on rewarding staff with family friendly practices

✓women will be interested in. Some companies are rewardDon’t assume parental leave is something that only

ing primary care givers—mothers or fathers—with extended parental leave. Set up definite guidelines and carefully monitor the success of flexible working arrangements to ensure they’re working for both parties. Most employers report that the reward of flexibility empowers staff and makes good workers

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even more productive but you may need to make some adjustments along the way. To reward a staff member who has had to stay back unexpectedly or work extra long hours on a project to meet a deadline, offer to pay for their childcare costs. Reward staff by negotiating with them on family friendly issues. If they refuse to work particular hours try to find out why. Some employees might still be hiding their family responsibilities from employers, fearing they will be seen as less interested in their work or not suitable for promotion. Staff have to see by example that they won’t be punished for taking parental leave. Many companies have family friendly practices on paper but the reality of them being supported by a workplace culture sometimes doesn’t exist. One journalist I know had her employer’s permission to bring her child into work in case of emergencies. One morning her childcare arrangements fell through so she brought the child in for a few hours and left her sleeping quietly in one part of the room. Even though it caused little disruption to them, some of her co-workers then complained to her boss that the arrangment was unprofessional. Although the company had supported the employee in principle it was an issue that hadn’t been discussed with everyone in the workplace. Discuss the subject of family friendly practices with your staff, and determine what is and what isn’t acceptable for your particular workplace. On the same note, ensure that co-workers are clear about what the process will be if a staff member takes parental leave. Fill them in on whether or not the staff member will be coming back to their original position full time or part time. Uncertainty and indecision on these issues can create bad feeling and hostility. Many women who’ve come back to work part time or have chosen flexible work hours because of their family commitments say they often experience hostility from their male colleagues—especially

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some younger men with no children of their own, or men whose wives have chosen to stay at home full time. Some men still perceive women as being given special treatment through family friendly practices. Reward staff by letting them bring their children to work during times of emergency or for a few days during the school holidays. Children like to see where their parents work and it’s a good way for staff to get to know about each other’s families. If you do allow children into your workplace, even if only in emergencies, consider whether or not their presence will be disruptive to other employees. Many companies have rewarded their staff with a special children’s playroom or a separate room where an employee can work and have their child with them. EOWA and the Body Shop both have a room set up with a computer and a phone for an employee to work from if they have to bring a child to work because of illness or some other emergency. Reward your employees with subsidised childcare or subscribe to a childcare referral program such as that provided by Families at Work [email protected]. This service provides information and support relating to any type of dependent care. As an employer you determine the level of service you want to make available to staff. Families at work can either offer access to the service for dependent care assistance (childcare, vacation care, elder care); or offer access to a wider range of services (including assistance locating home help, relocating assistance, naturopaths, yoga classes, pet care and various lifestyle solutions). Employers pay for costs associated with the service, therefore enabling their employees to access the service free of charge. Let your staff work from home one day a week if appropriate. They can still be in touch with the office via phone and email and the travel time saved can be spent with family members. It’s also rewarding for employees not to have

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to dress up for work once in a while. Flexible work hours, or staggered start and finish times, to fit in with family care commitments are also a good reward. This might not be suitable for some jobs, but a degree of flexibility can be found in others. Some large media organisations have successfully rewarded staff by letting them work four long days instead of five short ones—that is, a compressed working week. Most employees would prefer to stay later or start earlier four days a week if it means getting a three-day weekend. Those employees who want to care for family members—either children or elderly parents—or who want to study could be rewarded with the option of job sharing. The difference between job sharing and part-time work is that two staff members are doing the same job during the week rather than two separate positions. The employees share the salary, hours and entitlements of a full-time job, accrue pro rata sick leave and annual leave and are given public holidays that fall on the day they would usually be at work. Good communication between employees is needed for job sharing to be successful, as conflicts can arise over the delegation of tasks. If possible, reward employees who choose to return to work part time after parental leave with ongoing training and career development opportunities. Fiona Krautil from the EOWA says that women managers in job sharing and parttime jobs rarely make it beyond middle management in Australia. She says in the United States more women work full time, with good opportunities for career progression, whereas in Australia 75 per cent of female employees only work part time. Try not to hold staff meetings and training sessions after work. Often employees who have to pick up their children after school find it difficult to attend them. This has long been thought of as one of the reasons women find themselves

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shut out of workplace networks, but the issue now also applies to men with family commitments. Remember that family structures are now diverse in Australia and extend beyond the traditional married couple with children. Make sure any policy of flexible work hours to fit in with family and personal commitments is one that all employees have access to—not just a few. I came across one employer who insisted that married people with children shouldn’t be rostered on to work weekends or public holidays, because they would need that time to be with their families. The employer automatically rostered staff members who weren’t in traditional marriages on these shifts with no consultation whatsoever. This created a great deal of resentment among staff members. Remember that every employee has some sort of personal life outside work. For some employees finding aged care or nursing care for relatives and friends is just as difficult as finding childcare. Allow your staff to take small blocks of annual leave over the course of the year to fit in with school holiday commitments or cultural beliefs, rather than prescribing that leave is taken all at once. In the United States some companies have a system of floating public holidays, whereby staff choose which public holidays they’ll take off for the year. For example, the traditional Easter and Christmas public holidays might not be celebrated by employees with different religious beliefs and they may prefer to take holidays at other times of the year. Introduce time-saving services to your workplace. For example, you might be able to arrange for a local dry cleaning service, car wash service or photo developing service to visit the workplace once or twice a week. What about occasional visits from a car service technician? It’s the little things like organising the dry cleaning and shopping or getting things done to the family car that can often be the most time consuming for employees trying to juggle their work and family life. As an employer, these initiatives would cost you nothing.

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Encourage childcare and aged care service providers as well as other local businesses who provide food and other delivery services to put information about their services and where they’re located on your staff noticeboard. Keep employees who are on parental leave informed about what’s going on in the workplace. This could be by sending them staff newsletters and memos or emails, inviting them to meetings and staff functions, or by setting up a buddy system with another staff member who then becomes responsible for passing on information. Don’t leave them out of the loop when it comes to Christmas presents and employee awards nights either. They’re still part of the team, and you’re sending a positive message to other employees about how you really do support your employees when they’re on parental leave. Set up a private room for mothers who choose to breastfeed in the workplace. Some fellow employees might be completely tolerant of breastfeeding but others might not and it might not be appropriate in many workplaces. Who could forget the furore Victorian MP Kirstie Marshall caused in early 2003 when she dared to breastfeed her baby in the Victorian Parliament?

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Case Study—Savings and Loans Credit Union Savings and Loans Credit Union, based in South Australia, employs around 400 staff in branches throughout the metropolitan area, country and interstate. Established in 1949, it’s the oldest credit union in South Australia with over 150 000 members and assets of over $1 billion. After being named 2002 Australian Credit Union of the Year in a national award program, Savings and Loans has posted a 20 per cent surplus increase for 2001/2002 with a record $9.95 million net profit. It has also been highly commended in the 2002


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Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s National Work and Family Awards. The awards are given to companies who have an outstanding commitment to promoting a balance between work and family life in their workplace. Around 75 per cent of Savings and Loans Credit Union staff are women, with the average age of the workforce at 40–41 years. Savings and Loans’ enterprise agreement involves a wide range of family friendly initiatives including six weeks of paid parental and adoption leave for the primary caregiver and three weeks leave for ‘family bonding’. This is used by fathers to spend time with their family and is separate from annual leave and sick pay. The company has a high rate of 85 per cent of women returning to work after taking parental leave. Casual or ‘key-time’ staff as they’re referred to, can apply for flexible part-time status to access paid parental leave. There are also job sharing, work from home and part-time work options for staff and overtime is kept to a minimum. A special advisory group has been set up to communicate the needs of women in the workplace to management and there’s also a keep-in-touch program for staff on parental leave. This operates through staff nominating a ‘buddy’ in their department and this person is then responsible for keeping them informed about events in the workplace so staff on leave still feel like part of the team. All staff on parental leave are sent regular newsletters and are given Christmas presents. Family values are also reflected indirectly in the services offered by Savings and Loans, and in its support for community projects. It has a Women’s and Children’s Visa card which has been rated the best in Australia when paid back on time. Among the many charities and community projects the company supports are the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, and SANFL Family Friendly Areas have been set up to encourage supporters of all ages to attend football matches and sit in areas where they won’t be exposed to drinking, smoking



and offensive language. Savings and Loans is reaping the benefits of initiatives designed to meet staff needs, with results of staff satisfaction surveys climbing from 54 per cent in 1998/99 to 80 per cent in 2001/2002. It’s no surprise that this credit union has an annual staff turnover rate of around 10 per cent, which is less than half the national industry average. According to personnel and recruitment manager Debrah Jaensch, Savings and Loans more than reaps the benefits of rewarding staff with family friendly practices. ‘Staff who are happy give better service and for us that translates into happy customers. Acquiring a new customer is more expensive than hanging on to an existing one,’ Deborah says. Regular reviews of the credit union’s enterprise confirm that a balance between family and work is of the utmost importance to staff. Another Savings and Loans employee, 36-year-old Stephanie Morrison, has worked for the company for six years. She’s currently the communications manager, a newly created position, but started with Savings and Loans as a business development manager in 1996. Stephanie says her employer’s efforts to help her balance her work and family life is what keeps her there. ‘A lot of companies talk the talk but when it comes down to it their family friendly policies aren’t that flexible. If I was forced to choose I’d put my family first. My employer realises how important people’s family life is to them and does a lot to accommodate that. It’s something people who work here really appreciate.’ Stephanie’s current position lets her work from home two days a week. On these days she uses her home computer to write press releases and other promotional material and liaise with the media by phone. On these days she’s also able to pick her children up from school and spend more time with them in the afternoon. As her job involves a great deal of media contact, Stephanie is often called outside her regular working hours and often works more than the required 40 hour week.

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‘I don’t mind, because I love my work, and because my employer is flexible, it all evens out. For example, the other day I was able to take a few hours off to attend my son’s sports day.’ For other Savings and Loans Credit Union staff, such as branch managers, working from home is not an option because their job requires more direct customer and staff contact. Savings and Loans provide these staff with alternative options to accommodate their family life such as part-time work and job sharing. This applies to both senior and junior staff. Stephanie Morrison says her co-workers appreciate their employer’s efforts to help them balance their home and family life and this makes for a happy and relaxed work environment. ‘I don’t want to be seen as a stale person who stays in the same job forever, but I truly want to keep working for this organisation. I like the way it treats staff, the business is always growing and there are always new opportunities.’

Case study— Merck Sharp and Dohme Pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp and Dohme Australia (MSD) has been on several best employers lists and rewards the employees at its Sydney office with a range of innovative family friendly practices. Women currently make up more than half of the company’s workforce (56 per cent), with 45 per cent of managerial positions held by women. In 2002 the company was recruiting more women than men—65 per cent versus 35 per cent—across all levels and occupations. Women accounted for 58 per cent of promotions, and 53 per cent of internal transfers. In 2001, 94 per cent of women who took maternity leave returned to work, some full time and others part time. Women make up 95 per cent of MSD’s parttime employees. The company rewards staff with part-time, job share and telecommuting arrangements where feasible, and a one-day company holiday every Easter, creating a five-day



long weekend. Many manufacturing staff work a three-day week. Merck Sharp and Dohme also rewards staff with innovative time saving initiatives such as on-site dry cleaning and photo developing services, as well as access to a range of health initiatives for all family members. Parents can use accrued sick leave to care for sick children and there’s a professional and anonymous counselling and advice service for employees and their families with personal or work-related problems. Zarli French has worked for MSD for sixteen years. On returning from parental leave, she opted for part-time work but has continued to represent MSD at board level in a major project—the Rural Health Education Foundation (RHEF). Established by MSD in 1992, the RHEF is a not-for-profit organisation providing independent education services to doctors and other health professionals working in rural and remote Australia. The RHEF produces and broadcasts interactive distance education programs using satellite technology and a free-to-air television network of over 500 hospital-based sites. Zarli says although she’s taken parental leave twice, the company has allowed her to grow professionally and personally through a diverse range of projects. Furthermore, the company has supported her participation in conferences and educational courses linked to her work. ‘I’ve been able to reduce my working hours to meet my family commitments and this is something the company has been supportive of. Equally, I think I have been able to add value to the company through my skills and long term experience, so it’s a win–win situation.’ Zarli says while she often ends up spending extra time at home finishing off work projects, she doesn’t mind, because she appreciates the flexibility of being able to leave her formal workplace early or work a shorter week. She says there are also other very simple additions to her work environment that make her feel valued. ‘To be able to get to a gym on-site or do a session of yoga and have a Christmas party laid on each

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year for our children and even cappuccino machines and ten different sorts of tea provided suggests to me that MSD is concerned about providing a really good work environment. More importantly, when a staff member contracted a serious illness a few years ago, management went out of their way to give him extensive time off for treatment and supported him working remotely from home while he was still well enough. When he eventually passed away, his co-workers were offered counselling and the company still keeps in contact with his family. That demonstration of care for employees—a sense of soul if you like—in the organisation is very important to me. It’s a key illustration of a company valuing its staff.’ Zarli says she’s noticed a shift towards flexible working hours over the past few years to accommodate the family commitments of both men and women who work for Merck Sharp and Dohme and feels it’s something companies of all sizes are going to have to take on board more in the future. Zarli spends over an hour a day commuting from her home on Sydney’s north side to the Merck Sharp and Dohme site at Granville in Sydney’s west, but feels this is worth it as she believes the company rewards her well and in turn she is a very loyal employee.

How companies are rewarding staff with family friendly policies Car component manufacturer Autoliv Australia, based in Victoria, has around 700 staff, with 80 per cent of them women. The company has achieved significant recruitment savings by rewarding staff with six weeks of paid maternity leave, flexible working hours, staggered start work times, time off for appointments, a 2.30 finish on Fridays and access to carer’s sick leave. That’s all in addition to the option of three months unpaid leave supported by interest-free loans if



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there is a family or personal crisis. Staff collections for work colleagues are also matched by the company and employees are provided with income protection insurance. Most female employees return after maternity leave. Staff turnover is only 0.4 per cent and absenteeism rates around 3 per cent. With 32 nationalities represented among staff members, a Muslim prayer room has been set up to help cater for the religious beliefs of some staff members. Powerlink employees in Queensland work a 36.5 hour week, anywhere between 6.30 am to 6.30 pm. The hours are agreed on within the team to suit individual employee’s needs. The company offers six weeks of paid maternity leave and many staff choose to come back to work part time after they start a family. At Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid-north coast, staff at Paul McCarthy Advertising are able to bring their children into the office after school. The company tries to be flexible with childcare arrangements, but often projects involve long hours. Where possible, staff with children are often given projects that enable them to work from home a day a week. Cosmetics distribution and production company The Heat Group in Melbourne employs around 40 staff, most of whom have children. The company has a policy of trying not to hold meetings before 10 am or after 3 pm, offers flexible work hours where possible and regularly allows children into the workplace for staff social gatherings. Sydney based public relations company Use My Mind is open to negotiation with individual staff members on flexible start–finish hours, work from home and part-time work, and the use of leave to suit family needs. Employees also have the option of being able to bring family members to work in case


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of an emergency and can negotiate working hours to fit in with family events. The Body Shop Australia rewards staff with flexible working options such as part time and casual work, and job share. It also provides five weeks of annual leave for retail management teams to cover seven day trading responsibilities, on-site childcare at the Melbourne head office, a national childcare advisory service for all staff, six weeks of a nappy wash service for new babies, and leave for staff who are hospitalised in an emergency. The company is also open to suggestions from individual employees about flexible work arrangements. The Children’s Centre is the company’s 86-place childcare facility which provides care and education programs for children aged up to the age of five. Employees’ children are given priority but outside families are able to take up any remaining places. Nutritional meals are also provided for children by The Body Shop restaurant. If an employee’s child is sick they can spend the day with their parent in a special separate day room. This room has been set up to include a kitchenette and employee work station. A support service operated by the centre assists families in need with babies and young children. Since opening in 1994, the childcare centre has won awards for excellence in design, corporate work and family awards. Environmental Solutions International is an environmental engineering company that build plants to treat wastewater. While the company is based in Perth, it also has offices in Brisbane and Melbourne. The company’s 50 or so staff aren’t paid for overtime, but are instead rewarded with time in lieu for extra work and this is fitted around personal and family commitments. Nokia staff in Sydney have the option of salary packaging to facilitate rostered days off for family commitments and,



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in addition to standard legislative provisions, Nokia provides paid maternity leave for up to ten weeks. Workplace Australia Group specialises in workplace training and development, organisational reviews and strategic planning services. Due to continued growth since it started up in 1987, the company has recently moved to a larger office, but most of its 40 staff work in the Sydney suburb of Burwood. The company rewards employees with flexible start and finish times, flexible working hours, and has paid maternity leave and part time work available for new mothers for up to two years after the birth of a child. Staff are able to bring sick children to work and the children can watch television or play in an upstairs room. Employees can also work from home if they have to mind a sick child or other dependent. Project manager Cath Mannix says the Workplace Australia Group family friendly practices have definitely helped it attract and retain talented employees. ‘This company was originally started by a managing director who was a mum so our family friendly practices sort of evolved from that. There’s a lot of flexibility with all working hours and leave requirements are negotiated with each individual,’ Cath says. ‘Sometimes staff work much longer hours than nine to five hours to get projects in on time but no one minds because they know there is that flexibility.’ She says no one has ever abused the system. Sara Lee Household and Body Care Australia has around 160 staff who work in the manufacturing of soap and other products. The company has implemented a range of measures to reward parents and carers—including flexible hours, flexible start work times and extra annual unpaid leave, which some parents have requested so as to be able to be with their children during school holidays. Where possible staff can also work from home or work part time. There’s an on-site playroom if children have to be brought in to work for a few


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hours or for a day in an emergency situation. Parents are often able to bring their children in to show them where they work. Time saving services staff have access to include an on-site dry cleaning service, car servicing, and a car washing and detailing service is provided on-site once a fortnight. Sara Lee rewards staff with paid maternity leave for eight weeks after one year of service, twelve weeks after two years of service and sixteen weeks after five years with the company. Staff can purchase additional annual leave by salary sacrifice. Staff also have access to the Internet for personal use and can utilise an online grocery shopping and banking service at work. Many of these family friendly initiatives were introduced after staff surveys showed most employees were carers of school age children. Australian Consolidated Press has reduced the qualifying period for six weeks of paid maternity leave from three years employment to eighteen months. The company employs around 450 journalists, photographers and graphic artists in Melbourne and Sydney. Melbourne Water rewards its 500 or so employees with flexible working hours that can be negotiated on a permanent or temporary basis, twelve weeks of paid maternity, paternity or adoption leave, family leave to care for sick family or household members and an unlimited sick leave policy. The organisation says absenteeism rates have fallen significantly since the introduction of family friendly initiatives. Australian Health Management Group offers its staff unlimited leave for family events such as caring for a dying child, flexible work hours and family friendly practices. Human Resources officer Serpil Sahin says she took a pay cut to work for this particular company because of the outstanding work conditions.



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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation offers its employees twelve weeks of paid maternity leave, job share and part time work which can be negotiated with individual employees and family carer’s leave. Some staff also have access to a parents’ room for breastfeeding and caring responsibilities, information on care for the elderly and retirement, two workbased childcare centres and reserved place childcare, vacation care information and family support groups. Cisco Systems rewards staff with family friendly practices such as flexible work hours, a stay-in-touch program for employees on parental leave and an information kit on parental leave policies. The company has set up a website to educate both staff and managers about issues surrounding parental leave. According to Group Manager of Human Resources Alec Bashinsky, the website had 650 hits during the week it was launched. SC Johnson and Son employs around 120 staff at a 25 hectare site in the Sydney suburb of Lane Cove. The company rewards staff with paid carer’s leave, parental leave and maternity leave options, as well as flexible working hours, work from home, part-time work, job share and early finish Fridays, as well as trying to hold staff meetings after 9 am and before 4 pm so as not to interfere with employee’s childcare arrangements. There’s also an on-site EFTPOS service, a pick up/drop off dry cleaning service, an on-site gym and a financial counselling service. International Gaming Technology Australia’s family friendly initiatives have resulted in a higher number of employees returning to work after maternity leave—from 28 per cent in 1998 to 80 per cent in 2000. Absenteeism has fallen by 15 per cent. The company encourages staff to return to work after parental leave by offering job share, part-time or teleworking


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or flexible working arrangements after the standard parental leave period. Working hours are negotiated with individual employees and there’s also a stay-in-touch scheme for older workers. Factory staff are rewarded with an early finish Friday, and all staff are rewarded with a range of on-site time saving services including on-site dry cleaning, car servicing and onsite car washing. IGT also rewards staff with a rostered day off scheme which enables employees to attend to personal appointments that can only be attended during working hours. This operates by employees working extra time each day to entitle them to one day off per calendar month. An employee assistance directory is on the IGT intranet to help staff locate government and community organisations and support services.

ACCI Awards Finalists and Winners The following companies are just a few examples of the finalists and winners in the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s National Work and Family Awards. The awards are given to companies who have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to promote a balance between work and family life in their workplace. Some of the companies already mentioned have also been on the ACCI awards finalists lists over the past three years. Somerville Community Services is a community welfare organisation based at Casuarina in the top end of the Northern Territory. It rewards its staff with family friendly initiatives such as shift swaps, job share, flexible start–finish times, or make-up-time options if staff need to attend family functions. Staff are also offered paid and unpaid leave to care for sick family members, children can be brought to work



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during an emergency and husband and wife employees are put on the same roster so as to maximise time with family members (ACCI National Work and Family Awards 2002). The Hackham and Seaford Bottle Co. employs 32 staff at two sites in South Australia. The bottle recycling company rewards staff with flexible rosters to fit in with their family commitments, meetings are only held during work hours, and senior employees with family responsibilities are encouraged to take leave during school holidays and have weekends off (ACCI National Work and Family Awards 2002). The Family Based Care Association provides aged and disability services in Tasmania. The organisation rewards employees with the option of part-time work, flexible work hours, time in lieu, family carer’s leave, career breaks and work from home options (ACCI National Work and Family Awards 2000). Canberra based management consulting group Acumen Alliance rewards its staff with part-time work and work from home options, as well as a family room in the workplace (ACCI National Work and Family Awards 2001). Gavin Macleod Concrete Pumping, a construction company with around ten staff based at Moorooka in Queensland, rewards employees with flexible work hours. The company also provides paid leave for fathers in the early weeks after a child is born, paid leave to take children to special events and paid leave to care for sick family members. Staff are able to divide their annual leave into small blocks to fit in with family arrangements as required (ACCI National Work and Family Awards 2001).


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Cash bonuses and profit share

Global economic uncertainty, retrenchments and negative publicity about huge payouts to company CEOs have all led to a tightening of the use of cash bonuses as staff rewards in Australia. Payouts to CEOs have become unpopular with unions and shareholders alike. Cash bonuses are still being used as a reward, but they’re either more strictly aligned to productivity and performance or they’re being used in very clever and cost effective ways. They’re usually the sort of reward that says ‘thank you for helping the company achieve outstanding financial results’, either sales targets, or annual profit results. Cash bonuses are also now being used to reward staff for coming up with an idea that will save the company money, taking on additional training that will benefit the company, or for referring prospective staff members who are subsequently employed by the company. In some organisations cash bonuses are paid in the form of a commission and might be paid annually, biannually or quarterly for meeting certain targets. The targets might be individually or team based and typically take the form of a percentage of an employee’s salary. Some companies have a set program in place so employees know exactly what targets they


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or the company have to meet to get the bonus. Other companies prefer to issue a bonus on a discretionary basis, when something exceptional is achieved in the workplace, or to celebrate something. The companies with the most successful bonus schemes seem to have checks in place to ensure that the bonuses are given in a fair and transparent way. If these checks are not in place there’s always the risk that bonuses given to some staff and not others can create animosity and bad feeling with other employees. Many employers have phased out cash bonuses altogether, arguing that staff are rewarded in other ways throughout the year. While cash bonuses have proven to be an effective way to reward staff, they are only effective if used the right way. According to Grant Montgomery, managing director of EL Consult who specialise in consulting, outsourcing, salary surveys and intra management, companies in Australia are giving out fewer cash bonuses that aren’t directly commission related. He says while many organisations promise discretionary bonuses to attract executives and senior managers, there’s a good chance these bonuses won’t be paid at all. For example, if a job is advertised for a salary of $80 000, $60 000 might be the actual salary and the remaining $20 000 might or might not be given out at the end of the year at management’s discretion. These discretionary bonuses, with no set criteria to achieve them, are most common in industries such as finance and are mostly promised as part of executive salary packages. ‘Employers sometimes try to boost the package to lure top employees away from competitors, and it also helps them get around the problem of fixed salary bands within companies. By that I mean if the fixed band is say $60 000 the new recruit is officially paid $60 000 but then promised an additional $20 000 as an end of year bonus,’ Grant Montgomery explains. Some companies have a scale of performance criteria for bonuses, based on models in the United Kingdom and United States. Points are tallied up at the end of the year to determine


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whether or not individual performance bonuses are paid. Grant says the best bonus schemes promise employees a percentage of their salary if the company reaches certain targets. That means good staff get more money if they perform well, and the company only pays out bonuses if it’s doing well. The bonuses are therefore driven by market conditions. As competition for good staff intensifies, flexibility in terms of cash bonuses and incentives is what will give some companies a distinct advantage over others. This might mean offering a cash bonus scheme but also letting staff accept salary packages at the same time. But Grant reinforces that while cash bonuses might be an initial drawcard for employees, it’s often the other things about the workplace that keep them with a particular company for a long period of time. If you’re a listed company, discounted share options can be another bonus for your employees. They buy shares at today’s price and when they leave the company a few years down the track they sell them. This practice is being carefully questioned, however, especially since the collapse of major companies such as Enron in the US, where billions of dollars were apparently given away in share options. Some companies in Australia have also introduced profit sharing plans. Usually, these take effect when the company as a whole meets or exceeds certain targets or expectations. Employees then get a bonus percentage of their salary, usually paid annually or every two years, and if the targets aren’t met the profit share isn’t paid.

How rewarding staff with a cash bonus or profit share can benefit your company ■

If used the right way cash rewards can boost productivity and encourage staff to be more conscious of workplace goals.


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With profit share employees are motivated to treat the company like their own. If they stand to make a direct share of the company’s profits at the end of every year, chances are they’ll want to help solve problems, cut costs and work together as a team for better results. Cash bonuses for other specific goals such as a lower number of sick days taken by staff per year, or a reduction in the number of workplace accidents or injuries, can be cheaper than paying out for these occurrences. Bonuses can provide employees with challenges and goals to work towards, both as individuals and as part of a team. Cash bonuses reward desirable behaviour—behaviour you want repeated in the workplace.

Tips for using cash bonuses or profit share as a reward

✓introduce a cash bonus scheme. Some staff might thrive

Monitor the response of your staff if you suddenly

on the challenge, but others who aren’t willing to break out of their comfort zone might feel threatened. For example, Daniel Hochberg, director of the highly successful homewares retail chain Holy Sheet!, says he trialled a profit share scheme for store managers for one year but soon ditched it because staff reacted negatively. ‘They preferred the certainty of an annual salary, rather than a salary that was a mix of a set amount and a percentage of store profits, so we went back to our original system. The business is expanding and our staff are rewarded in many other ways, but profit share just wasn’t for them.’


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Make the bonus scheme transparent. Employees should be able to clearly identify why they have been given a cash bonus. If it’s an individual bonus it should be clear that favouritism played no part in the decision.

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Make sure the cash bonus achieves desirable financial goals for both your business and your employees. That is, it should contribute to your profitability and the profitability of your staff and not, for example, high volume work of poor quality. The scheme should encourage long term company goals rather than short term benefits. The percentage of an employee’s salary given as a cash bonus is not important, for some companies it depends on how much the job effects the bottom line. Some jobs might affect profit more than others. Review the cash bonus scheme at least once a year and if it’s not working change it. You need to determine whether or not your profits are increasing and your staff turnover is remaining low. Chances are if your cash bonus reward scheme is great your competitors will copy it. You have to keep coming up with innovative reward schemes or at least competitive ones to get and keep the best people. Keep an eye on trends in staff salaries in your particular industry as they can change overnight. For example, before the tech wreck, IT staff were demanding huge salaries and benefits packages but this is no longer the case. If possible, thoroughly document cash bonus schemes in all staff work agreements so your staff have clear goals from the outset and remember it’s in your best interests to come up with an inventive cash bonus scheme rather than to promise huge staff payouts. Grant Montgomery cites the example of an executive hired to help move a company to China. The employee had a $60 million pay out clause and figured it was better to do nothing and get sacked so he could claim the money.

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Case study—Kennards Hire Hire and storage company Kennards Hire will long be remembered as the company that, in June 2002, gave out a $1 million profit to its 530 employees as a staff bonus. Each full-time employee received between $2000 and $3000 while those who’d been with the company for less than a year or who worked part time received a proportionate amount. The ‘Thanks a Million’ bonus followed a good trading year and was paid to thank employees for standing by the company through some cost cutting and tough times. Kennards Hire tightened its belt after September 11, 2001 amid concerns about a global recession, but the company came in ahead of budget after all. Management decided to give some of that profit back to the staff—the people who achieved the good results. Not only were the staff ecstatic, sending emails and thank you cards to management, but the generosity of the company received amazing publicity. It made the news on most major television networks, as well as current affairs shows, newspapers and countless radio programs, and even solicited congratulations letters from customers. While the Thanks A Million bonus was a great one-off reward for staff, it is part of an overall cash bonus reward scheme this highly successful company has in place for its employees. And the company certainly reaps the benefits, because the name Kennards Hire comes up time and time again as a company that gives good service and where the staff seem genuinely happy at work. Kennards Hire was started in 1948 by Walter Kennard, who originally hired out concrete mixers at Bathurst in New South Wales. Today there are 64 Kennards Hire stores across Australia—in New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria. The company has grown from 20 to 70 branches in the last six years. Kennards Hire is an all Australian-owned company that

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specialises in equipment hire for builders, tradespeople and the home handyman. Cash bonuses, profit share paid to fulltime employees and ongoing staff training, some of which is incentive based, are just some of the ways Kennards Hire manages to come up with such good customer service. Staff regularly attend seminars and visit other hire centres around the world to keep up to date, and the company has also been voted Australia’s Rental Company of the Year by other firms in the industry. The award, presented to the company at the national convention of the Hire and Rental Industry Association, was based on a survey of 700 members who were asked to nominate the company they believed most deserved to win. Association members credited Kennards Hire with not only presenting a good image of the rental industry but also raising the profile of the industry. ‘Our company is successful because we have superb staff,’ says managing director Peter Lancken, who came to Kennards Hire ten years ago from a British multinational. ‘We pride ourselves on the fact that our staff are friendly, and that is half the battle in winning over customers. We are not perfect but we try to get it as right as we can. When we gave out the Thanks a Million bonus, we gave it to everyone, because we think every staff member is important to the success of the business.’ The Kennards Hire egalitarian approach is also evident in relation to working hours, which stretch over seven days from 6.30 am to 7 pm for all staff, including managers. Everyone gets to work on weekends; however, allowances are made for family and personal commitments, and are negotiated within work teams. The company has a policy of promoting from within, and branch managers tend to stay with the company for an average of eight years. The highest staff turnover is at entry level—employees in the 17 to 23 age group. To find staff, Kennards Hire uses a recruitment consultant in each capital city—someone who has spent time working for the company and knows its culture.



While once upon a time the company emphasised mechanical skills in the hiring process, these days the focus is more on customer service skills and people who will make good team players. Many people come to the company straight from school or from the hospitality industry. Prospective employees go through a series of interviews, the last one being a panel interview that involves other members of the team they’ll be working with. New staff are subject to the usual 90-day probation period and their references are checked. Kennards Hire is happy to employ family members and friends of existing staff if they’re the right people for the job. In addition to the Thanks a Million bonus Kennards Hire employees are paid a share of the company’s profits each year, and cash incentives to take on some extra training courses. Each branch manager gets a company car and the company pays their mobile phone bills. Any staff member can salary sacrifice for superannuation and the company pays income protection insurance for all staff. Chris Conder started with Kennards Hire as a driver and has now worked his way up to branch manager in the Sydney suburb of Artarmon. It’s the busiest Kennards outlet in Australia, serving 120 customers a day. Chris has previously worked for another hire company and for him, the Thanks a Million bonus was a huge surprise. ‘It made you feel very special to work at Kennards Hire. This is a great company to work for, and one people know about. When our team crossed the finish line at the City To Surf race, people were cheering us on and congratulating us on the big bonus.’ Chris says he likes the way that all staff at the branch do a little bit of everything, including phone consulting, shop floor maintenance and teaching customers how to use the equipment. He also likes the way that systems are in place so that he can go away and know everything will keep running smoothly until he gets back, and the way the company has processes in place to deal with any problems in the workplace.

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People of all ages are employed at the Artarmon branch and cash incentives are given to do some training programs. Skills Chris has picked up on the job include his fork lifting ticket and a TAFE front line management course, paid for by Kennards. He’s also done various in-house courses including the Raving Fans Customer Service courses. He says that while a lot of the extra training the company offers is voluntary, the cash bonuses are a big incentive for staff to acquire the extra skills. Another Kennards Hire employee, 26-year-old George Ligias, works with Chris at the Artarmon branch as a driver and serviceman. He speaks with great enthusiasm about his work and is the proud winner of the company’s Skill Olympics competition for two years in a row. This is a competition to see which employee can clock the fastest time for an assortment of work-related activities such as loading machinery onto a vehicle, assembling a chainsaw and creating a contract. Although the competition is seen as a lot of fun, some employees train throughout the year to refine their skills for the various categories. George was given a $1000 cash bonus for winning the award in 2002, while the runner up was given a cash bonus of $600 and the third place-getter a cash bonus of $300. George has been with Kennards Hire for six years and went straight to them from a TAFE Electrical Engineering course. ‘This is not like any job I’ve ever had. I have responsibility here but also independence and a lot of fun.’ George says he likes the way Kennards Hire promotes from within and has taken advantage of a number of company training opportunities. He says he used his Thanks a Million bonus to take his wife on a holiday and it is incentives such as this that help keep his customer service ethic strong. ‘Without our customers we’re nothing and our response time to customers has to be good. The equipment here is updated every ten years, because faulty equipment costs customers money.’ George is also proud of his efforts as a chef at the annual customer barbecue where staff get to provide lunch for



customers in an informal atmosphere. He likes his job at Kennards Hire so much he encouraged his brothers Nick, 22, and Frank, 18, to also work for the company. They started as casuals and now work full time. ‘I’ve been to staff awards nights, staff dinners, yachting days, and been given movie tickets and AFL tickets. We want to do the right thing by the company because they’re always looking out for us. In the long term, I’d be happy to work for Kennards until I retire. This company is strong—I know that because we get to look at budgets and profit results. All the information is always there. It’s up to us to look every week.’

Case Study—International Gaming Technology Australia International Gaming Technology Australia (IGTA), a subsidiary of International Gaming Technology, supplies poker machines to casinos, hotels and clubs across Australia. The Australian operation of the company has grown over the years and now employs around 300 people at sales and distribution offices in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Newcastle and Albury. Staff are employed in engineering and game development, sales and marketing, service, manufacturing, systems support, human resources, information systems, as well as the corporate and finance areas. The company underwent major changes in 1998 when its US parent company took over its competitor Olympic Video Gaming. IGT in Australia changed its product line and downsized its manufacturing division. Although staff were given redundancy packages, the changes weren’t a great morale booster for remaining staff and management realised incentives were needed to turn this around. With a limited budget to spend on staff rewards the company had to ensure these rewards were creative and extremely cost effective.

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IGT offers a range of cash bonuses to reward employees. First, they’re rewarded with a cash bonus if the company achieves its financial and sales plan for the year. Depending on their position with the company, staff members get either 5, 10 or 15 per cent of their base salary. The main objective of giving employees a cash bonus is to improve IGT’s organisational performance by increasing profitability and market share. In 2002 staff were rewarded with a cash bonus because the company exceeded its performance targets. However, a bonus was also given to staff when targets weren’t met, to say thank you for standing by the company through a major upheaval. IGT staff are also rewarded with an employee stock purchase plan, which is a voluntary scheme designed to give them the chance to build a personal financial stake in IGT and share in the company’s future growth and success. Staff are able to purchase shares in IGT (which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange) at a 15 per cent discount. The company also rewards its performer of the month and performer of the year with cash bonuses. Nominations for outstanding performers are invited from all employees, with monthly winners receiving $200, an engraved paperweight and a place on the IGT wall of fame. The annual winner receives a Qantas holiday package valued up to $4000 with $1000 spending money. Staff who reach the milestones of five, ten or fifteen years of service are given an award to recognise their length of employment and loyalty to the company. Cash bonus rewards are paid to IGT staff who come up with ideas that are successful in saving the company money. Kerry Downs says rewarding staff for their cost saving ideas has been extremely successful. ‘It’s encouraged people to take ownership of their ideas and to keep coming forward with new ones.’ Through suggestions by employees, IGT has saved money on overheads such as postage costs, courier costs, air travel and art supplies. Cash bonuses are also paid



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to employees who refer an external applicant for a vacant position when that person is employed. The employee is awarded a referral bonus of between $500 and $2500 depending on the position. However, all vacant positions are first advertised internally. In addition, IGT rewards staff with free wealth accumulation and retirement planning seminars for all employees and their partners. Wealth accumulation seminars are specifically designed to lay the foundations for a disciplined approach to achieving future financial planning goals. Retirement planning seminars provide employees approaching retirement with the basic tools they need to start planning for a comfortable and secure lifestyle. After attending either seminar employees are invited to take part in a one-on-one session with an accredited financial planner, and the cost of the consultation is subsidised by IGT. The success of cash rewards on offer to IGTA staff is measured not only in company profits but also in an annual employee opinion survey and annual human resources survey. According to IGTA’s general manager of human resources, Kerry Downs, staff attrition rates have fallen dramatically since the new reward system was introduced. ‘Our staff attrition rate went from 10 per cent in 2000 to 8 per cent in 2001 and 4 per cent in 2002. Our staff are the key to the success of IGT, and without the best people in the right positions IGT would not survive in the current gaming market.’

How companies are using cash bonuses and profit share as a reward Brisbane based Christiaan’s, a small company that specialises in bathroom design, retail and wholesale, believes in rewarding staff often. Manager Chris Stevens has been running his business for twenty years and it now operates at the top end of


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the market. He believes the outstanding service his company offers wouldn’t be possible without good staff and that cash rewards help motivate and keep good people. ‘We give cash bonuses to staff for things such as dealing well with difficult customers, or coming up with solutions to problems. Sometimes a cash bonus is paid on a monthly basis, sometimes it’s every six months.’ Chris says because his company is small he can be flexible with cash bonuses but he always makes sure staff know why a bonus has been given out. ‘The biggest secret to keeping good people is to pay them well, reward them and treat them as you yourself would like to be treated.’ Diageo Australia rewards its employees with a bonus of 10 per cent of their salary if the company achieves a set profit target. The bonus increases by 1 per cent for every million dollars over that target. Staff are also paid 15 per cent of their salaries in superannuation, which is above the regulatory amount. Property cleaning services company Retailink rewards its employees with a $300 cash bonus once they complete a series of training courses that include safe workplace practices, first aid and customer service. The company’s employee of the year award includes a cash bonus, a plaque and a profile in the company newsletter. Sydney based tourism company BridgeClimb has rewarded its 300 staff with a cash bonus for the past three years. The bonus is a percentage of the company’s profits and is given to all staff members in proportion to the number of hours they worked. The cheques are presented in person by senior managers to each staff member. The presentation is incorporated into a short meeting which enables employees to discuss any concerns about their job and provide feedback to senior management on any aspect of the company’s day-to-day operations.



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Aged and Disability Support Services provider Wintringham is based at Flemington in Victoria. Employees have been given cash bonuses to mark length of service anniversaries with the organisation. Queensland based company Powerlink gives its staff an additional 3 per cent of their salaries as a bonus when the company reaches and goes beyond annual targets. Employees have access to a variety of salary packaging options, with cars and laptop computers part of the package for more senior staff. Nokia Australia offers a cash bonus for its employee of the year award. For example, 32-year-old Katrina Lindsay who works in human resources says one of her highlights working for Nokia was being voted runner up in the company’s best employee awards. Nominations for the awards are submitted by fellow staff members every quarter, and Katrina feels she was nominated because she was working long hours on projects, while also coping with a heavy study load and family commitments. For her trouble, she received a cash bonus of $1000 plus a gift certificate and a trophy. Nokia staff are also given stock options. There is no obligation to purchase shares but is it another way in which the company recognises employees’ contributions. BTR Automotive Drivetrain Systems is a vehicle transmission manufacturer based in Albury in New South Wales. The company’s 800 or so staff work on two sites. As well as the usual maternity leave and other family friendly initiatives, the company rewards staff with a maternity leave cash bonus. Merck Sharp and Dohme rewards eligible staff with performance based cash bonuses, stock options and a Christmas bonus of two weeks salary. The company also offers cash recognition awards for special achievements and pays 1 per cent above the


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statutory requirement for superannuation, as well as offering financial planning seminars for all staff. The Flight Centre is a good example of larger company that has been enormously successful in using cash bonuses to reward and motivate staff. This Australian public company now has more than 800 stores in six countries and employs more than 4000 people. It claims to open an average of one new store every 48 hours. A large part of the company’s success has come from its philosophy of encouraging what it calls ‘entrepreneurs’. Flight Centre outlets are organised into small self managed business teams—though not franchises—and 40 per cent of an employee’s income can be based on team and individual bonuses. All staff are rewarded with access to profit share and share options in the company. ‘We stay at work longer and work harder because we’re like business owners and not just employees’ says learning and development manager for Australia, Daryl Blake. ‘We’re very transparent with figures and results and we try to foster a common vision.’ The Flight Centre also offers staff financial planning advice to help them organise their savings and superannuation. Brewery Lion Nathan pays performance based rewards if particular financial targets are met. Employees can earn 10 per cent or more of their salary as a bonus. There have also been other bonuses for particular departments within the company for achievements such as reducing waste and improving customer satisfaction on quality and delivery. Healthcare company Allergan, which produces the popular wrinkle treatment product Botox as well as a range of pharmaceuticals and contact lens care products, has offered cash incentives to staff who refer a job candidate who is subsequently employed and who remains with the company for more than six months, and cash bonuses for outstanding



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contributions from individual employees. The company has also made extra contributions to staff superannuation schemes. Australia’s sixth-largest employer, Australia Post, gave 32 700 employees a $300 bonus in 2002, following record letter delivery performance. An audit found that 96 per cent of standard mail reached its destination either on time or early. Australia Post claims the result was 2 per cent higher than the community service standards set by the Federal Government and also a performance improvement on the previous year. Some staff at Hills Industries are rewarded with a profit share scheme and can also buy shares in the company after they’ve worked there for at least one year. Staff at Star City Casino have access to an employee share plan. They’re rewarded with an offer to purchase shares every twelve months through an interest free loan. Pharmaceutical group Bristol-Myers Squibb rewards its fulltime staff with what it calls a ‘TeamShare’ stock option plan. With offices in Melbourne and Sydney, biotechnology company Amgen rewards staff with performance based cash bonuses of up to 20 per cent if they achieve specific goals that are determined at the start of each year. Stock options are available in Amgen’s US corporate parent company. Biotronik gives staff a cash bonus, based on their salaries, if the company achieves set financial goals. These are outlined at the beginning of every year and staff salaries are reviewed annually. American Express gives its employees a range of cash rewards, depending on their particular job, including team and individual bonuses.


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Community projects

Many employees find it rewarding to work for companies who are involved in community projects because they can see where some of the company profits are going and can have a say in where some of that money goes. With so much global uncertainty, employees seem keen to be involved in activities that put something good back into the community and provide them with a sense of connection to it. The 24 hour global economy also means that employees who work in shifts often don’t get much of a chance to be involved in community projects, so doing them through their workplace fulfils that need. For a company, a benefit of giving employees paid time off to work with charities and community groups is that the employees can gain invaluable communication, teaching, mentoring and management skills. Working with non-profit groups can be a huge challenge and the belief held by some companies in Australia is if a staff member can handle a project for a not-for-profit group they can handle anything. Human resource officers are also reporting that one of the questions often asked by prospective employees at interviews is, ‘What community projects is this company involved in?’


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Companies in Australia are rewarding staff by giving them paid time off to get involved in community projects, providing budgets for them to work on projects or matching employee donations to community groups and charities. For the companies themselves the concept of putting something back into the community, or ‘corporate social responsibility’ as it’s often called, has become a major issue. To be seen as a good corporate citizen a company needs to establish connections with the local community and build up a solid record of good things it has done. It can then draw against that record when it’s in trouble. Overseas, large companies who are often criticised by lobby groups have had community programs in place for many years, and in Australia, there’s been a recent trend by the bigger companies to appoint a full-time staff member to look after corporate social responsibility. Most companies who support their staff being involved in community projects give them the equivalent of two paid days off a year to volunteer, but this varies. While bigger companies might organise set days for staff to work on community projects, with smaller companies it might be as simple as letting individual staff members choose a project in their local community that they want to support. For example, an employer I once worked for gave me time off to help out with a community project that involved a group of local musicians who had a mild intellectual disability. The musicians were all regular visitors at a drop-in centre where they did classes to improve their self-esteem, and develop social networks. Despite their disabilities, they had some amazing skills in song writing, and playing instruments. The project involved getting professional musicians to work with them and eventually led to them forming a band together. Being involved was a stretch for my project management and sponsorship negotiation skills and something I really enjoyed. What was also rewarding was coming to work every


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day and having a colleague ask how the band was going or note that they’d seen a story on them on television or in a newspaper. The organisation I worked for then developed a long association with the project. By contrast, another workplace had a ‘swear tin’ in which employees were supposed to put coins when they swore. Being a news room you’d expect it to be full in no time, but people mostly forgot about it and probably couldn’t even remember the name of the charity which the money was being collected for, because they had no direct involvement with it. Letting staff become involved in community projects has gained so much momentum over the past few years that many companies now enlist the services of a consultant to match them up with community projects. One organisation that works in this area is Positive Outcomes, which works with companies in Australia and overseas to develop social responsibility strategies connected to business goals. Director Louise Redmond says companies often seek her help if they’ve got a high staff turnover and want to engage their employees more. ‘The company can put something back into the community and do so by involving employees rather than just handing over a cheque. While large companies have the money to invest in community projects, a company of any size can contribute through its human resources.’ Louise says many small businesses give up on supporting local communities when they simply write a cheque and get little recognition in return. ‘The key is to make sure your employees, your company, and the community all come out winners.’ In Europe and the United States there’s now a strong emphasis on corporate social responsibility, partly because the European Union has issued a discussion paper which encouraged companies of all sizes to report on their corporate social responsibility initiatives. Staff becoming involved


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in community projects in the UK has been common for twenty years. However, a lot of companies whose head offices are in the UK or the US don’t put the same expectation on their Australian subsidiary. Louise Redmond says the real challenge for Australia in the not so distant future is one of collective action. That is, to integrate the efforts of companies to work on big issues rather than individual projects. She cites the example of a literacy problem in some parts of the UK that has resulted in volunteers from many different companies helping students improve their reading and writing skills. ‘There are also several companies involved in mentoring programs for prisoners about to be released from jail to help them fit back into the community.’ Dr Simon Longstaff, the Executive Director of the St James Ethics Centre, a non-profit group that gathers research on the ethical behaviour of businesses in Australia, agrees that collective action on community projects is the way of the future for companies in Australia. He cites one of the best examples of a small company rewarding its staff in a community project as that of a small company in Northern Ireland that closed its doors one weekend so that employees could make up ribbons to be sold to raise money for a local charity. Like Louise Redmond, Dr Longstaff suggests involving employees in a project within your local community, something they can be identified with. However, he does have a word of warning about rewarding staff with involvement in community projects. He says some companies have stumbled badly because they’ve tried to impose involvement in community projects on a workforce that isn’t always treated well in the first place. ‘Involvement in community projects has to be built from the inside out, it has to be an extension of the company culture and values. You can’t treat employees badly and then expect involvement in a community project to fix everything up.’


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How rewarding staff with involvement in community projects can benefit your company ■ ■ ■

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It’s good for employee morale, which results in higher productivity. It can encourage team work. It makes staff proud of the company they work for. If they find projects they’re particularly passionate about this can spill over into the workplace. It can help your employees acquire invaluable leadership, mentoring and project management skills. It attracts other like-minded employees to the company—people who are motivated and prepared to give up their time to help others. It might also help attract like-minded customers, investors and suppliers. It helps give your company a strong presence in the local community. It helps you build up a record of good things your company has put into the community and one day you may need to draw against this good record. It provides variety and therefore helps reduce stress levels for your employees.

Tips on rewarding staff with work on community projects

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Becoming involved in a project should be something employees want to do, not something they feel obligated to do. Most companies reward staff with the equivalent of around two paid days off a year to do community work.

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If staff involvement in a community project starts to eat into their other deadlines you may need to remind them of their other responsibilities or channel their energy into other training for leadership roles. Getting middle managers on side can often be one of the biggest challenges of involving staff in community projects. However, Louise Redmond says she’s seen examples of companies where managers have to demonstrate that there is good staff morale in the workplace to boost their remuneration package, so they suddenly become more interested in involving staff in community projects. Winning their hearts and minds in the first place is the challenge. Reward your staff by setting up a payroll deduction scheme for their contributions to charities and community projects. Investigate the Federal Government and Australian Tax Office’s Workplace Giving Program. The program lets employees nominate a charity from a list provided by their employer, stipulate how often they want to make donations and how much they want to donate. Employers then pay the total directly to the organisation. They deduct the amount from their employees’ salary before tax is calculated—which means people receive an immediate tax deduction rather than having to wait to claim it in their annual tax return. Employees taking part in workplace charity programs no longer need receipts and get a tax benefit each time they donate through their pay. At the end of each financial year employers note contributions on payment summaries or provide some other form of written evidence. Donations made in this way can only be sent to deductible gift recipients (DGRs) which are charities or other organisations entitled to tax deductible donations. You can check the DGR status of any organisation on the Australian Business Register. If you can, try to match employees’ contributions to the charity. Reward your staff by asking them what projects they’d like to be involved in and also look at what your business needs. You need to try to get the best recognition possible in

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exchange for what you give out. Try to secure publicity for your efforts, even if it’s only a short piece in a local newspaper. This will be easier to do if you involve staff in practical programs that require them to be out in the community rather than just giving cash donations. Attract attention by giving your employees a hat or T-shirt with your company name and logo on it when they are out working on community projects. Thank your employees for their efforts on community projects at staff meetings, in staff newsletters, or put a memo on the staff noticeboard. Consider some sort of prize such as a dinner for two at a local restaurant or movie tickets to a local cinema for a staff member or team who, for example, raises the most money. Organising employees’ to work on community projects can take a lot of time so consider forming a staff committee to gather information and help coordinate your company’s efforts—or let employees choose individual projects. It could be as simple as being involved in one project a year. A good website for ideas on community projects to support is the Learning Links website, www.learninglinks. org.au. Learning Links is a non-profit organisation that helps children with learning difficulties and serious illnesses. It can match your company up with projects in your local area and also has suggestions for other fundraising activities for children’s charities such as selling snack boxes and chocolates in the workplace and various recycling programs. Volunteering Australia also has useful tips on corporate volunteering, www.volunteeringaustralia.org, as does Australian Volunteers International, www.australianvolunteers.com.

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Case Study—The Body Shop Australia The Body Shop Australia employs approximately 900 staff. Most of them work in retail outlets, but there’s also a head office in Mulgrave, Victoria, and smaller state offices. As well as a focus on retail careers, there are specialist roles in the company such as finance, human resources, information technology and communications. Whatever the role, all staff focus on providing excellent customer service and upholding core community values to try to bring about social and environmental change. Staff are rewarded with a choice of community projects to be involved in and can also nominate projects to add to the existing list. They’re all given sixteen hours paid time off a year to put something back into the local community. Projects are linked directly to the company’s five core values which are—to activate self-esteem, strengthen the community, protect the planet, defend human rights and oppose animal testing. Staff are involved with a range of environmental projects with local councils and support for Indigenous communities, which includes helping to stage annual workshops to develop the business skills of young Indigenous entrepreneurs from Australia and the South Pacific. The workshops have provided incentive for many young people to set up a business as well as helping those already in business expand their skills. Body Shop employees also help with a national mentoring program for young entrepreneurs from Indigenous communities. In addition, the Body Shop Australia supports an organisation called Diversity at Work (DW), a not-for-profit group that helps people with disabilities, older workers and Indigenous job seekers find employment. DW circulates vacancies at the Body Shop through its network to give the company access to a broader field of applicants. The company supports a street magazine called The Big Issue which helps homeless people work their way back into the community by advertising vacancies there whenever possible.

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Body Shop employees also help out with a Children On The Edge project to help relieve the suffering of displaced children around the world. The project is based in countries such as Romania, Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor. Body Shop employees travel to these countries on a ‘playscheme’. They stay for a fortnight to try to bring fun, games and play into the lives of the children and young adults. The company also provides discontinued products to people in crisis centres to help with their self-esteem, and donates products to various organisations at Christmas time. In 2002, the Body Shop assisted 95 not-for-profit organisations with gifts. Ellen Granger, the Body Shop’s Community involvement co-ordinator, says the company aims to make all staff feel that volunteering is a worthwhile activity for the individual and for the work team. She says in a recent staff survey that more than 80 per cent of Body Shop Australia employees reported that working on community projects has made them more aware of social issues. ‘It’s a great team building exercise because most employees get a buzz out of choosing and getting involved in their projects together.’ Ellen also says getting people involved in community projects through work provides a safe environment for them to help others. ‘Previously they might have wanted to help but haven’t known how to go about it.’ Twenty-two-year-old Granger is a good example of someone who has benefited from her involvement in community projects with the Body Shop. She started as a casual employee in a Melbourne retail outlet after she graduated from university but says the extra skills she acquired from her training with the company and her involvement in community programs have helped her move into her current position where she plays a key role in the company’s communications team. ‘Working for a company whose beliefs and ideals I share was really important to me. My honours thesis was in counter terrorism, something totally unrelated to retail, but I’ve been able to move about within the company and expand my skills base. This is the only


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job I’ve had where I don’t have to leave my beliefs at home when I come to work every day.’ Ellen has also found her involvement in presenting workshops on self-esteem to young women in local schools, distributing food and clothing at an asylum seeker shelter, and walking and caring for animals in welfare shelters personally rewarding. She says letting staff choose those projects they want to be involved in is very empowering and definitely makes them feel good about who they work for. ‘Our staff choose to work here in part because they know what the company stands for and the values it has. Our customers know that too.’ The company acknowledges its employees’ volunteering efforts in a newsletter and through thank you certificates signed by the managing director. While the Body Shop does collect donations for some charities, it prefers staff to get involved in community projects at a grass roots level.

Case study—Bristol-Myers Squibb Australia Pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb Australia employs around 550 people who are mostly based in Melbourne. In 2000 the company surveyed its employees to assess their views about the role it should play in the community, resulting in the development of its community investment program Work and Community. Bristol-Myers Squibb’s program has four key priorities: commitment to a major headline project, support for employee community service, a charitable giving program, and a wide range of corporate sponsorships, educational programs and community investments that make a difference in the key areas of its business—namely heart disease, cancer, infectious disease and mental health. The Work and Community headline program involves a major partnership with the Inspire Foundation based around

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the Foundation’s Internet-based initiative Reach Out!. Initially developed in response to Australia’s high youth suicide and attempted suicide rate, the Reach Out! website provides an anonymous service that enables young people to get help, explore issues and find out how other young people have made it through tough times. Bristol-Myers Squibb employees have voluntarily helped develop and deliver a leadership training program for the Reach Out! Youth Ambassadors, while employees are also developing a communications strategy to inform general practitioners about Reach Out!. BMSA employees are rewarded with up to sixteen hours of paid company time per year to participate in volunteering activities in their communities and have the experience they gain in these activities reflected in their professional development plans. The company also rewards staff by providing support for their community service work via financial and administrative resources and runs a charity program controlled and directed by employees. The company’s public affairs manager, Michael Moore, says a key objective of Work and Community is to reward employees with a choice in their level of involvement. ‘Whether it’s helping with the Reach Out! program, or volunteering at the nursing home across the road from our headquarters, the decision to participate is up to each employee—we don’t force them to take part in projects. However, we’ve found it can help our people further develop their leadership and management skills.’ He says the company’s also finding that it’s becoming increasingly important to prospective employees that they work for an employer they know is socially responsible. ‘While there is a core group of employees that are the most keen to participate, many of those who aren’t directly involved say that they feel good knowing they work for a company that has a commitment to being a good corporate citizen.’


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How companies are rewarding staff by getting them involved in community projects The HSBC bank works with community groups around Australia to help run a volunteer mentoring and tutoring program for disadvantaged children. Each year HSBC employees pick eight charities upon which to focus their fundraising efforts. The company provides a ‘donate as you earn’ program allowing staff to voluntarily donate a sum of money to their nominated charities from each pay period— donations are fully tax-deductible. HSBC also rewards employees with a full day of paid leave to volunteer and help their nominated charity each year. Staff have donated their time to organisations such as Barnardos Australia, the Australian Red Cross, the Children’s Medical Research Institute, Earthwatch Institute Australia, the Starlight Children’s Foundation, the Salvation Army, World Wildlife Fund Australia and the RSPCA. For example, HSBC staff recently used their annual day of paid leave to help out at RSPCA shelters across Australia. Some volunteers helped with painting and maintenance work while others helped walk, groom, feed and befriend homeless animals. The Nokia Helping Hands volunteer initiative sees Nokia staff donating their time to community projects. Staff chose to support Landcare Australia in 2002 and have donated their time to clean up some of Sydney’s parks and beaches, clean up and replant trees in Sydney’s Bicentennial Park, as well as a day of work at Longreef Beach on the Northern Shores to help with dune restoration and erosion prevention through planting, fencing and track maintenance. The company has also made donations through Landcare to Australian Seabird Rescue and donated mobile phone equipment to the New South Wales Rural Fire Service.


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International Gaming Technology rewards its staff by getting them involved in charity drives and fundraising for events such as Jeans For Genes Day, the Smith Family Christmas Toy Appeal, Bandaged Bear Day, Daffodil Day and the Sydney City Mission Can Collection. Westpac has a partnership with the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. In each state Foundation representatives have access to office space and equipment at Westpac branches. The bank’s partnership with the Foundation is based on a tapestry of relationships. Members of the public have to come into bank branches to register for fundraising walks and Westpac’s automatic teller machines are also used to promote the activities of the Foundation. Westpac also has a partnership with the Northern Land Council, which supports Indigenous business development programs on the Cape York Peninsula. Westpac also ran a mentoring program aimed at helping its financial markets staff improve their communication skills. Employee’s also mentored students at Cleveland Street High School at Redfern in Sydney for ten weeks. Westpac also supports the Rescue Helicopter Service and Landcare Australia. It matches staff contributions to charities dollar for dollar and employees’ are given one paid day off a year to do volunteer work. Ford rewards its salaried staff with sixteen hours of paid time to do community work per year. Use My Mind public relations rewards its staff by giving them time off to be involved in a number of initiatives that educate young people about the dangers of drug use. These include the Keep Our Kids Alive campaign and the National Drug Summit. The company offers its services for free and every member of staff allocates a certain number of working hours to the charity.


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Staff from the Lend Lease property group have the chance to do volunteer work for the RSPCA—walking, grooming, feeding and befriending homeless cats and dogs at the Yagoona shelter in western Sydney. Lend Lease also has a partnership with the Sydney City Mission, and won the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence, Business and Community Partnerships in 1999. The company has held a community day that involved employees working with the Sydney City Mission on projects to help disadvantaged people. Merck Sharp and Dohme rewards its staff by matching their contributions dollar for dollar to the Canteen charity for children. Staff are also involved in the distribution of medicines and supplies in times of need throughout the Asia-Pacific. Employees play an active role in the local community through tree planting and donating Christmas presents to around 400 underprivileged children in the Parramatta region in New South Wales every year. Cisco Systems rewards its employees with time off to be involved in a partnership with the Smith Family. Cisco staff help to pack hampers at Christmas time and take part in a volunteer program to teach English to people from nonEnglish speaking backgrounds. Because the company has a progressive workplace where people work on projects at their own pace and the emphasis is on getting the job done well rather than clocking on and off, giving employees time to get involved in community projects is no inconvenience. Cisco staff have also helped the Smith Family upgrade its technology, build a website and are involved in a program called Learning For Life which involves helping students from poor families stay at school and teaching them IT skills. BHP Biliton staff are rewarded with time off to take part in virtual volunteering and help the group Conservation


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Volunteers Australia to rehabilitate Australia’s wetlands. The program they work on is called Revive and the wetlands are nominated by local communities. BHP Biliton employees and their families volunteer their time on the project. The company aims to contribute the equivalent of 1 per cent of pre-tax profit to community development programs and partnerships. Employees at courier company DHL Worldwide Express have time off to mentor disadvantaged students at a school near the head office in the Sydney suburb of Mascot. Telstra staff have been given time off to support a number of community projects including the Red Cross Blood Bank, Lifeline and Landcare. An estimated 2000 Telstra staff volunteer on Clean Up Australia Day and 600 volunteered for the Telstra Sydney Olympic 2000 program. Staff at the Sunrise Bakery at Rocherlea in Launceston have found it rewarding to help out with an education program for teenagers with learning difficulties. Employees have helped run practical workplace training programs for the students, many of whom have since been employed by the company. The NRMA matches its employees’ fundraising efforts for charities such as Camp Quality and the Volunteer Bushfire Brigade. Staff also help with fundraising for the Cancer Council and other charities. Teams of employees are involved in specific projects and involvement in community projects is promoted and acknowledged in a company newsletter. Urban Contractors is a small landscape gardening company in the Canberra suburb of Pialligo. The company has rewarded its employees by giving them time to work with students with disabilities at Woden School to help develop the students’ selfesteem. Staff worked with the students once a week on paving,


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horticultural, design and communication skills. After their work experience the company helped students built a greenhouse on the school grounds. Staff from the Perth office of Ernst and Young have time off to work with global charity United Way on various projects including painting, gardening, sorting books, selling merchandise and serving food to the needy. Ernst and Young also has a payroll deduction scheme for donations. In Western Australia, Western Power employees support a tree planting program with the Hotham River Catchment community and help address the problem of land degradation. The company has paid for the seedlings, some fencing, transport, catering and accommodation for the volunteers, as well as promoting the project. Law firm Mallesons staff are involved in fundraising committees. Money is raised through casual dress Fridays and the company matches money raised for charity by employees dollar-for-dollar. Charities the company has supported in this way include the MacKillop Foundation’s Good Grief Program, the AIDS Trust of Australia, Oz Child, the Spastic Society and the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Retailink staff are rewarded with the chance to support various fundraising activities, including Daffodil Day and Red Nose Day, with the particular charity determined by teams of employees. Shell Australia staff have a choice of twelve charities to contribute to. The company then matches their contributions. Employees are also rewarded with time off to volunteer on a number of environmental projects such as coastal preservation work.


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AMP rewards groups of employees who want to work on particular community projects with a project budget. Staff have also raised money for leukaemia patients by taking part in a pyjama breakfast party, shaving their heads and selling Christmas cards. A company manager in Queensland raised $11 000 by abseiling 34 floors off the AMP Tower. Employees are also involved in organising other fundraising events such as gala balls.


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Professional and personal development

Training programs, mentoring and coaching have over the years been adopted by companies big and small to reward their employees, and recently there’s been more importance placed on personal development opportunities for staff. Companies are rewarding employees with subsidised study costs and time off to study courses that are of personal interest and not necessarily work related. Or they’re providing training that will help boost employees’ career prospects in the long term. Personal and professional development opportunities are the sorts of rewards that say ‘thank you for working here; we value you as an employee’. Training is also an intrinsic reward, because learning something new is very satisfying—it gives people a sense of mastery. While providing training for staff is not new, it has taken on a new meaning. Many companies in Australia offer extensive ongoing development opportunities and like to see their approach to employees as a holistic one; that is, they are interested in the wellbeing and development of employees both in and outside of the workplace. Some have a culture in which lifelong learning is encouraged and staff are given plenty of opportunities to acquire skills and knowledge. Rewards such


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as special training programs and mentoring help employees remain focused and gain extra skills that can benefit your business; they can enable existing staff to gain the skills necessary to replace more senior staff when they resign. Training programs give employees the feeling they’re adding value to themselves in the wider job marketplace. But training has to be something they want to undertake, or it ceases to be a reward. Any sort of professional or personal development training should result from consultation between you and your employees. In addition to on-the-job training, there’s a vast selection of other work-related courses and training programs to choose from across Australia—it depends on the industry you’re in and what additional skills could benefit your particular workplace. There’s no end to the skills your staff could pick up at a TAFE, university, local business college, evening college, through a correspondence course, or at a series of in-house training workshops. Many courses are available online and there are also various innovative approaches to training, including humour workshops and staff retreats. A website that gives a great overview of the range of vocational training available in Australia is the National Training Information Service at www.ntis.gov.au. Perhaps your staff would benefit from an advanced sales skills course, an upgrade of their computer skills, a management skills course, gaining skills in negotiating, conflict resolution and dealing with difficult people, or a first aid course. When you hire someone for a job they rarely meet your selection criteria 100 per cent, so why not identify the extra skills you would like them to have and then help them acquire those skills? Many companies give staff time off to do courses, some pay for all or part of the course or subsidise the cost of course materials. There’s also been a significant trend in Australia for companies to try to equip employees with the tools to balance their work with their personal life. Most people are now working longer hours and with this unlikely to change in the


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near future some employers have realised they need to try to help employees find a work–life balance. In addition to personal development training, in-house workshops are being used to try to diffuse conflicts between employees, or between employees and managers, to ease stressful work conditions, deal with traumatic events in the workplace, boost morale and adapt to change. Confidential counselling services are also being offered to help staff with personal and family problems. While in the past employees were told to leave their problems at home, these days more employers are offering help, in part because problems or conflicts at home or in the workplace can result in higher stress levels, higher absenteeism rates and lower productivity. Many companies are rewarding their staff, especially those at the senior level, with coaching or mentoring. Coaching is something that really took off in the US in the 1980s, and there are now hundreds of life and corporate coaches in Australia, using a range of techniques and approaches. Coaches can be used to help achieve professional and personal goals and some companies are rewarding their staff with a series of professional coaching or subsidised life coaching sessions. The sessions can involve weekly or monthly sessions over a set period of time and either conducted face to face or over the phone. Through coaching, employees can improve their performance and enhance their quality of life. In each meeting, they focus on a particular area of their work or personal life, while the coach listens and contributes questions and observations. The coaching is intended to clarify for the employee specifically what it is they want and to motivate them into action. Coaching steps up an employee’s progress by establishing stronger focus and awareness of choice. It can help staff feel more fulfilled and productive. Helping your employees to take responsibility for their own career has a positive effect on workplace morale because it communicates that your


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company cares for its staff both as employees and as individuals. Another big plus is that if staff are happy with their work–life balance they’ll remain with you for longer, and they will be in their job because they really want to be there. One organisation in Australia that specialises in helping people achieve job fulfilment and a balance between life and work is Life by Design. Ian Hutchinson, a Lifestyle Strategist with the group, runs a range of programs for companies of all sizes. These programs often include executive consultations held over a series of one or two hours and usually after three to five sessions, people have accumulated some tools and processes they can apply throughout their lives. Ian says sessions with a coach from outside the workplace can sometimes achieve things that mentoring sessions with a colleague inside the company can’t because a coach doesn’t have an investment in the employee. ‘It’s a confidentiality issue. The employee is sometimes more open with an outside coach, but feels they have to be a bit more careful about what they say to a mentor who works in the company.’ To introduce coaching to employees, Ian typically gives an initial presentation to all staff and then they decide whether or not they want to take part in a program. Examples of companies he’s worked with in this way include AMP, where he conducted a series of work–life balance seminars in the company’s offices across Australia. ‘We used theatre skills and games to get employees to think about their own future and the future of the company,’ he says. Other companies that have used the lifestyle planning services offered by Life by Design include Godfrey Pembroke Financial Consultants, Goodman Fielder, who have run a career development program for staff at all levels, and pharmaceutical company Pharmacia, who have rewarded some of their high performing sales staff with a work–life balance program. Inchcape Motors Australia Limited has around 500 staff and generates the majority of its income from motor vehicle wholesaling. The



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company has rewarded its top executives with a Life by Design seminar and voluntary coaching sessions to help them achieve greater work–life balance. Coaching is an expensive investment for any company, so some employers are offering to subsidise coaching sessions rather than meet the full cost. However, Ian Hutchinson says even if a company decides to provide coaching for just a few executives, this can still benefit the company overall because it improves the executives’ management skills. Whereas coaching is most often carried out by an external provider, mentoring is usually, although not always, carried out by someone more senior from within the company and is used by some organisations to help with succession planning. Mentoring can help fast-track an employee’s career because it helps them with not only the professional skills they need to do their job but also an understanding of the politics or the unwritten rules they need to understand in order to get ahead in the company. It also provides a supportive environment in which failures and achievements can be assessed. The mentor can also benefit from the experience through reflecting on and evaluating their own experience and being challenged by new ideas. Employees sometimes resign because of unresolved issues with co-workers or a family crisis. To try to minimise this, some employers have introduced subsidised counselling services, which are mostly outsourced. For example, the Employee Assistance Program run by Corporate Psychology Consultants Davidson Trahair is a counselling service for employees and their families. It provides face to face or phone counselling on issues such as conflict in the workplace, stress, alcohol or gambling problems, family and personal problems, anxiety, depression and personal trauma. Employees are given a limited number of counselling sessions each year paid for by their employer. Employees pay for further sessions and if they’re referred on to another healthcare professional.


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The sessions are held outside the workplace and are confidential. Employers can’t access information about the counselling sessions without an employee’s written consent. The many employers making a service of this kind available to employees include Powerlink, Merck Sharp and Dohme, Amgen, BTR Automotive Drivetrain Systems, AT Kearney, Ford, CRS Australia, CSL, McDonald’s Australia, Yarra Valley Water and Westpac, to name just a few. If a death or some other major traumatic incident or conflict occurs in the workplace, counselling or debriefing sessions are being offered on a one-off basis. Some companies are even getting professional consultants in to try to help staff through difficult or stressful times such as company mergers and restructuring, major conflicts between staff and management, coping with heavy workloads or to generally boost office morale. This is more common in industries going through a lot of upheaval because of downsizing. Psychologist Patty Lee, who specialises in conflict, stress and trauma counselling for small to medium sized companies, says diffusing stressful workplace situations or solving communication problems before they escalate can often mean the difference between losing staff and keeping them. ‘Staff tend not to stay around for long if there’s a lack of communication between employees and management, if they’re working in unreasonably stressful conditions or if there are major conflicts with their co-workers,’ she says. Patty says she often gets called in when managers don’t know how to deal with staff whose performance is being affected by s ome problem in their personal life or in the workplace. ‘Sometimes there is a high incidence of absenteeism, poor morale and a big fall in productivity and managers don’t know why. Sometimes they need help to find out what’s troubling an employee or a group of people. Often the problem is located in the work system, and staff discontent is the symptom.’



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Patty says ways to recognise if an employee is having problems coping with stress or some other problem in the workplace include poor performance, increased absenteeism, sudden loss of interest in their work, a loss of confidence, impaired judgement and loss of concentration, forgetfulness and having difficulty making decisions. ‘Problems in the work place are normal. How managers deal with these problems is the key to good management.’ Humour workshops are being used by companies in Australia to reduce stress levels in the workplace and help employees adapt to change. Less stress ultimately means better morale and fewer sick days. Laughter can also break the ice and establish common bonds between employees from diverse backgrounds. Companies who are utilising fun or laughter workshops to try to boost employee morale range from call centres to insurance groups and security firms. Humour techniques can also be used to help re-organise teams, improve communication and listening, brainstorm projects, stimulate creativity, as a training tool, encourage risk taking and build confidence. Sydney based company Customer Care Solutions runs humour workshops that use magicians, games and comedians and offers workplace ‘makeovers’ to help boost workplace morale. These makeovers might include humorous posters, mobiles, screen savers and mouse mats to help create a fun atmosphere.

How rewarding staff with personal and professional development can benefit your company ■

It can bring extra expertise, skills and knowledge into your workplace to help you keep up with your competitors.


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It can help your staff be more confident and improve their communication skills. Mentoring for managerial staff eventually filters through to the rest of the company. It can help develop the potential of talented employees. It can help create new opportunities and challenges for employees. Training can help reduce stress levels in the workplace, boost morale and result in fewer sick days. It can help develop the people skills of managerial staff. It can help new employees fit in to their work environment. Rewarding staff with mentoring and coaching can help with succession planning and help fast-track the progress of talented employees. Humour workshops can be used to help re-organise teams, improve communication, improve listening skills, brainstorm projects, stimulate creativity, train staff, and to encourage leadership and confidence.

Tips on rewarding staff with personal and professional development

✓training or contribute to the cost of work-related training

Reward staff by giving them time off to do work-related

programs. Give them a choice of courses to study and ask them what extra skills they’d like to develop. When hiring new employees, identify what sorts of additional skills they may need for the job and pay for or subsidise the cost of training to acquire those skills. And don’t assume that only younger employees will appreciate training

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and development programs. Employees of any age can enjoy acquiring new skills and knowledge. Reward a long-serving employee or an employee who’s achieved a particular workplace goal by subsidising the cost of a course they have a special personal interest in, but that might not be work related. Do they have a particular hobby, or interest they’d enjoy pursuing through further study? Run a training program away from the workplace. Jonathon Halls, a senior trainer with the BBC, tells the story of how when he was asked to run a team training day for a group of journalists he asked them to meet in a seminar room and then took them to a local pub where he’d organised a trivia afternoon around the subject matter they were to be dealing with. He claims that people fall asleep in seminar rooms and forget most of what they’ve learned. ‘People are more receptive to learning and discussing new ideas if they’re somewhere where they can relax and enjoy themselves. I got the two or three employees who hated team days the most to organise the questions to give them something different to do. It’s a day that’s still talked about in the office.’ The same is usually true of conferences and retreats. While both can be woeful if not properly organised, getting staff together outside the workplace to focus on particular issues can be beneficial. If you are rewarding your staff with coaching, make sure your coach has the right qualifications to meet your particular requirements. Life coaches don’t have to have regulatory approval but there are qualifications you can look for, such as a knowledge of the principles of adult education, some sort of tertiary qualification and business knowledge. Ian Hutchison from Life by Design, has formal qualifications and a background in fields such as business management, psychology, workplace training and group leadership. However, different coaches have different specialities and methodologies. Check that they will fit in with your needs and that the coach is the

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kind of person who will connect with your employees. Some coaches are more counselling orientated, some are process driven and others are more facilitative. Ask for references and examples of their past work. Does the coach have a track record of being able to deliver results in your particular industry? Coaching is not a reward if employees are forced into it or if the coach they’re working with is not compatible with them. This may have to be reviewed after a brief trial period. Reward an employee by starting them on a mentoring program with a more senior staff member. Try to start the mentoring on a small scale, right from when an employee starts working for the company. When choosing a mentor for a less experienced employee, make sure the mentor shows leadership qualities, can give constructive advice and is honest and reliable. A mentor needs to be someone who can inspire trust and openness—it’s usually better not to make an employee’s immediate manager their mentor. Ensure that your employees know that the information they share with a coach or counselling service provider is confidential. For reputable providers this goes without saying, but some companies still choose to have a confidentiality agreement drawn up. Life coaching has taken off largely at executive level and can be expensive, costing from $100 an hour upwards, so consider subsidising the cost for your employees. There are now many coaches offering their services so you should be able to negotiate a discount for signing up several staff at once. To fast-track staff training, assign a ‘buddy’ to a new employee, so that they learn with the help of a work colleague. Ask a staff member to spend half an hour a week setting up a resource library which may be helpful to employees wanting to undertake further study and training programs.

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This may simply consist of a file of magazines or a small number of books you’ve collected that relate to the industry you’re in. Many workplaces have lots of useful resource material but it’s dumped in storage rooms or scattered under desks and most employees don’t know where to find it. Recognise employees who have undertaken a training program and praise them for their efforts. Perhaps ask them to give a brief and informal talk on what they’ve learned at the next staff meeting. This may help other employees decide on a training program. Or invite a representative from a training organisation to give a brief lunchtime talk to employees about the particular courses they offer. Don’t forget to include part-time and casual staff in training programs. Casual and part-time staff are now a large component of the workforce in most industries. Remember to keep staff on parental leave informed about any training or development programs you are offering.

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Case Study—Holy Sheet! Employing around 60 staff, homewares retailer Holy Sheet! is a good example of a small company that rewards its staff with effective and cost-efficient training initiatives. Since its first store opened in 1990, the retailer has grown to be an innovative leader in the homewares market and tries to offer a point of difference that is fashionable yet accessible. The company promises its customers something different in stock, environment and service. Its main focus is on the bedroom and bathroom, two rooms in a home where people take time out to relax, pamper and play. Holy Sheet! sources most of its products through local suppliers and around 30 per cent of all products are sold under its own brand name. The company started with a head office and main retail outlet in the inner-Sydney suburb of Newtown and now has


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another four stores in Paddington, Balmain, North Sydney and Westpac Plaza in the CBD in Sydney as well as stores in the Melbourne suburbs of St Kilda, Fitzroy and Richmond. According to Holy Sheet! director Daniel Hochberg, the company has a strong focus on developing staff who are confident and can think on their feet so as to provide excellent customer service. To help achieve this goal, all staff participate in training programs that are organised internally. Subjects covered include retail selling skills, loss prevention, visual merchandising, customer service, winter and summer product knowledge, dealing with difficult customers, telephone selling skills, as well as company philosophy and knowledge of the company’s main competitors. Each staff member is given a certificate when they complete a training course. The formal training also helps employees progress within the company, with all managers promoted from within. In addition to this formal training, employees are rewarded with courses in personal development skills they can use both in the workplace and outside it. Daniel says in the past this has included weekend retreats paid for by the company and short courses in yoga and stress management. ‘We want to offer our staff training that benefits them spiritually, physically and intellectually. The training also has to tie in with the culture of the company—this is a high energy, fun work environment, but very results-orientated.’ Danny says he likes to think he has created a work atmosphere that’s a reward in itself—that is, ‘although there are targets to meet and systems in place to achieve them, it’s an environment where staff feel confident, valued and know that we trust their professional judgement and skills in dealing with customers’. Daniel says before he set up Holy Sheet! he worked for large companies where staff were often sent off for great training courses but not always given the chance to implement what they’d learned in the workplace. ‘I want to try to avoid that in our stores. We’re a small company and we don’t have a big



team of human resources managers. Our training programs have to be those that the staff feel comfortable with and that are relevant to what we’re trying to achieve.’ He also says it’s important to include casual staff in training and personal development courses—even though they might spend less time in a store than full-time staff, their contribution is still important. One full-time Holy Sheet! staff member who has completed a range of training and personal development courses with the company is 32-year-old Rachael Campbell who manages the Newtown store and has been with Holy Sheet! for five years. Rachael is in charge of seven staff members and says the product, merchandising, loss prevention and sales training she’s received has boosted her confidence and helped her progress within the company. One of the personal development courses she’s particularly benefited from was a course on how to deal with stress. ‘I’ve learned techniques to deal with really stressful situations at work, both with customers and other staff, and I’ve also been able to use the techniques outside work. The course was great because it was something really different.’ Rachael says one of the best things about working for Holy Sheet! is the positive reinforcement given to staff, and the fact that the company rewards them with an ongoing range of training, which introduces them to new things. ‘There’s always something different to learn. It makes your job more interesting and makes you feel valued as an employee because the company takes the time to look after your needs.’ She says while there are systems in place and the company is very clear about what it expects from staff, it values staff suggestions and feedback.

Case Study—Star City Casino Star City Casino sees ongoing staff training as critical to the future growth of its business and rewards employees with both

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individual and team learning. Being a larger company, the Casino is able to provide access to leadership training, individual coaching and mentoring as well. As a registered training organisation it provides nationally recognised qualifications in hospitality and business services. Employees receive education assistance for authorised external courses and there’s an on-site library equipped with computers and Internet access to complement training programs. Employees at the casino work in a variety of industries including food and beverage, gaming, entertainment, hotel and security, so a diverse range of training has been introduced. There’s also an emphasis on training for supervisors and middle managers, to build on their existing skills, develop their careers and assist with succession planning. Some management training programs are run in conjunction with the Australian Institute of Management. Twenty-seven-year-old Ian Lilly works for Star City as a security shift supervisor. He started work as a customer liaison officer and over the four and a half years he’s been with the company has worked his way up the ladder to his current job. Ian manages a team of around twenty people on a shift. He says he loves the challenge of his job which is to help ensure the safety of staff and patrons. Ian has completed courses in security induction dealing with conflict management, customer service, radio use and security codes. He’s obtained a certificate in training and assessing and another one in business services and frontline management as well as compulsory industry and government security qualifications. Ian says the training and mentoring he’s received within the company have been a worthwhile reward because they’ve helped keep him motivated and challenged. He’s also been the proud winner of an employee of the month award. ‘When I first started working here I was paired up with a buddy or mentor who helped me to understand how the company works and what’s expected of you in the workplace. Even



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though I did other training, having a mentor meant I received more detailed information about some things. This is a tightly regulated industry and everything you do is scrutinised. There’s so much to learn when you first start, and sometimes you don’t think to ask these things during the more formal training.’ Ian says his mentor has encouraged him to communicate any concerns about his job, ask questions and evaluate workplace practices. His mentor has also worked closely with him to provide feedback on his performance as a supervisor. ‘Security officers are the first and the last person a patron sees. I need to make sure my team can provide customers with information and are level-headed at all times, show empathy and remember their duty of care. We sometimes have to deal with conflict, but because we’ve had solid training we come to the job well prepared to deal with a lot of different situations.’ In addition to formal training courses, any confrontations or ‘incidents’ as they’re referred to, between security staff and patrons are recorded on security video and after the event a panel analyses the video to assess how the employees handled the situation. They then provide feedback on the employee’s performance. Ian is now a mentor to two other more junior staff members. ‘I ask them how they’re going in the job, answer their questions and give them advice and encouragement. We write a report together after every mentoring session.’ He says the industry he works in is constantly changing and the role of a security officer has evolved to be one that places a greater emphasis on customer service.

How companies are rewarding staff with professional and personal development The Flight Centre rewards its staff with extensive on-the-job training, sends staff to conferences, has staff open days with


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guest speakers, runs four-day leadership courses and courses in stress management, and communication skills. Melbourne Water rewards its 500 or so employees with professional development programs that range from training for new staff through to the development of potential leaders. Graduates have access to a formal mentoring program that involves attending a monthly forum to network with other employees, discuss any problems with their position or any ideas they have for their future training and development. Learning and Development Manager Kylie Wescott says the organisation hopes to eventually offer the mentoring program to all employees. She says exit interviews have helped to identify some of the things employees look for in terms of professional development. ‘In the past, an employee might have moved on because they felt they had exhausted their opportunities with this company. Our training and development programs have helped us address that problem and now we have a very low staff turnover for our particular industry. People need to keep learning or they feel stale.’ Melbourne Water employees undertake courses in leadership and team management skills, computer skills, occupational health and safety training, customer service, environmental and public health, contract, project and risk management. Once they’ve been with the company for twelve months, it will subsidise TAFE and university courses that are relevant to their job. Kylie is herself a mentor to a more junior staff member. She says she tries to expose that employee to new opportunities, helps them build networks to give them confidence, and also passes on tips on how to work with other staff members. Staff receive extensive feedback on their performance to help them determine what skills they might need to brush up on. This involves getting feedback from at least ten different people, including management, co-workers, customers and suppliers. Examples



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of skills some employees have been advised to brush up on after the feedback include leadership, delegating tasks and being more approachable. Hair removal specialists Permanence, a small company employing fourteen staff at three stores in the Sydney CBD, Parramatta and Drummoyne, rewards its staff with on-the-job training and the opportunity to constantly add to their skills base. As well as technical and customer service training, all employees can attend a series of ten workshops on personal presentation, grooming and communication skills. The workshops are conducted by outside professionals. ‘Our staff need to be well groomed and they also need to be able to communicate well with clients from a range of age groups and backgrounds,’ says Permanence’s Noreen Colonelli. ‘The personal presentation courses do help them to do that, but hopefully they also give them life skills that are useful outside of work.’ Noreen also believes in rewarding staff with nonwork-related courses that are of personal interest to an employee. For example, the company has paid for a ballroom dancing course for one valued staff member who had a passion for dancing. Nora believes gestures such as this engender a great deal of loyalty from employees because it communicates that the company cares about them as a whole person. Diageo Australia rewards its employees, who are mostly based in Sydney and Queensland, with a range of development opportunities including high performance coaching and leadership programs. Public Relations Manager Dounnia Lahoud estimates the company spends at least $2000 per staff member each year on training and development programs. The company will also contribute to the cost of external courses and study materials, with each case judged on an individual basis. Employees are given time off for exams when necessary.


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Savings and Loans Credit Union in South Australia puts a great deal of emphasis on encouraging staff to progress within the organisation and conducts regular performance reviews and training and development opportunities. The company’s practice is to advertise vacant positions within the organisation before using recruitment agencies. It also keeps unsolicited résumés and interviews people from this file when positions become available. Website designers Acumen Multimedia in Melbourne set aside at least ten days training a year to upgrade their employees’ existing skills. The company has rewarded individual employees by paying for work-related tertiary education including an MBA course and other post-graduate IT studies. The Alfred Hotel in the Sydney suburb of Camperdown has rewarded its staff by paying for a variety of hospitality-related courses. Pacemaker sales and distribution group Biotronik Asia Pacific rewards its fifteen employees based in the Sydney suburb of Pymble with internal and external courses in a variety of computer packages. Sales staff are flown to Berlin every eighteen months or so for product training. All staff go on a four-day conference once a year where they take part in teambased activities. The Body Shop helps employees to develop a career plan. All members of staff liaise with their manager to determine performance goals and then work towards achieving those goals. Staff members are also provided with a job description outlining what they are required to do. Formal performance appraisals are held at least once a year, along with more frequent informal appraisals. Employees have access to both internal and external training including a two-day induction



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program covering company culture, working life and brand management. There’s also compulsory training in product knowledge, customer service and selling skills. A range of personal development courses are also available to staff to improve their skills in communication, assertiveness and understanding themselves and their teams. Employees interested in a retail management career can choose to complete a twelve month trainee manager program. Management development courses are also available to develop the skills of existing managers and employees are encouraged to undertake external study. The company provides financial assistance to approved courses if they are relevant to an employee’s role. In addition, staff receive up to $200 every two years towards learning a new, non-work related skill. A.T. Kearney, a management consultancy and executive search company, employs around 180 staff in three offices in Australia and New Zealand. The company rewards staff with a range of professional and personal development programs for including training in diversity, mentoring, harassment, emotional intelligence and career progression. Kennards Hire employees are encouraged to do university and TAFE courses and other studies that the company will subsidise if the course is work-related. Staff training includes one-day induction seminars covering health and safety, company history and the use of equipment and customer service. In every state the company has a designated learning centre with videos, desks and a library. All staff have access to team work and leadership courses as well as telephone training, time management training and a four-day customer service program called Raving Fans. Most of the training programs are run by external consultants. In addition, staff can choose to attend a four-day learning retreat held at Kangaroo Valley on the New South Wales south coast. It’s an experiential program


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designed to take people out of their comfort zones. Kennards Hire Artarmon branch manager Chris Conder says the retreat is unlike anything he’s ever experienced. ‘We got to do things we never thought we could. It was fun and we also learned a lot about team work and some of the activities gave some staff a lot more confidence in themselves.’ Merck Sharp and Dohme offers professional and personal development for employees via training courses, mentorship and career planning. There is support for educational courses, including post-graduate degrees, team-based manufacturing practices that encourage innovation and skills development and defensive driver training for all staff who use a vehicle as part of their work. American Express Australia provides extensive in-house training but employees are also encouraged to undertake subsidised external courses. The company gives staff $1500 each year to cover the cost of course fees and materials for approved undergraduate university courses, and $5000 for post-graduate courses. Employees are also given some study and exam leave. The American Express office in the Sydney CBD has a resource centre in a communal break area which has a computer and management and leadership reference books to help staff with their studies and training programs. Training programs available to staff include leadership, management, orientation training and personal effectiveness. The company also has staff mentoring programs in place for new staff and high potential employees. Vice President of Human Resources Michelle Thomson says the mentoring programs help expose staff to a range of business issues and boost their confidence. ‘For example someone might not want to tell their boss they’re nervous about giving a presentation, but they can go to their mentor and talk about something like that.’



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Powerlink staff have access to a variety of training programs both in-house and outside the company. They can do courses to not only upgrade their technical skills, but also in time management, report writing and negotiation skills. The company will pay 100 per cent of the cost of tertiary study if it is relevant to an employee’s job, and it will also pay a contribution towards other courses that aren’t directly work related. Paul McCarthy Advertising runs in-house training programs for its 23 staff every six months and staff are given time off for external study. Retailink gives its employees ongoing training in safety, customer service and management skills. Sydney-based tourism operator BridgeClimb rewards its 300 staff who work as climb leaders, sales consultants and call centre operators and in other roles with ongoing training. Climb leaders do a three-month course that incorporates both theory and practical work. They learn about safety and how to deal with emergencies, cross-cultural awareness, customer service, history and presentation skills. Climb leaders are buddied with more experienced climbers who help them gain further practical experience and supervise their work. The company estimates that the cost of training each climber leader can exceed $8000. Training is also provided for sales and administration staff, along with management workshops which are held up to three times a year. International Gaming Technology rewards staff with a management development program to equip managers with appropriate people skills and to assist with succession planning. The company has a mentoring program for newly appointed leaders that also provides opportunities for aspiring professionals to develop skills in their chosen field. The


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mentors are also rewarded with the chance to enhance and share their management skills and develop a broader knowledge of IGT. According to general manager of human resources Kerry Downs, many of the company training programs have been developed following staff performance assessments. ‘Through the assessments we’ve realised that sometimes an employee’s idea of where they’re at in their career and what skills they need to go further aren’t that realistic. We want to be able to provide them with the right skills to progress,’ she says. Another initiative offered by IGT is what it calls the Career Next Step Program. This course enables employees to experience first hand the daily tasks of another position within the company by rotating into that role for a specified period of time. The program is for employees who wish to further or change their position within IGT. It gives them direct exposure to another job and the role of another department within the company, giving them the opportunity to ‘try before they buy’ another position, profession or career. Financial assistance is given to employees who undertake private studies which will enhance their job skills, and employees under this program are entitled to exam leave and one day of study leave per subject. There’s also a formal induction program for new employees that includes a day on the road with a sales representative. online learning includes training in computer software packages, management skills (communication, people management, leadership, team building) and technical skills (programming, computer graphics, database, design, networking, project management and web design). Personal development initiatives for staff include a monthly information session which includes a half-hour lecture followed by a catered lunch. The event is called Lunch ’n’ Learn and topics have included wills, genealogy and ‘Your Colours’.


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Management style

If I think about the employers I’ve most enjoyed working for, they’re not necessarily the ones who paid the biggest money, but those who most appreciated my efforts, offered me plenty of autonomy and respect and trusted me to get the job done. A healthy pay packet for what you do is important, but for most people receiving autonomy, respect and the occasional dollop of praise is equally so. I’ve spoken to hundreds of employees and managers at all levels over the years, and many have taken pay cuts in search of this. The appeal of a top dollar pay packet soon fades away when the day to day reality of a job is not rewarding. And perhaps it’s a generational thing, but employees now expect to be more independent. They like to feel as though they have some sort of control over how do they do their job. When it comes to rewarding staff with a particular management style, the best managers actively encourage employees to speak up, are receptive to their ideas and give feedback that recognises the legitimacy of those ideas. Too many managers forget that they’re dealing with people, with human beings, and if you treat someone badly why should they go out of their way for you? People don’t mind taking


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direction or being supervised but when they’re treated badly they cease to be productive. Some highly successful companies have built a reputation for having a management style that gives employees a great deal of autonomy. Cisco Systems and the Flight Centre, for example, regularly rate high on lists of the top companies in Australia for which to work. Their employees are expected to perform but they’re given a great deal of say in how they do their work. Professor David Lamond from the Macquarie Graduate School of Management says he personally prefers not to call employees ‘human resources’ because it is such a demeaning term. He says an employer’s relationship with an employee is more than a contractual one, and employers of choice build respect for the individual and care for the wellbeing of employees in their culture. ‘They also show a concern for equity and fairness and have a sense of ethics.’ David says it’s sometimes harder for big companies to behave ethically because they get caught up in the process of policy development, but no matter what size company you run, if there is an established culture of caring for the wellbeing of employees you don’t necessarily need it to be written in policy. The good thing about rewarding staff with your management style is that it can cost absolutely nothing. For most people the most effective rewards include a smile of recognition, a nod of acknowledgement and the occasional ‘well done’. David Lamond reasons that human behaviour that is reinforced or rewarded is more likely to recur and if there’s no relationship between the behaviour and the reward the behaviour might only occur again by chance. ‘People don’t really go to work every day because they get a great bonus at the end of the year. They stay with a company because of how they’re treated on a daily basis by management and by their coworkers. What an employee experiences and what they see others experience in the workplace counts the most. For


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example, when they see a colleague named employee of the month, or receive praise from a manger, they see that colleague’s behaviour as acceptable.’ A management style that acknowledges employees’ ideas and concerns can be very rewarding. According to David Lamond the extent to which a manager talks to an employee and not at them is either very rewarding or very punishing. He says it’s also the sharing of knowledge that makes you powerful, and collaborative people are the ones who get things done. It’s often said that the ‘people skills’ of management is one of the areas Australia can improve on. Lamond agrees, and says Australians still have a long way to go with their management style. ‘All the research says our managers are tough minded in all industries, partly because there’s this general notion you have to be tough to survive in Australia. Our workforce is also still the most sex segregated workforce in the OECD. We used to talk about glass ceilings and sticky floors, but now I see the delegation of female managers in housekeeping roles such as corporate services, rather than major decision making and operational roles.’ While the importance of individual rights has been the focus of much discussion in management circles over the past twenty years, some say the discussion should be more about responsibilities. The way Lamond sees it is that rights have become very focused on the individual, but when we talk about responsibilities, there’s a stronger base for collaboration. ‘Responsibilities are a base for interaction and employers and employees have responsibilities to each other. It works best when they make money together rather than an employer making money at an employee’s expense. However, my research has also found some organisations who tout employer of choice rhetoric to attract the best people, simply use these people up. There’s also a Machiavellian aspect to some so-called family friendly workplaces in that work is overtaking the family space.’


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One annual survey of the best companies to work for in Australia, the Hewitt Associates survey (Hewitt 2003), has found some key points that employees feel the best companies to work for have in common, and these all revolve around management style. These companies tend to have strong leaders who are committed to communicating the goals of the company to their employees and doing things to connect the employees to the company. They offer employees meaningful work with a higher purpose that prompts staff to look forward to coming to work every day and to care about the organisation and its goals. These companies also offer opportunities for employees to grow and develop, and invest more resources in training opportunities, as well as promoting from within. And the researchers have found that over the three years the survey has been running, these companies also have a culture that is performance focused and driven by an emphasis on the recognition of the efforts of employees.

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Employees are more productive if they feel they’re managed by people who are focused and approachable. Rewarding employees with your management style can encourage them to go the extra mile and to take risks. Employees who feel as though they have some sort of control over their job and who feel they have meaningful work are likely to stay with a company for longer.


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Your management style can encourage employees to come up with new ideas, and contribute to the running of the company. Your management style can encourage employees to solve problems, come up with cost-cutting ideas, and ideas to attract new business. Your management style can encourage employees to speak up. They’re likely to do so if they feel you’re receptive to their ideas and that you give feedback that recognises the legitimacy of their ideas. If you treat your existing staff well, their friends and professional colleagues will soon know about it. Equally, word will spread very quickly if you don’t treat staff well. Many companies who have reputations for being good employers never have to advertise because job seekers come to them. And it’s often the same companies who are able to poach talented staff from their competitors.

Tips on rewarding staff with your management style

✓for going the extra mile. It can be a personal thank you or

Say thank you for a job well done or thank an employee

a thank you in front of other staff. Managing director of BridgeClimb, Tod Coates, says although the company sometimes gives employees material rewards for exceptional customer service, usually it’s a simple phone call or a thank you in front of other staff members that means the most to them. People who work for the company range from 18-yearold students to a 66-year-old former sailor, and many employees are former customers who have chosen to work for


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the company because they had such a good time as customers. ‘Our aim is to provide an experience for our customers, and our staff are a big part of that experience. Lots of theme parks were built after Walt Disney started his highly successful operations, but there are still none like Disney. That’s the goal we have in mind for our business.’ When you celebrate the successes of one staff member, don’t do it by putting down another staff member. Reward an employee by asking how they’re going with the job, noting that it may be stressful or it’s a challenging time for the company. Your acknowledgement that they are tackling something new or difficult is rewarding. Also, reward an employee by thanking them for bringing their particular skills to your organisation. Tell them you’ve suggested to other staff members that they talk to them about their particular ideas and expertise. Let employees sit on the final interview panel for potential job applicants so that they have some say in who they’ll be working with. This is something companies of all sizes are doing with great success. For example, Paul McCarthy Advertising mostly finds new employees by word of mouth and likes to get other staff involved in recruitment interviews. All new employees are subject to the standard three-month trial period and are sometimes interviewed three or four times to make sure they will fit in with the rest of the team. Get to know what drives your staff—what are their personal interests outside work? Reward your employees by taking the time to understand that each person is different and has different interests. Also, remember your staff ’s names. I’ve worked for many bosses who can’t remember all their employees’ names. People like to hear their own name and to be acknowledged. For example, 26-year-old Kennards Hire driver and serviceman George Ligias says he feels he’s important to the

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company partly because all the area managers know him by name. ‘We see the area managers on a regular basis and they know our names—even Andy Kennard, the owner of the company, knows our names. It makes me feel like I’m part of the Kennards Hire front line.’ Reward your employees by crediting their ideas. If you steal their ideas and try to pass them off as your own, eventually your staff will stop contributing altogether. Also take the time to listen to the concerns and ideas of your employees. Ask for their feedback regularly and acknowledge it. A good listener can make people feel very special. Reward an employee by naming a recognition award after them. For example, the Bjorn Smith award for excellence in client service. Or name a meeting room or work space after a great employee. The Powerlink head office in Queensland has a number of meeting rooms named after former long-serving employees of the company. If a staff member has done something well, tell them straight away so they know to repeat the behaviour in the future. Your silence can be interpreted as disapproval. The reward of praise is a great confidence booster and a good way to get staff to go the extra mile for you again. Give employees the feeling that they can approach you with ideas and problems in the workplace. If you are hostile, play favourites, encourage competitive behaviour and like to trivialise or put down what people do, workers aren’t going to approach you. Chances are an employee with a problem will bottle things up for a period of time and then find another job. Make them feel it is safe to ask questions and get extra information. Don’t laugh at employees’ ideas or make them feel stupid for suggesting something or they’ll stop contributing. I’ve been in meetings where managers have pulled faces behind people’s backs, and made snide comments to other employees thinking the person they’re ridiculing doesn’t know what they’re doing. People sense when you’re sending them up.

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Also don’t back-stab employees to their fellow staff members. It robs you of your credibility, because you will be found out in the end and other staff will feel as though they can’t trust you. Reward your staff by not being a bully. Threatening employees does nothing to get them to go the extra mile for you. Equally, you should try to create a work environment where staff aren’t sexually harassed or bullied by other staff members. You’d be surprised how many managers turn a blind eye to this sort of behaviour, especially in smaller companies. Empower staff by giving them meaningful work. If you think an employee is getting bored with their work but you really aren’t in a position to vary their day to day tasks too often, consider giving them extra projects to work on. Reward staff by encouraging them to solve problems, make decisions and think for themselves. This is preferable to a hierarchy of people who pass the buck. As a customer, how many times have you been passed along a chain of employees all saying, ‘I can’t deal with that, I’ll put you through to . . .’ The Fight Centre is a fantastic example of a larger company that lets employees solve problems, make decisions and think for themselves There’s an extremely low management hierarchy, with all staff from head office down to the sales outlets responsible for managing budgets, answering their own phones and doing their own administration. One of the techniques Kennards Hire uses to help give staff a sense of ownership of their job is to set up what are called Improvement Process Teams. Any staff member can be involved in a team and their task is to contribute to improving aspects of the running of the company, such as equipment maintenance, product innovation, people management and computer systems. This is a formal way of giving staff an input into how their workplace functions. The company has an informal culture that says ‘speak up’. Employees who identify workplace problems and come up with suggestions to overcome them are rewarded with a formal thank you from management.

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Give employees flexibility and choice. For example, if an employee needs to leave early for a family or personal matter, let them, provided they make up the time another day. Give them a choice of working hours, a choice of projects, the choice of salary packaging. Choice and flexibility are empowering for employees. Give employees an early mark, long lunch, half day off, or the whole day off for an outstanding effort. Time off is a great reward. Also, if they’ve finished their work and got nothing to do—send them home. This will make up for overtime they might need to work to finish another project. Keep staff informed about the goals and activities of your business. Have a staff noticeboard or newsletter, send regular emails or memos and have regular meetings. Send employees a memo or email from a supervisor, manager, company director or the entire team thanking an employee for their efforts. It doesn’t seem like much but it does mean something to employees that you go to the effort of putting it in writing. Ben Starr, who lectures in communications at Petersham TAFE in Sydney, was sent a letter from his department head personally thanking him for making the course he was teaching more practical. He’d put in many long hours of his own time to try to get a project off the ground and says the written acknowledgement of his efforts meant a lot to him. Sydney-based industrial relations consultant Barry Dous says he once received the handwritten comment ‘excellent research’ on a paper he completed for an employer which meant a lot more to him than any financial reward. Reward an employee with a certificate or a thank you for exceptional service, or for introducing a cost-saving measure. In one office of the Cancer Council, employees are rewarded with an achievement certificate if they do something outstanding in the workplace. Nominations are made by other staff members and the manager announces the winner or winners every month. The process doesn’t involve any material

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rewards but is great for staff morale. One employee was given a certificate for tracking down some artwork that staff had been searching for for a year for a particular publication. She was given the award for using her initiative and being a good detective. Reward an employee by letting them do the job of their choice for the day. Or do their job for the day. For example, Greg Henricks, the news director of C91.3, a commercial radio station at Campbelltown in New South Wales, swapped a shift with an employee so that she could go to a concert. It was a one-off arrangement, but one that made the staff member feel very valued by the company. Learn to apologise when you are wrong. We all make mistakes. Reward an employee who has put in long hours by sending a thank you note or card to their family for their support and understanding. Acknowledge their anniversaries with the company and their birthdays. Getting simple things in the workplace right can be rewarding for staff. Give them a locker or secure area to put their personal belongings and make sure they have access to the tools they need to get the job done. You’d be surprised at the number of employers who forget to do little things such as restocking the stationary cupboard, or making sure cab vouchers are on hand for work-related trips, and that there is petty cash on hand to reimburse staff for work-related expenses. People respond better to managers who are calm and consistent. Make sure any workplace policies and procedures are applied to all staff—men and women—and whatever their cultural background. If an employee has an accident at work, ask them if they’re okay and offer to phone a family member or friend for them rather than just asking if they’ve filled out an accident form or asking them why they weren’t more careful.

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Avoid asking employees who aren’t in a supervisory or managerial role to report on the behaviour of other staff.

Case Study—Retailink Retailink was established in 1993 and employs around 430 staff in New South Wales and Queensland who provide cleaning services for shopping centres and office blocks. It’s a great example of a company that has an approachable and hands on management style. The cleaning industry is not thought of as a very glamorous one, but this company manages to empower employees and make them feel special. Staff are consulted on all decisions affecting them and managers from head office, including the company’s managing director, Aurora Fonte, spend time each year working side by side with cleaning staff and wearing a staff uniform to learn about the practicalities of the job. The company’s Feet on the Ground initiative is also highly motivating for staff because it shows them management understand what they do. Individual sites are also visited every week by representatives from head office and staff are given regular surveys to enable them to provide feedback to management. ‘We think of ourselves as not only cleaners but also as ambassadors for the retail centres we work in,’ says 37-year-old Denise Hemopo who is the retailing services manager for the Westpoint Shopping Centre at Blacktown in New South Wales. She has been with the company for three years and manages a team of 22 people and estimates there are 800 retail outlets in the centre she works in. ‘People are always asking us where shops and services are in the building, and the customer service training we’ve received comes in handy.’ Denise has gained certificates in asset maintenance that are recognised nationally during her time with the company


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and has also been given management training. She says the best thing about the management style of the company is that all senior managers are approachable and make sure staff have the support and acknowledgement they need to do their job well. ‘Little things like getting a mention in the company newsletter or a phone call to say thank you mean a lot. I’ve got a waiting list of 28 people wanting to work for me. We mostly hire through word of mouth and rarely need to advertise. There’s also some flexibility with working hours because rosters can be negotiated within individual teams.’

Case Study—Cisco Systems Internet technology company Cisco Systems employs around 800 staff in Australia, with most of them based in Sydney. Although the company does provide extensive training and other benefits for employees, it’s best known for rewarding staff with a culture of open communication and transparency. ‘Our employees are all self starters who are given a great deal of autonomy. The emphasis is on getting the job done and we try to hire people who can make decisions,’ says group manager of human resources Alec Bashinsky. All Cisco offices are linked by an internal website and by videoed messages that staff can pick up from anywhere via their laptop computers. The company is flexible with working hours and all projects are team based. Their three main principles are: grow the business, grow the team and grow yourself. There’s plenty of training available and also job rotation to give employees new projects to work on. Staff surveys are carried out on a regular basis, regular meetings are held and workshops are held in each state to get employees’ input into the future direction of the company. Cisco has a low staff turnover—around 5.8 per cent—and Bashinsky says that figure has remained steady for the past few years.


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Case Study—Use My Mind With less than twenty staff, including full-time and casual employees, Sydney-based public relations company Use My Mind handles clients ranging from real estate to wine, publishing, cosmetics, alcohol and retail companies and special events. It specialises in corporate, product and service publicity, promotions, brand development, crisis management, corporate sports and entertainment profiling. The company has won many awards for excellence, including recognition for its work with Sarah Lorden Real Estate and McGrath Partners Real Estate at the Real Estate Institute’s advertising awards. The average age of staff members is 20–32 years. Company founder Adam Mumford says his business has grown rapidly from its beginnings as a two-person operation in 1998, and the right staff have been crucial to the company’s success. ‘To date we have grown solely on the basis of recommendations from satisfied clients and people familiar with our work. And that’s because we have staff who are happy to be here and who are enthusiastic about what they do.’ Adam says enthusiastic staff members have easily been the main drivers of Use My Mind’s success, and in an industry that has high staff turnovers, keeping good people has paid off for the company. Being a small company, it has a limited budget for material rewards and Adam says to compensate for this he tries to use his management style to create a work environment where staff feel valued and respected for their ideas and hard work. He and his business partner both came from jobs at larger organisations so they know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of large company politics and not knowing what’s going on. He tries to keep his staff informed about what’s happening within the company and let them have as much input as possible into the day-to-day running of things. ‘Despite this being a creative industry, when I worked for other

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people the atmosphere was always very serious and formal. That sort of environment was one I always associated with work, but one that I was never really happy in.’ There’s a key emphasis at Use My Mind on staff celebrating their successes and having fun. ‘If people can have a laugh, stress levels go down and job satisfaction increases. Some of the issues we deal with are quite dry, but we try to make them as interesting as possible.’ Adam also says team rewards are important to keep up morale or let off steam after a hard week. The company will often take staff out to lunch or give everyone an afternoon off. This is more than compensated for by the extra hours people put in when they’re on a deadline. In terms of working hours, Adam is strict about 8.30 am starts because this is the time of the day when staff meet to brainstorm and discuss projects they’re working on. However, if someone needs time off for a personal or family commitment, that’s fine as long as they’ve given 100 per cent of themselves in the job. ‘Often I tell staff to get out of the office and go for a walk or go to a cafe to work for a while. It’s a creative industry and sometimes sitting at a desk all day isn’t the best way to keep the creative juices flowing.’ While the company conducts in-house training for staff, they’re also given time off to do TAFE and university courses if it’s relevant to their work. However, Adam says a staff member would have had to be with him for a few years before he’d pay for external courses. Staff are able to tailor projects around their childcare arrangements and they’re also allowed to bring their pets to work. Adam has sourced most of his employees via word of mouth or through people who have approached him. ‘People who approach you actually want to work for you. These are the really motivated ones—the ones that have the most to offer your company. You are probably only one employer on their list, so in a way that makes you lift your game to try to get them and keep them.’


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Kate Nash is a 25-year-old publicist who has worked for Use My Mind for just over two years. She came to the company from a larger organisation in the music industry, where she was part of a team of publicists, with a total of 80 staff. The aspect of her job she enjoys most at Use My Mind is being able to experience all facets of the business. ‘In my previous job I was given particular areas to look after such as radio publicity or regional print. Here I’m involved in the campaigns from the beginning. Some of the projects are more exciting than others. Quite often it’s just sitting on the phone for hours trying to get the media interested in a project, but whatever I do here they make me feel that my input and ideas are valued. There’s minimal politics and very little management hierarchy—I can talk directly with the boss every day. Although I’m mostly able to organise my own time and work independently on projects, I get constant feedback on what I’m doing. Although the job is often high pressure with long hours we all manage to have a laugh. It’s a fun place to work and I know there’ll always be something different here for me to do.’

How companies are rewarding staff with their management style Staff at Virgin Blue airlines are rewarded with thank you letters for using their initiative to provide excellent customer service and for dealing with difficult workplace situations. All employees have the chance to meet with senior managers every month. The managers visit different airports and work alongside staff to gain a practical understanding of their particular jobs and listen to any concerns. This is called a Roadshow, and Publicity and Marketing Manager Amanda Bolger says even the company CEO is handy with a Spray ’n’ Wipe bottle. ‘But his favourite job is throwing the luggage around,’ she says. Staff are given a great deal of autonomy


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and there’s a low management hierarchy. For example, cabin supervisors are referred to as cabin chief executive officers and can make executive decisions on most things—they don’t always have to refer to a detailed policy or phone head office for authorisation. Cabin CEOs are also empowered with the authority to make decisions on how to reward individual crew members for outstanding work. This might be through a crate of champagne or a day off—depending on the individual staff member concerned. Bolger says the enthusiasm that Virgin employees are renowned for is largely because they feel empowered and confident in their job. The company also has a policy of promoting from within and letting employees progress through a variety of different roles within the organisation. Kool 4 Kats, a small costume hire company, based in the Adelaide suburb of Unley, has less than ten employees. As well as providing a costume hire service to the general public, the company provides costumes to major theatre companies and other arts organisations as well as designing props and costumes for film sets. One of the ways Company Director Angela Winters tries to empower her staff is by getting their feedback at a short meeting every morning. This enables her to communicate what needs to be accomplished for the day and lets staff report on how projects are progressing. ‘We collectively put together a to-do list for the day and then everyone has a lot of autonomy to get on with it. The success of the business is largely due to the initiative of individual staff members and we welcome their input.’ The company also rewards employees with free tickets to theatre performances, movies and other events that are passed on by clients, so that all staff can be involved in seeing the final product they’ve contributed to. ‘It’s a good way for staff to get involved in evaluating the success of the work we do and also identify things we can improve on,’ says Angela.


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Powerlink rewards its staff with regular surveys to involve them in decision making as much as possible. Staff members sit in on interview panels when new employees are recruited and the company has a policy of promoting from within, and boasts a low staff turnover of between 3 and 5 per cent. Some staff have been with Powerlink for over 25 years. WorkCover Helpdesk support officer, Gerard Maree, says one of the most rewarding things about his workplace is that the members of the team he works with are allowed to have a sense of humour. ‘Our manager has created an environment where we can have a lot of fun, even though the workload is heavy and we have targets to meet.’ Gerard says little touches such as a communal jar of lollies and mufti days on Fridays also add to the great atmosphere. Adam Devlin, a customer service manager at Sydney-based pacemaker sales and distribution group Biotronik Asia Pacific, says in a small office of only fifteen staff, all employees are consulted on decisions about the day-to-day running of the office. He also believes that to earn the respect of employees a manager needs to have a practical understanding of what each person’s job involves. ‘Every week or so I like to take an employee out for an informal cup of coffee and ask them how they’re going with their job, and if they have any problems or any suggestions about how we could do things better.’ Adam says if he notices someone doing something well—no matter how minor—he tells them. ‘For example, the other day I noticed someone handling a customer phone enquiry really well, so I told them straight away. You do have to guage this though. Sometimes praising someone in front of the other staff works really well, but if you single one person out all the time it can create resentment.’ He says the biggest advantage small companies have when it comes to rewarding staff with management style is flexibility. ‘Smaller companies


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might not be able to pay the largest salaries, but they can definitely be more flexible with working hours and workplace projects.’ Melbourne-based website design group Acumentum Multimedia rewards its staff by seeking their feedback in regular staff surveys, at weekly staff meetings and through exit surveys. When specific projects are completed, individuals or teams do a brief presentation on them at the weekly staff meeting. International Gaming Technology rewards its staff by involving them in as much decision making as possible. All staff input is acknowledged and given consideration. IGT also runs an annual employee opinion survey to gauge employee satisfaction and gain feedback and ideas on the future of the company. Administrative Executive at the University of New South Wales, Claire Gillis, says one of the best rewards an employer has ever given her is more responsibility in her job because it showed her her employer has confidence in her.


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Special events

While end of year office parties can be one of the most talked about company events of the year, there are a number of other special events and theme days being introduced by some companies to reward their staff. In fact, it’s common now for the office Christmas party itself to be called an ‘end of year celebration’ rather than a Christmas party, as employers try to provide an event for employees from different religious and cultural backgrounds. Whatever you choose to call it, an end of year event is a chance to reflect on the past year’s successes and boost morale for the year to come. A special event is the sort of reward that thanks staff for being part of the company and builds workplace morale. Some functions are seen as a chance to encourage team building activities, others are very informal. Some include families, some are held in the workplace and others at special venues. Quite often large companies have a series of small end of year staff functions, especially if they have offices in different states. And some companies who want the event to be a complete surprise choose to keep the location of the party a secret until the very last minute. Functions are a way for employees from different departments to get to know each other in an informal and


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relaxed environment. Australian companies are also holding Melbourne Cup Day functions, restaurant lunches or office lunches, family days and picnics, sports days, dress down days, pets at work days, and special occasion celebrations such as staff or company birthdays and anniversaries. Some companies also hold staff retreats and weekend team building workshops. An example of the theme days companies are introducing are pyjama days and ‘diversity days’ like those held by American Express for staff in its Sydney call centre. On the diversity days the workplace is decorated in a particular theme such as Chinese or Indian, and staff come dressed in the theme of the day and have a themed lunch. This is appropriate because the office has a multicultural workforce, being the regional headquarters for the company’s Asia Pacific operations. Many companies have recently scaled back functions and special events because of the uncertain world economic climate that began after September 11, 2001 and a string of corporate collapses, mergers and company redundancies. Indeed, there was public outrage when it was revealed the management of insurance group HIH hosted lavish staff Christmas parties across Australia that cost over $1 million just a year before the company’s $5.3 billion collapse. That has also caused a lot of companies to be cautious when speaking about their special events for staff because they don’t want to be seen as excessive. However, there’s still healthy competition in some industries to reward staff with special events, especially in the advertising, retail, banking, consulting, finance and insurance industries. Some larger companies even have special events organisers on their full-time pay roll and smaller companies are also staging some great events. Special events producer Julia Gelhard from the White Space Consulting Group, says over the past few years she’s been asked to arrange events ranging from gala end of year awards dinners for staff, themed company Christmas parties, family fun days, cocktail parties, beach barbecues, and even


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a gambling night. Other projects she’s worked on include a Valentine’s Day dinner in Sydney’s Botanic Gardens organised by Optus for some of its star performers and their spouses, and an awards presentation for retail staff organised by the Sydney Airports Corporation Limited (SACL). This event was held at the overseas passenger terminal and had an African theme. The terminal was transformed into a jungle complete with waiters in safari suits, and guests were greeted by the sound of live jungle drums and dancers wearing African costumes and masks, which Julia calls ‘living décor’. Julia says the events that leave the most lasting impression on staff are interactive events, where the atmosphere is created before anyone sits down to dinner. This might involve having staff walk through a themed room, walk over a bridge, interact with performers or, in the case of a ‘wet ’n’ wild’ themed event she recalls, staff slid down a ramp into an underground car park filled with water. Julia prefers to use sit-down dinners when organising staff events as this by-passes the queues often associated with buffets and provides a focused audience for speeches and awards. She says the key to getting staff to talk to each other and mingle is to have pre-dinner drinks. A recent trend at staff functions is to set up a themed chill-out room where staff can sit and talk away from the music and crowd noise. Other special touches companies have introduced at conferences and retreats include a small souvenir or a card on employees’ pillows when they return to their rooms. ‘It really depends on the occasion and the industry the event is for. I usually discuss client’s needs and budget with them and then come up with some suggestions.’ Julia also says wet weather is the number one enemy of outdoor special events for staff and she’s seen functions completely ruined by rain. Sally Wheat from special events company the Truffle Group agrees. She’s staged events to reward staff in a variety of settings such as a crypt under a church where a function with a gothic theme was held, an


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artillery range and Sydney’s Fort Denison. ‘You can recreate the world anywhere but outdoor events for staff are a risk, even though Australia has some of the best outdoor venues, especially in Tasmania and in the New South Wales Hunter Valley.’ She also tells a horror story of how a power blackout during an event she was staging for a company at the Opera House left her half an hour to move the entire event, complete with harbour fireworks, to another venue. Luckily the nearby Liquidity Bar was available. ‘You can’t reschedule staff events of that scale because people have tight timetables and their personal lives to live and many employees come from interstate.’ Rather than a Christmas party, some finance companies are continuing their tradition of having a party at the end of June to mark the end of the financial year. Sally Wheat also cites the example of Rabobank, which specialises in banking and finance for customers in rural areas, deciding not to have an end of year event in 2002 at all, as management thought it was inappropriate to celebrate when most farmers were feeling the effects of severe drought. Instead, the company staged a party to welcome in the beginning of 2003. And away from the finance industry, Sydney-based tourism attraction BridgeClimb rewards its staff with a function after Christmas every year simply because the lead up to the festive season is such a busy time for everyone, and holding the event after Christmas is more convenient for both staff and management. Many big companies continue to charge staff an admission fee to attend the end of year function, mostly by deducting a small amount from their pay every week. For the past few years Deutsche Bank has invited families to its end of year function for staff, a move that’s gone down well with some employees but hasn’t been too popular with others. Sally Wheat says some staff have complained that they feel more self conscious mucking around or flirting with their work colleagues if family members are also present. Staff family days the Deutsche Bank


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has organised have included food and entertainment, dodgem cars and rides, games, and chill-out rooms for the adults. All expenses have been met by the company. Another company that goes to a lot of trouble to reward its staff with an end of year event is Aussie Home Loans. End of year celebrations for this company usually have a theme which in the past has been Latin American, underwater and a circus party. The underwater party was put together in a giant marquee with water themed backdrops, bowls of goldfish used as part of the table settings and bubbles everywhere. The circus party featured a big top tent complete with entertainers, a side show alley, an eating area and a circus ring dance floor. Sally Wheat says every year she’s briefed by the company on what’s required for their end of year event but that brief always includes making the event a memorable one that’s different to the previous year. This is a great example of a company that likes to keep the theme of the end of year event a secret until the last minute. Staff turn up for pre-dinner drinks in an ordinary room and the theme is then revealed. The company provides buses for employees to make sure they get home safely. Sally has also been involved in organising a special event for staff at Ray White Real Estate to celebrate the company’s one hundredth anniversary, where employees were given a clock featuring the company’s logo as part of their table setting. And she’s helped organise events for other companies where teams of employees were asked to paint a picture of the boss. The accounting department’s painting was apparently very conservative while the sales department’s painting was way over the top. In addition to dress down days to help raise money for charities, many companies in Australia have also introduced other special events. Queensland-based Powerlink, for example, has sports days where staff are given an afternoon off to take part in informal team sports. Companies are also hosting


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breakfasts, lunches, morning teas and afternoon teas to celebrate company milestones or successes, and to accompany talks by guest speakers or workplace training. Events are a great way to add value to workplace training. There are also events such as family visit days where family members get to come to the workplace for a day to see what goes on there. Many companies are also now rewarding employees by letting them bring their pets to work—a move that’s said to be reducing stress levels significantly. Animals brought to work are mostly dogs because they travel well and are very sociable but cats, rabbits and guinea pigs have all been spotted in Australian workplaces. Pets have a calming affect on both their owners and people around them. They also encourage communication between employees. Australia has one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the world, and most people consider their pet part of the family. Over the past year the number of dog minding and dog walking services has sky rocketed, and for people concerned about leaving their pets home alone, being able to bring them to work is a big plus because it means they don’t have to spend money on these services. As an employer, rewarding staff with a pet friendly workplace costs you very little. In California, employers who allow pets in the workplace include Dell Computers and Netscape Communications. In Australia, it’s long been a tradition to see dogs on the back of tradesmans’ utilities or accompanying their owners on building sites, but now dogs and other pets are turning up in offices, hairdressers’ salons and retail outlets as well. Having pets at work can also help build up relationships with your customers. For example, staff at the Norton Street Newsagent in the Sydney suburb of Leichhardt have brought their dogs to work for years. The dogs sleep on the footpath or inside the shop and are a huge hit with customers who know them by name and ask for them when they’re not around. Sydney private school MLC also lets staff bring their pets to work as does public relations company Use My Mind. Visitors to both


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these workplaces know some of the regular pet visitors by name and they provide an instant topic of conversation between visitors and staff. According to MLC staff member Melissa Newell, ‘The dogs enjoy it and it’s a bit of fun for the staff who are working in a really busy environment.’ As an employer you will definitely need to set a few ground rules for pets in the workplace to be successful and in some workplaces it’s just not practical. Consider whether it’s appropriate for pets to be allowed at any time or just one day a week or month. If this is an initiative that involves a large number of employees, you’ll need to set up a roster—allowing one pet at a time. An office full of pets could be a very noisy one and might also be so distracting for employees that no work actually gets done. Remember too that this is an initiative that requires extensive consultation with staff to make sure everyone’s okay with it. Some people are allergic to animals or frightened of them. Having pets in a workplace that involves food handling is not appropriate.

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Special events can encourage communication between employees from different departments, and between employees and managers. Staff can get to know each other in a less formal environment. For some companies special events are one of the few chances employees have to be together in the same place at the same time. An end of year event is a chance for you to thank staff for their work throughout the year and give them an overview of the year ahead.


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Events are a way to celebrate individual and team achievements and successes and anniversaries. Special events can boost workplace morale by helping to break the usual workplace routine and create a sense of fun and excitement. Dress down days can help involve your company in the wider community by raising funds for charities and other community groups. Special events can be used to add value to training programs. Training that’s followed by entertainment or a social activity is more likly to be remembered by employees, and associated with something that’s positive and fun.

Tips on rewarding staff with special events

✓Your idea of a fun day out might not necessarily be the

Consult with staff before organising a special event.

same as theirs. The decision should be a collaborative one and the event should tie in with the company culture. Remember that end of year functions are a reward for staff, so try to organise something they’ll enjoy rather than something they feel obliged to attend. When organising an end of year event, choose something special. Staff can go to the pub for a beer after work any day of the week. Try to organise something that makes a statement about the company. Whether it be a special venue, particular entertainment or a theme. It should be something the company will be remembered for. Appoint a staff team to organise the event or function as a reward. Make it a special project for them. Function themes staff committees have come up with range from

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meals in favourite restaurants to beach parties, Arabian nights, Western nights, Halloween nights, circus nights, space odyssey theme parties, famous people theme parties, parties from past eras such as the 1920s and 1960s, as well as functions on trams, trains, boats and planes. Other ideas they’ve come up with include luxury sports car drive days, dinner flights in a plane, skydiving days, hot air ballooning trips, visits to galleries, museums, concerts, movies and the theatre, visits to trade shows, the Botanic Gardens, Harley Davidson motorbike rides, rock climbing days, winery tours, karaoke nights, harbour cruises, trips to theme parks, the local zoo and other local tourist attractions, murder mystery themed dinners, bushwalking days, picnic days and shopping days. Consult with your staff as to whether or not you promote your end of year celebration as a Christmas party. It should be a function that acknowledges the contribution of all staff throughout the year and celebrates work achievements. However, if your workplace has a mix of cultural or religious backgrounds, some staff might feel uncomfortable taking part in specifically Christmas celebrations. Consider getting a special events company to help with the function. They can provide advice on everything from the venue, the entertainment, catering, decorating and cleaning up. Shop around and get quotes. There are plenty of good events organisers around following the Sydney Olympics. Ask for examples of their work and check their references with some of their other clients. Ask them if they brought the event in on budget, and see how easy they are to communicate with. Think hard before deciding to have the event outdoors. Wet weather can ruin the entire function and there’s no getting back all the money you’ve spent. If you must have the event outdoors, a weather contingency plan is advisable.

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Decide early whether or not an end of year function primarily for staff should also include clients. Try to limit the amount of alcohol consumed and make sure employees’ behaviour doesn’t get out of hand as this can have legal repercussions. There have often been official reports of sexual harassment or other cases of harassment after pranks and office jokes go too far. Believe it or not there have also been official complaints about offensive gifts being given in anonymous present swaps—or Secret Santas—which involve staff drawing another staff member’s name out of a hat and then anonymously giving a present they think would be suitable for that staff member. Reward staff by including families or loved ones in the function. Also decide whether or not to have the function during or outside work hours. For some people staying back after work can be difficult due to family commitments. Unless families are invited consider holding the event during work hours. Make sure all staff are included in a company function —not just a select few, as this creates bad feeling all around. I once worked for an organisation that invited a select group of employees to a dinner in a restaurant to celebrate its anniversary. Those invited were sworn to secrecy but, of course, offices being what they are, the secret was out within half an hour and a lot of bad feeling and resentment in the workplace followed the dinner, because employees who weren’t invited felt as though they were being punished for doing something wrong. The bad feeling was bottled up for days until finally at the Friday staff meeting another employee exploded in anger, shouting out that he hoped those lucky enough to have been invited to the anniversary dinner had had a good time. Tensions escalated and another meeting had to be held the following week to try to smooth things over.

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Provide a range of food at special events to cater for different tastes and, if it’s a sit down dinner, remember to provide vegetarian options. The choice of music or entertainment is a tough one but consultations with staff should give you an idea about what most of them would like. When in doubt consider a covers band—they’re usually quite safe in that they will probably have a range of music that appeals to a few different tastes. Your employees will love this one—reward them by keeping all speeches and award presentations brief and towards the start of the evening rather than at the end of it. And you’ll be guaranteed of a more attentive and receptive audience. Extend a general thank you to everyone for their work during the year instead of singling out a few individuals or award winners. Also, make sure you don’t offend or embarrass individual staff members with joke awards that can sometimes backfire. Give a brief overview of what the company will try to achieve in the year ahead and highlight any upcoming events such as expansions, new clients, new staff members or any specific changes to the particular industry you’re in. Provide taxi vouchers or make sure employees have a way to get home safely. Some companies hire staff buses to take employees home after end of year functions. Even if you’re on a tight budget most staff would prefer a low-key, well-organised event rather than one they have to pay to attend. Set a budget and stick to it. If you haven’t been able to have an end of year party together, reward staff with a party to kick off the new year. Hold a theme day in the workplace to raise money for a local charity. The wide range of themes being used by companies include dress down days, pink days, black days, hat days and jeans days, to name just a few.

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On Fridays reward staff with pizza or some other sort of takeaway food for everyone in the office, or provide afternoon tea for a staff meeting. Ann Sharpe, a sales assistant at Sydney’s Randwick Community Pharmacy, says she appreciated the reward of being taken out for dinner in a restaurant for a staff meeting. ‘It was a chance to discuss work issues in a more relaxed environment and get to know the other staff.’ She says she also felt really special to have been asked to the company Christmas party, also a function in a restaurant, even after she’d only worked for the company for a few weeks.

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Tips on rewarding staff with pets at work days

✓well-behaved dogs should be allowed. They should be Have a written policy on bringing pets to work. Only

on a leash, vaccinated and have basic obedience training. Consider setting up a point system for badly behaved pets. That is, they’re banned after three or four offences if they’re messy, noisy or aggressive. Consider the legal implications of having pets at work. If someone gets bitten or develops an allergy you could be liable for compensation. Dogs will need to be taken for frequent short walks to prevent ‘accidents’. Don’t allow pets near food or food preparation areas. If possible have an area off limits to pets.

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SPECIAL EVENTS

Case Study—Paul McCarthy Advertising Paul McCarthy Advertising was founded in 1990 in Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid-north coast. It has grown over the years and now has three offices in Port Macquarie, Sydney and Melbourne. The company has 23 employees and is headed by Paul, whose wife and three sons also work in the business. The company’s client list over the years has included Harvey World Travel, Health Care Australia, Thomas Cook, P&O, various property developers, Pioneer car and home stereos, various courier companies, Garuda Orient Holidays and Hastings Council. Staff at Paul McCarthy Advertising work in a variety of areas such as strategy planning, account servicing, television radio and print campaigns, annual reports, brochures, flyers, posters, merchandising material, websites, new product development, indoor and outdoor transit sales promotions, printing, media planning and buying, production and office staff. Although there’s an extremely high turnover in the advertising industry, most staff stay with the company for at least three years, and the longest serving staff member has been with the company for nine years. The age range of staff is from 19 to 54. The company puts a great deal of emphasis on functions to reward staff for their hard work and long hours. Staff functions have included weekends away, staff trips to the Australian Open and other sporting events, shows, dinners and even a trip to Antarctica. One year all staff and their families were rewarded with an all expenses paid weekend at Cypress Lakes in the Hunter Valley. Paul says it’s important that families are included in all staff functions and events because the advertising industry is more than a nine-to-five job and this can put a lot of stress on employees and their families as well. Another event this company rewards its staff with is a three-day team building retreat every year. All staff members get to go and it’s a great

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way for employees from the company’s three offices to get to know each other. Employee John Carrol has been with the company for two years. He’s a 42-year-old Brand Strategist who’s previously worked in advertising for similar companies in Zimbabwe and England. John says the staff appreciate the fact that their families can be included in most social gatherings. ‘This company has a lot of respect for its staff and goes to a lot of trouble to show appreciation for what we do. Staff functions are always well organised and give everyone in the company a chance to get to know each other. Providing good service is why we’re here and because the staff feel appreciated we try our best to do that.’

Case study—Iams Australia Highly successful premium pet food distributor Iams employs 35 staff in the Sydney suburb of Frenchs Forest. Every Friday employees are rewarded with a pets at work day which, according to Lorraine Golland, a veterinarian and brand manager with the company, is an eagerly anticipated staff event. ‘We take it in turns and usually have no more than six dogs in the office at a time. The dogs mostly sit with their owners, but also visit other staff members and come into the board room for meetings. They’re not allowed in the warehouse due to quality control regulations. Even staff who don’t own a pet really look forward to the pet days.’ Lorraine says no matter how busy the workplace is, stress levels go right down with the presence of the dogs. She says they get everyone talking and laughing, and lighten the mood of the office. The pets at work days also help improve communication between employees as everyone asks lots of questions about the animals and the pet owners are keen to swap notes. ‘We work hard during the week and a pets at work Friday is a nice way to bring staff together. The event is


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a good reward for staff in this company because most of the people who work here like animals. Some dogs have been coming in since they were puppies and staff take a special interest in their development.’ Regular guests at the event include Laddie the Labrador Retriever, Parker the Golden Retriever, a Chow Chow called Chloe and a Shih Tzu called Mambo. While there have occasionally been minor ‘accidents’ the dogs are taken out for short walks during the day. Lorraine says while her cat would happily sit on an office windowsill with her all day, she hasn’t been game enough to bring it in for fear of squabbles with the dogs. ‘However, if someone wanted to bring their fish in that would be fine. Fish are very calming and soothing to be around. That’s why they’re often in doctors’ waiting rooms,’ she says.

How some other companies are rewarding staff with special events Diageo Australia, which produces and distributes major alcohol brands such as Guinness and Bundaberg Rum, holds team-based special events to reward its staff who are mostly based in Sydney and Queensland. For example, on St Patrick’s Day employees were given a half day out of the office. They went to local hotels in their work teams and took part in planned activities that included finding a celebrity, getting behind the bar and serving someone a drink, taking a photo of a leprechaun, and converting a non-Guinness drinker into a fan. The team that scored the most points was rewarded with a prize. Retail outlet Holy Sheet! rewards staff with movie nights, dinner nights and mid-year functions. Christmas parties always have a theme and involve staff from individual stores


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coming dressed as a team. Staff from the Paddington store in Sydney came dressed to a Christmas party with a science fiction theme as Pigs In Space. The company says it’s not uncommon for the afterglow and huge morale boost created by a successful Christmas party to last for months after the event. Holy Sheet! also stages a fashion parade each year to introduce new product ranges. Employees are involved in organising and taking part in the parades. As an end of year celebration, pharmaceutical group SmithKline Beacham hired a ferry to collect employees from its office in the Sydney suburb of Ermington and transport them to Taronga Park Zoo. Staff were taken on an overhead cable car ride to a conference area where they were provided with a fully catered party. Buses were then on standby to take people home. Magic Door Industries has rewarded staff from its Alexandria based office in Sydney with a catered harbour cruise on the Bounty to thank them for their efforts throughout the year. Individual departments have also been rewarded with dinners for meeting monthly sales targets. Staff at STA Travel outlets in Sydney have come to work wearing wild wigs and hair extensions. The Bad Hair Day was to boost workplace morale and raise money to help the people of Bali after the 2002 terrorist bombings. Brisbane based bathroom products wholesaler and retailer Christiaan’s, rewards staff by including their families in Melbourne Cup Day lunches and end of year Christmas parties. Cleaning services provider Retailink rewards its 430 employees, who work in shopping centres in New South Wales


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and Queensland, with group outings after training days which are held several times a year. For example, the 22 Retailink staff based at the Westpoint Shopping Centre at Blacktown in New South Wales have gone bowling, putt putt golfing and wall climbing together after training days. Once a month the team also goes out for a social drink or coffee after work to which partners are invited. Workplace Australia Group rewards its 40 staff with a day out twice a year so that they can spend informal time together. This is usually a morning tea and the event has sometimes involved the distribution of a small bonus to all employees. Lunches are also held around four times a year to coincide with day-long training programs for all staff. South Australia’s Savings and Loans Credit Union runs what it calls an annual Communications Night to reward staff. The night is given a special theme and is held every year to inform staff about results of the previous year and outline the companies plans for the upcoming year. Past themes have included presenting the information in the form of the ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ TV show. These nights are organised as a special project by staff members. They’re held outside working hours but more than 80 per cent of staff usually attend. Savings and Loans staff also take part in a dress down day to raise money for charity once a month and budgets are allocated for team activities within specific departments, such as staff lunches and dinners out. Pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp and Dohme holds special long service award dinners for staff. There’s also a staff social club that provides discounted entertainment, as well as a children’s Christmas party that features free rides, entertainment and gifts. The party’s open to all employees and their families.


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Acumentum Multimedia rewards its 30 employees based in the Melbourne CBD with two retreats each year to let all staff focus on work-related issues. The retreats usually last for two days. Human resources manager, Jane Preskett, says topics covered at the retreats are chosen after consultation with employees. ‘In the past we’ve covered business strategies, communication skills, team building, strategies for the future direction of the company and revisited our mission statement.’ Staff also take it in turns to prepare a lunch for everyone else in the workplace, with a budget provided by the company. There are staff drinks every Friday and an end of year celebration. There are also special events for workplace achievements. For example, at the end of one financial year, the company treated employees and their partners to dinner and a movie to say thank you for their contribution to an improved profit result. Travel group the Flight Centre tries to provide a home away from home social setting for employees. Staff are rewarded with monthly ‘buzz nights’ where they can exchange ideas and information, annual conferences and Open Days featuring guest speakers. Yarra Valley Water, based at Mitcham in Victoria, holds an annual Christmas party for staff and their families, and a variety of activities are organised by a staff social club. Powerlink organises a number of functions for employees’ families including Fun Days, Christmas functions, and tours through the workplace. Also popular are staff-only days when the office is closed and all employees go off to play team sports such as soccer and volleyball. These are designed to foster communication between different departments and to take people outside their comfort zones.


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Kennards Hire reward staff by encouraging them to have their say at monthly meetings, which are usually followed by a dinner, making them a very social event. Staff and their partners are rewarded with tickets to an annual company ball, regular dinners and family days. When the company turned 50 years old, all staff and their families in Sydney were rewarded with free tickets to the Sydney Royal Easter Show. Kennards Hire employs two full-time staff to fly around Australia to monitor the various branches for equipment safety, efficient book keeping, cleanliness of staff and the building, uniforms and good customer service. Every year an annual awards night is held to recognise staff excellence in these areas. This includes a Branch of the Year Award, with staff from the winning branch rewarded with an overseas trip and spending money. International Gaming Technology rewards staff with drinks nights, fashion shows, a variety of free lunches including pizza days and barbecues, and an annual Christmas party. Every Friday is designated a casual day and if staff are not planning on meeting customers or clients, they leave their suit at home and come to work in smart casual clothing. Communication sessions are held at the end of every financial quarter, and staff enjoy a continental buffet breakfast while they’re given an overview of how the company is tracking towards its sales and financial plan for the year. Each year the company holds a Children’s Christmas Party for Sydney staff and families, with past venues including Taronga Park Zoo, Luna Park, Jamberoo Recreation Park, Australia’s Wonderland, Bicentennial Park and Shark Island. The day is fully catered for with food and drink for all and entertainment for the children including a visit from Santa and a present for each child under sixteen. The main social event for the IGT calendar year is an Employee of the Year Awards Night. This is held in Sydney and all staff from


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all offices are invited to attend. IGT pays for all accommodation and transport costs. The evening culminates with the announcement of the IGT Performer of the Year. Previous venues have been the Liquidity restaurant and Glass Island. Technology distribution group Dimension Data has rewarded staff in its Sydney office with movie tickets and dinners, birthday cakes and informal lunches. A set budget is allocated to each department every month and that department prepares a lunch for the entire workplace. The company also provides free fruit and soft drinks for all employees. IBM and the Regent Hotel host outdoor picnics for staff and their families. Law firm Freehills has rewarded its staff with an Austin Powers theme party at Sydney’s Fox Studios. They were also given a Christmas hamper. Advertising agency Young & Rubicam has staged an end of year party with a Fantasy Island theme, on an island in Sydney Harbour. Melbourne Water rewards its staff with dress down days once a month. Employees come to work in casual clothes and donate $2 to a charity. There are also regular social drinks after work for different departments. Biotronik provides drinks and snacks for the fifteen staff in its Sydney office every Friday afternoon. Virgin Blue organises a variety of social events for employees such as golf days, to encourage team building.


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Gifts and other non-cash benefits

Quite often companies choose not to give cash rewards to employees because they don’t want to put a ‘dollar value’ on a staff member, or they feel it’s more personal or cost efficient to give a gift. When it comes to rewarding employees with gifts, companies of all sizes are using flowers, food hampers, theatre and movie tickets, company merchandise, gift vouchers, travel and holidays to recognise staff for specific achievements and behaviour in the workplace. Other non cash rewards such as laptop computers, company cars, income protection insurance, life insurance or airline club memberships are also being used, but tend to be part of a salary package or the type of reward that says ‘we appreciate you being a part of this company’. Gifts are being given to recognise particular achievements, celebrate successes, reward staff for meeting targets, completing projects, gaining new customers, adapting to major changes, or to celebrate personal and company anniversaries. For the cynics who think rewarding staff for their efforts with gifts doesn’t mean that much to them, bear in mind a recent incident involving BHP. In 2002, 800 employees walked off the job after a staff member was sacked for using an internal


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email system to complain about staff not getting a Christmas hamper. BHP says the hampers were withdrawn from Victoria’s Western Port facility in Hastings to keep in line with other worksites, but company officials told the media that the incident wasn’t good for BHP’s reputation. The hampers cost around $30 each and were a ten-year tradition (Balough 2002). While smaller businesses usually don’t have the money to spend on staff gifts that larger companies do, that’s okay because the best gift rewards aren’t always the most expensive ones. Small personalised gifts usually mean more and are remembered for longer. Gift vouchers are also a popular staff reward as they allow the recipient to choose their own gift. These are available at most stores and online store services but the larger department stores such as David Jones have specialised in corporate gift packages for companies of all sizes. For example, the store provides corporate gift vouchers and tokens that can be exchanged for most of the store’s merchandise or services, excluding payment of accounts or travel. They’re available for amounts of $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100. A great touch for employee rewards are gift tokens, which are available in amounts of $50 (silver plated), $100 (gold plated) and $250 (limited edition gold plated). The tokens come in a velvet box with a ribbon and the vouchers in a bronze envelope. E-gift vouchers are also available online in $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 denominations. Mirjam Volaric, a New South Wales corporate consultant with David Jones, says quite often companies phone her for advice because they want to reward their staff but have no idea what to get for them. She tells them to think about the employee’s age, interests, personality and the particular occasion, or to consult a family member of the employee. ‘Sometimes people hide their personality at work and employers are surprised at what staff say they would actually like.’ Mirjam says when employees are given vouchers they tend


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to pick electrical items such as DVD players, playstations and digital cameras. ‘They love the idea of choice and a gift voucher or token gives them a store full of merchandise to choose from.’ Gift baskets or hampers are also a popular reward for employees and, while the department stores provide these, a number of online companies have sprung up over the past few years who specialise in them as well. Hampers can contain anything from flowers to champagne, chocolates, fruit and gourmet foods. Gift baskets and hampers are popular at Christmas time and Mirjam Volaric at David Jones says it’s not unusual to receive last minute orders for end of year gifts for hundreds of staff.

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A gift is more personal than a cash reward. Many companies use gifts throughout the year to recognise staff and at the same time use cash bonusus or profit share rewards tied to annual financial achievements. Gifts can be given to staff to provide recognition for completing projects, gaining new customers and adapting to change. They can be used to celebrate personal and company anniversaries. A gift is an appropriate reward if you don’t want to appear as though you’re putting a cash value on an employee or on something they’ve achieved. Using company merchandise as a reward helps promote your business. Often you can get discounts from outside providers if you buy products or services for a number of staff.


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Tips on rewarding staff with gifts

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Reward a staff member by making a contribution to their favourite charity, with an expenses paid training trip, or by buying toys for their children. Gift vouchers are a popular reward because they let staff choose their own gift. The widest choice is offered if you give a gift voucher to a department store, but you might also know an employee’s favourite bookshop, clothing store, music store or travel agency. Olivier Legis, an acupuncture therapist based in the Sydney suburb of Alexandria, says one of the best Christmas presents he was ever given by an employer was a department store gift voucher to the value of $50. ‘It was beautifully gift-wrapped and a nice thought because it meant we could get exactly what we wanted.’ If you’re rewarding employees with a gift at the end of the year to say thank you for their efforts, make sure the reward goes to all employees and not just a select few. Reward employees who are leaving the company with a gift for their efforts. Even if the employee hasn’t been with the company for long, the presentation of a small gift and a few words to wish them well sends a positive message about the way the company treats people to other staff. Choose gifts like flowers or a pot plant, chocolates or a hamper, a lottery ticket, movie or theatre tickets or tickets to a sporting event, a voucher for their favourite clothing or music or bookstore, lunch or dinner for two, a magazine subscription or a subscription to a professional organisation, a voucher to have their house cleaned, an office lunch, or a gift related to a staff member’s hobby or interest. Reward staff and their families with complimentary or discounted company products or services. Remember to make the gift reward appropriate to the achievement or behaviour.

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Case Study—Australian Health Management Group The Australian Health Management Group, a health care insurance provider with an estimated 260,000 customers through nine national health insurance brands, employs around 450 staff, 250 of them at head office in Wollongong and the other 200 in dental and eye-care centres in Sydney and Wagga Wagga. There was an intake of extra staff in 2000 to cope with the boom in the health insurance industry. The company’s current reward system has been in place for three years, following extensive consultations with staff, and is constantly being evaluated. According to human resources officer Serpil Sahin, seeking input from employees has helped the company learn important lessons about choosing the right rewards for staff. For example, one idea was to offer staff holidays as a reward, but when surveyed most senior staff indicated they’d prefer not to have holidays as a reward because of the logistics involved in organising them with their families. ‘Also, where you go on a holiday is a very personal choice and it would have ended up being very time consuming for us to tailor holidays for individual staff members,’ says Serpil. The company also recognises employee long service and offers a choice of rewards up to $1500 in value. Different levels of rewards are offered for five, ten, fifteen and 25 years of service. Past items have included DVD players, briefcases, luggage sets and, for 25 years service, a Gucci watch. ‘The gifts relates to the length of time they’ve worked for the company and is constantly upgraded. We didn’t want to just give staff money because that’s like saying if you’ve been here for ten years you’re only worth a few hundred dollars to us.’ In addition to length of service awards, team managers are able to make decisions about one-off rewards for behaviour such as successfully managing a project, or consistently outstanding

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work. These on-the-spot rewards have included movie tickets and store gift vouchers. There’s also an employee of the year award, which operates by employees nominating each other, with the final recipient determined by a panel of senior staff. The 2003 winner was rewarded with a yacht cruise with the company CEO on Sydney Harbour.

Case Study—Permanence Hair removal specialists Permanence rewards the fourteen staff at its three Sydney stores with personalised gifts on their birthdays, at Christmas, and for providing great customer service. The company’s Director Patrick Kayrooz firmly believes that gift rewards must be bought or sourced with the individual staff member in mind, along with a handwritten card thanking the employee for their specific contribution. ‘Stock presents such as company keyrings and mugs mean absolutely nothing to employees. I’ve seen hundreds of cases where staff have been given company clocks or ornaments and they just get shoved in a drawer and forgotten about. A more personal gift communicates to an employee that you know who they are and value them as a person.’ Patrick says if it can’t be an individually chosen gift, for example, gift hampers for a number of staff, he likes to include individually written cards from a supervisor or manager, thanking employees for some of their individual contributions throughout the year. ‘It shows staff you’ve gone to the trouble to get to know them, and what their interests are.’ As well as providing gifts to reward individual staff members, this company has also staged surprise dinners for staff to mark special occasions and invited their family members and friends.



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How companies are rewarding staff with gifts Homewares company Holy Sheet! rewards its 60 staff at eleven stores in Sydney and Melbourne with what it calls ‘Holy Sheet! dollars’ for achieving individual and team sales targets. The vouchers are like monopoly money and feature a cheeky picture of the company directors dressed as a devil and a convict. Staff can exchange the vouchers for any merchandise in Holy Sheet! stores. They have the function of not only rewarding staff for their sales achievements, but also enabling them to use the company’s products, thereby boosting the product knowledge they can then pass on to customers. Director Daniel Hochberg says these individual and team based gift rewards best suit the culture of the company— young, dynamic, cheeky and fun. ‘In the past we’ve considered having an employee of the month award but I don’t think it’s something staff here would be really into.’ Having both individual and team-based rewards helps get over the hurdle of a few star performers constantly being rewarded and other staff always being left out. For example, once an individual staff member sells $500 worth of product they receive a bronze certificate and Holy Sheet! dollars, once they sell $700 worth of a product they get a silver certificate and Holy Sheet! dollars and once they sell $1000 worth of product they get a gold certificate and Holy Sheet! dollars. Store teams are also rewarded for overall sales performance with Holy Sheet! dollars and other gifts such as interstate holidays. Casuals are also rewarded for their performance in this way. ‘Casuals are an important part of our workforce. We have casual staff here who are actors and students and they’re great employees, really motivated and enthusiastic. We include them in training and reward programs and try to be flexible with their work hours because we value their efforts.’


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Staff at healthcare group Allergan in the Sydney suburb of Gordon have been rewarded with expenses-paid holidays for achieving sales results, while staff who’ve been with the company for five, ten and fifteen years have been rewarded with anniversary presents. Employees are also given the company’s non-prescription products for free. Nokia has combined some of its staff benefits into what it calls a Live Life program, to try to offer employees a range of services that are perhaps less tangible than cash. The company provides each full-time staff member with a flex spending account for a specified amount per annum, on top of salary, and can be spent on benefits such as health insurance, financial planning and investment seminars, self education and personal development, benefits for childcare and care of aged relatives, work-related travel benefits, public transport to and from work, and car parking. The Savings and Loans Credit Union, based in South Australia, encourages staff to nominate their co-workers for Star of the Month awards. The winner is presented with a $100 shopping voucher at a department store, champagne and has their photo put up on a noticeboard. Gifts are also presented to employees who come up with concepts that benefit the work environment and there are special giftrewarded incentive schemes for different departments within the organisation. The company also believes in including all staff in celebrating successes. When it was recently named Credit Union of the Year, all staff received a memo from the CEO along with chocolates and a company pen. Powerlink in Queensland gives its staff a range of non cash rewards for work on individual projects, innovation and excellence in the workplace. These rewards include movie tickets, dinners, gift baskets and department lunches.



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Manager of Sydney-based public relations company Use My Mind, Adam Mumford, believes gift rewards for staff should be a complete surprise. The company gives employees a gift voucher to their favourite clothing store as a reward for a job well done. Brisbane-based bathroom products company Christiaan’s is a small family-run company that’s been operating for twenty years. Director Chris Stevens says the success of the company has largely been due to great service provided by very loyal and hard working staff. ‘Although we don’t have big budgets we do try to reward staff often for their loyalty and hard work. For example, I try to make sure all employees get to go to conferences and trade shows interstate. As a bonus I’ll add an extra couple of days on to the trip as a holiday for them, at the company’s expense. I’ll also pay for them to take their spouse along.’ Christiaan’s has also rewarded staff members such as 33-year-old Darren Hardy, who’s been with the company for fifteen years, with gifts and dinners for their anniversaries with the company. ‘It makes you feel they appreciate what you do and don’t take you for granted,’ says Darren. The company also tries to be flexible with working hours, giving staff time off during school holidays, keeping them informed about budgets and targets and letting them have as much input as possible into the everyday running of the company. Tempo Interiors, an interior design group with seven staff based in the Sydney suburb of Mosman, gives staff vouchers for facials and beauty treatments as a reward for working long hours on projects or doing something special for a customer. Employee Sue Cowell says being rewarded with a voucher for a facial makes her feel valued and appreciated. ‘It’s a reward that’s very personal and a bit of a luxury.’


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Sarah Lorden Real Estate, based in the Sydney suburb of Balmain, also rewards its staff with beauty treatment vouchers and dinners. Biotronik customer service manager, Adam Devlin, was rewarded with tickets to an art gallery exhibition for coping with the extra workload of a new product line being added to the range. Birthday cakes in the workplace are a popular staff reward. Blackmores health products company, based in Sydney, provides a birthday cake with a speech from the general manager on every staff members’ birthday—from factory workers to executives. Other workplaces to have birthday cakes on staff birthdays include the Bondi Pavilion Community Cultural Centre and Retailink. At another organisation—the Insearch Language Centre—all staff have been given a cake with their name on it on their birthday. BridgeClimb has come up with the idea of having a birthday cake day once a month and all employees who have their birthday that particular month are mentioned. Cisco Systems holds birthday breakfasts for employees in its Sydney office. Still on the subject of birthdays, Wayne Stewart, manager of the Alfred Hotel in Camperdown, organises a personal gift for the seven staff he supervises to celebrate their birthdays and also gives them the day off. ‘There’s usually a high turnover in the hospitality industry and we value the staff who have stood by us. They’re great people who know their job well.’ The Virgin Blue employee of the year has been given an expenses paid overseas trip to meet company founder Richard Branson. Nominations for the award come from fellow staff members. Staff are also given rewards such as wine and champagne for excellent customer service.



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The Southern Cross Radio Network has an employee of the month scheme for staff at its Sydney office. Employees are nominated by their peers and the successful candidate gets a fully paid-for dinner out. American Express staff are rewarded with fee-free credit cards, discounted travel and discounted travel insurance. A plaque and travellers’ cheques are given to recipients of an employee of the month award. There are also holidays for winners of the employee of the year award and the global performer of the year award. One winner of the global performer of the year award was given a trip to New York for her outstanding work in helping to get a group of people home from Bali following the 2002 bombing. The company also gives employees gift vouchers and thank-you notes. These are on an online database and are sent to both the employee and their team leader. Star City Casino rewards staff with David Jones’ gift vouchers to the value of $600 if they’re nominated for employee of the month. They’re also given free tickets to the company’s end of year ball. The employee of the year gets a fully paid-for holiday and travel vouchers. Staff discounts are available at Casino restaurants and entertainment venues, along with free meals in the staff canteen, a free laundry service for staff uniforms, free light rail travel and discounted parking. Instant Recognition Awards are given to staff members who do something special in the line of customer service, or use their initiative to solve a problem in the workplace. These involve a staff member being given a special badge to wear for 24 hours. If they get this badge fives times then they get a gold badge to wear all the time. Kennards Hire gives each Branch Manager a company car and the company pays their mobile phone bills. Any staff member


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can salary sacrifice for superannuation and the company pays income protection insurance for all staff. Sydney based BridgeClimb rewards staff who go out of their way to give excellent customer service with dinners out, movie vouchers and nights in hotels, as well as a mention in a monthly newsletter. Retailink rewards its staff with hampers at Christmas time, movie tickets, gift vouchers and merchandise bearing the Retailink logo such as pens and drink bottles.


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A great work space

Rewarding staff with the right sort of physical workplace can do a lot to boost morale and productivity levels. Some companies such as Powerlink and financial services group MLC have rewarded their employees with a self contained ‘home away from home’ to work in. In the case of Powerlink, it’s an open plan office in a tropical rainforest setting in the Brisbane suburb of Virginia. For MLC, it’s a twelvestorey award-winning redesign of a 1957 heritage building in North Sydney. While not all companies have the budget to create workspaces as spectacular as these, there are those who do their best to suit the needs of their particular employees. The most rewarding workplaces for employees are those that result from consultation with the workers who will be using them. It sounds straightforward enough but too often, workplaces are designed with the image of the company in mind and employees have very little input. Companies such as Cisco Systems, Nokia, MLC and Powerlink have exceptionally well designed functional workplaces in which staff have had input on everything from colour scheme, to the layout of desks and workstations.


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Getting the work environment right involves weighing up what your employees need to do their job well, the sort of image you’d like to project for your company, and how much you are prepared to spend. For most smaller companies, spending big money on a state of the art office is not an option, so getting the little things right is important. While a work environment such as the Powerlink or MLC building isn’t within everyone’s reach, there are little things these companies do that we can learn from. For example, Powerlink names meeting rooms after long-serving employees, and has let employees have a say in where their workstations are located to best facilitate communication with other employees and between departments. Smaller companies with less to spend have come up with staff tea rooms, chill-out or ‘quiet’ areas and introduced workplace initiatives to meet the needs of their staff. It may be as simple as providing tea and coffee making facilities and cold water—which some employers refuse to do. For smaller companies it might also mean letting employees have personal items such as photos in their workspace or a personalised screensaver on their computer. A Flight Centre employee I booked an airfare with once had a photo of his dogs as a screensaver on his computer. Staff at pacemaker sales and distribution group Biotronik also have personal screen savers on their computers which range from pictures of cars and family members to photos of Olivia Newton John. There are only fifteen employees who work in the office but the company has provided them with a lunch room and also lets them have personal items on their desk. These are small touches but things that can mean a great deal to employees who spend a lot of time in the workplace. The physical layout of a workplace can facilitate easier communication between employees and individual departments. The right sort of office furniture, lighting and a well ventilated workplace that’s not too noisy can help minimise workplace injuries and sick days. All employers have basic


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occupational health and safety obligations but many still fail to meet them. I’ve been in workplaces with no air, wires hanging from the ceiling and chairs with broken backs. Training staff in the use of office equipment and setting up the right equipment in the first place can help reduce computer related injuries such as eye strain and head, neck and arm injuries. While the manufacturing, mining and construction industries are often considered the most dangerous, a great deal of workplace injuries are now computer related. Until developments in voice activated technology do away with computer keyboards, health problems related to the over-use of computers is something employers have to deal with. With a trend in recent years towards employees working from home a day a week, or for longer periods, the problem of creating a suitable home office environment has also arisen. Employees need to be informed about how to set up the right office environment. There are also similar problems associated with hot desking, which involves staff rostered on at different times sharing the same workstation, or using the station for some of the time and also doing work on their laptop in other locations. Increasing numbers of staff are being given laptop computers and they’re working on them not only from home, but also on planes, trains and buses. No one’s advising them on how to sit or use the equipment. According to Julie Armour, managing director of workplace design consultants Working Armour, most of the workstations in which employees tend to use their laptops outside the office are anything but ergonomically sound. ‘High tech equipment is of little benefit unless people know how to use it properly. The biggest problem I see is that employers have no idea how much time their staff spend on computers. Some companies are now trying to combat keyboard over-use by trialling the idea of having one day a week where staff don’t work on a computer.’ However, hot desking also has its advantages in that it allows flexibility and saves space, and so for job


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sharing and shift work is economical. She cites the example of the Macquarie Bank, which she says has adopted a hot desk approach in its open plan office in the Sydney CBD. All employees have similar desks regardless of their job. Julie says getting staff to change bad workplace habits can also be a problem because the bad habits are sometimes deeply entrenched. ‘One client employed us to advise on office furniture. We recommended that chairs with arms be replaced because they’re not ideal for computer use, but the staff insisted on keeping chairs with arms, because that’s what they were used to. Chairs with arms were a status symbol for them.’ And it seems most employees also don’t like to rotate to left and right workstations but that’s probably the best thing they could do to lower the risk of injury through computer use. ‘Most supervisors don’t check the way staff are sitting. They don’t manage the amount of work that people do.’ At the other extreme, some large companies in the US are employing actors to spy on their staff. The ‘spies’ apparently gather information on issues such as workplace safety, theft, drug use, sabotage, waste and sexual harassment. While many companies have rewarded staff with an open plan office, Julie advises clients who want to switch to open plan offices that for some activities, such as confidential meetings, you do need a meeting room. And she says employees also feel more comfortable in a workspace where they can have some of their own personal objects. The big advantage smaller businesses have when setting up workplaces for their staff is that they can have a one-on-one conversation and ask—is this comfortable, is it practical? However, it can become a time issue for small companies and larger companies do have bigger budgets to spend on furniture and equipment in the workplace. Call centres pose their own particular barrier to rewarding staff with a great physical work environment. Call centre staff are tied to the one spot for long periods of time and every


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aspect of their work is closely monitored. It’s an industry in which staff have very little control over their workplace—in some call centres staff have to type a code into their computer if they want to take a toilet break. It’s a stressful environment with a high staff turnover, not surprisingly. A recent trend is for much higher levels of security and surveillance in workplaces, with companies increasingly monitoring who goes into buildings and what goes on in them. To help ensure the safety of employees many companies also provide taxi fares for staff who work at night.

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Reduces the number of sick days caused by keyboard injuries, eye strain and poor ventilation. Rewarding staff with a pleasant work environment can encourage greater communication between different departments. Presents a positive image of the company to both staff and clients. Boosts staff morale. Rewarding staff with a pleasant work environment can boost productivity levels. Creates a comfortable environment that staff are happy to be in if they need to work long hours.

Tips on setting up a pleasant work environment for staff

✓where they want to sit. Some departments or some staff

Involve staff in the design of the workplace. Ask them


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members may need to be together to interact and share information, but for others it might not matter. Nokia, Powerlink and MLC, for example, have received staff feedback on the redesign of their workplaces. Open plan workplaces seem to be all the rage but make sure they suit your particular business. Most open plan offices can also be noisy and a source of distraction for some staff. At least one confidential meeting room is also necessary because even in the most transparent companies private meetings will need to be held at some stage. Bear in mind that if it’s new to them, some employees might be slow to warm to the idea of an open workspace. In the past, having your own office with a door has signified status and authority so some employees might be resistant to the change. Set aside a corner of the workplace where everyone pins up jokes, humorous cartoons, staff notices and photos. Reward staff with a ‘chill-out’ room where people can take a few minutes to be on their own. If a room isn’t available this might just be a corner of the office sectioned off by some plants with a table and a few comfortable chairs. Chillout rooms help improve teamwork and reduce stress levels. Provide tea- and coffee-making facilities, access to cold water and a fridge for staff to put their lunch in. If these facilities are in place, staff are less likely to make trips out of the workplace to get snacks and buy lunch. If it’s practical, consider installing food and drink vending machines. Some companies have their own subsidised staff canteen, but if your company isn’t big enough to do this you could do something simple like provide fresh fruit for staff every day (as does Nokia) or approach a local food outlet to do a lunch delivery for orders taken by phone. Let staff choose artwork by local artists. Lease the works or rotate them regularly. It not only creates a more pleasant work environment but you’ll help promote the work of local artists.

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Reward staff with modern, comfortable office furniture. Leasing is a good way to continually update office furniture. Consult with your staff before introducing ‘fun activities’ such as game machines and music to the workplace. If they can’t be installed in an area that can be shut off, the noise might drive staff members sitting near them to despair. One workplace I visited had a pinball machine right near the editorial desk. It was a fantastic idea for the sales representatives, but the editorial staff who were trying to meet deadlines found it really distracting. Reward staff by getting all the basics right in their workplace. Ensure the area is well ventilated and has good air quality. Poor air conditioning, poor workplace design and chemicals from equipment and building materials can seriously affect employees’ health and lead to an increase in sick leave. Check that desks, chairs and keyboards are at the right height to minimise the risk of injury. Computer screens should be at eye height, make sure the mouse is at the same level as the keyboard. Encourage staff to take regular breaks and stretch. Consider using glare protectors on computer screens to minimise eye strain. Also make sure employees remember to look away from their screen regularly. Where possible, equip the workspace with fully adjustable chairs and tables, especially if there is hotdesking or when you’re setting up a new office. Poorly designed work areas can lead to stress, overuse and strain injuries. No matter what size your business is, as an employer you need to be aware of your occupational health and safety obligations. A bigger company can employ someone to look after this as their main job, but for a small business operator this might not be practical. For a very basic outline of workplace occupational health and safety obligations a good place to start is the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission (NOHSC) www.nohsc.gov.au. It consists of government,

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employee and employer representatives and aims to set up programs that prevent workplace death, injury and disease in Australian workplaces. NOHSC has a range of information packages to help small business operators in particular. Some visitors to the Powerlink building have said that part of the reason it’s such a tranquil workplace is because of all the plants—it’s in a tropical rainforest setting. Studies have shown that indoor plants can help reduce airborne toxins in the workplace and can apparently help reduce headaches, nausea and dizziness—symptoms sometimes linked to sick building syndrome. If you don’t have time to look after the plants, get them from a plant hire company who will also visit every week to water them. If you employ a workforce from diverse cultural backgrounds remember that their religious beliefs may dictate particular needs. Autoliv in Victoria has set up a prayer room for its Muslim employees, but you could also suggest giving staff the use of a room at a set time every day for this purpose. Reward staff who hotdesk by making sure there is adequate storage space for some of their personal items.

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Case Study—Powerlink Staff at Queensland energy provider Powerlink get to work in a tropical rainforest every day of the week. Powerlink is the owner-operator of Queensland’s high voltage transmission network which runs from north of Cairns in far North Queensland to the New South Wales border. It links distributors and customers with major power plants through a series of substations. The company is recognised for its cost efficiency and innovation in the development of transmission lines. With major reforms to the electricity industry in 1995, Powerlink corporatised, relocated its main office and launched a campaign to change the workplace culture from one of a


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government bureaucracy to an environment in which employees are empowered and motivated to achieve the best they can. The company’s new office has emerged from that change process. Its 500 staff, who are mostly engineers, engineering para professionals, tradespeople and other professional and administrative staff, have all had a say in the design of the new building. The Powerlink head office is situated in the Brisbane suburb of Virginia. While the majority of employees work at head office, there are also temporary site offices throughout Queensland. The Powerlink head office has an indoor tropical rainforest, located on the ground floor. It has plants, running water and even its own live frogs—as a result of an in-house frog breeding program. The rainforest is located in the middle of an open office plan. All employees have the same-sized desk and work station and there are also designated quiet areas and meeting rooms. The leafy green plants and sounds of running water create a tranquil and soothing atmosphere— it’s very hard to imagine anyone stressing out in this highly unusual work environment. There’s a staff recreation club, a subsidised staff canteen, and a subsidised staff gym on site. Once you turn up for work there’s really no need to leave the building—everything is under one roof. There are also special touches, such as naming meeting rooms after long serving employees, that set this workplace apart. While the building was designed by architect Peddle Thorp, employees requested a pleasant, egalitarian, open-plan building and that’s exactly what they’ve been given. This state of the art workplace isn’t the only way Powerlink rewards its staff, as it’s tied in with an overall reward scheme that also includes performance bonuses, family friendly practices and training opportunities. The company’s human resources team has also been recognised for making a shift from a traditional personnel management approach to one of strategic human resources management.


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Change Consultant Michelle Smith has been with Powerlink for twelve years. She started off in Human Resources but has been able to perform in a variety of roles within the company. Asked why she’s stayed with Powerlink for so long, Michelle says it’s because she loves her work environment, she’s recognised for her efforts—through monetary and non monetary means—and there’s been good opportunities for career development. ‘There’s a lot of autonomy in your job here, because staff are thought of as people who add value to the company. We’ve tried to provide people with the best workplace facilities they need to feel comfortable and do their job well.’ She says the Powerlink open plan workplace design also ties in with an attempt to remove a lot of the bureaucracy and rules that bind people. Management places a lot of trust in staff to do the right thing and get the job done. Things like credit cards for on-the-job expenses are given to all staff. Michelle says as a Powerlink employee there’s a sense that everyone must be accountable because they’re working for a government organisation. ‘People look at us to lead the way and for our cost efficiency and management practices. We’ve implemented leading edge technology in a number of areas. We provide this great work environment to try to hang on to good people. Our competitors can copy our technology but they can’t copy our staff.’

Case Study—MLC Financial services group MLC has an office in North Sydney that’s been redesigned to reflect a change in the company’s culture to one that’s more open, transparent, creative and innovative. MLC set out to change its management structure to collaborative teams of people, or business units, who invented new products in the financial services market. The new multilevel, open plan office is a truly spectacular revamp of a 1957


A GREAT WORK SPACE

heritage building. While the old MLC offices were cramped, and featured closed doors and petitions, the new office layout is on twelve levels all linked by a central spiral staircase. Campus MLC—as the new building is called—has won a string of design awards both here and overseas, including the 2002 Royal Australian Institute of Architects Award for Interior Design. It’s a unique work environment and more like an upmarket self contained community than an office, which MLC Project Director Rosemary Kirby says was part of the idea behind it. The design was completed in December 2001 and around 1900 people work in the building. There are no separate offices, and therefore no barriers between staff and management. To encourage staff to move between floors, each one has a special theme and is furnished accordingly, and each level can be easily accessed by staff from other departments. ‘The building articulates who we are and what we stand for. That includes long term productivity and transparency with our customers,’ says Kirby. To give you one example, level three has a Japanese-style meeting room and is called the Zen Den. Employees sit on cushions as if they were in a Japanese restaurant. There’s a whiteboard on one side of the room and an aquarium on the other. Near the lifts there are bowls of stones employees can handle to help relieve stress. Another floor is called The Beach and has a blue and yellow striped carpet. There’s also a Heritage floor where some of the features of the original building are emphasised, a Gallery floor which is a contemplative space, and a level that features a long urban tunnel with artwork painted by young people involved in a Mission Australia Kids Off The Street project. There are lounges and reading areas on each level and designated meeting areas have transparent petitions. There are also fully adjustable workstations. All the work stations have window views with plenty of natural light, there are desks for visiting workers and the company has provided

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staff with chill-out rooms complete with lounges and small fridges. There are two main meeting rooms divided by a moving wall that can also be used as a whiteboard. Whiteboards and blackboards are scattered throughout the building and employees are provided with kitchen facilities, tea and coffee and fresh fruit. Rosemary Kirby, who’s also overseen a project to design a new National Australia Bank workplace at Docklands in Melbourne, says before this MLC building was redesigned, focus groups and workshops were held to get staff input. ‘We asked people to describe their ideal workplace and to tell us what they thought they needed to do their job more efficiently. They’ve had input into everything from the design to the colour scheme and furniture.’ One example she gives is that some employees suggested that they’d feel most comfortable working in a space that was like a Darlinghurst cafe. So the company found a cafe owner who wanted to relocate and there’s now a cafe level in the building. Meetings are held at the tables and staff come and work at them with their laptops. Campus MLC also includes a state of the art call centre. The operations of the call centre are arranged in star clusters so that no staff members face each other. There’s a coffee lounge area in the middle, lots of natural light and the star cluster set-up helps reduce noise levels. And the centre is positioned so that employees feel as though they’re part of the rest of MLC’s offices. Architect James Gruse from Bligh Voller Nield says he’s tried to create a habitat within the building. ‘Architecture is about providing habitat for people and this space is like a big university campus. We wanted people to feel at home here and to feel content. We also wanted it to reflect layers of multiculturalism.’ James says although a lot of other companies see the building and say ‘we want one’ they might not necessarily be ready for it in terms of the way their company operates.


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Rosemary Kirby says MLC has consistently low staff turnover levels and gets a number of enquiries from prospective employees who see photos of the building on the Internet. This is confirmed by Debra Woolley, the manager of Wealth Management Workplaces, ‘People are impressed with the building but it’s really part of the overall culture we have here. No one owns a desk—it’s all very egalitarian and the message we try to get across is that no one job is more important than another.’

How companies are rewarding staff with a great work environment Cisco Systems has what it calls a ‘break out’ area for staff on each of the eight floors of its Sydney office. The company also provides employees with free fruit juice, soft drinks, bottled water, biscuits and fruit. Nokia’s Sydney operations moved to a new building at Pyrmont in September 2001 and staff have had a great deal of input into the design of the entire workplace. The main reception area of the Nokia building has an open foyer with plenty of space, buckets of sunshine and fantastic views of Sydney Harbour. Staff have access to both quiet rooms and meeting rooms, and work areas are what the company calls team and flow based. They’re designed according to an open plan allowing teams that work together to sit together, with the open-plan environment also intended to facilitate communication between staff members. Cable television has also been provided in all parts of the building, including kitchen areas. Staff committees have been formed to advise management on everything from the layout of their work area, to office colour schemes and the placement of meeting rooms.


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American Express lets its staff have some personal items in workspaces. International Gaming Technology provides on-site dry cleaning and car servicing for staff negotiated special rates with outside service providers. Dry cleaning is dropped off at reception then can be collected by staff the next day. Car servicing works in a similar way—a mechanic picks up the employee’s car from IGT and returns it that afternoon. These are great initiatives that could be adopted by a company of any size. The offices of travel group the Flight Centre are designed to look like the old airline counters of the 1970s and 1980s. Staff are provided with fit balls to sit on to help prevent back and neck strain and all behind-the-scenes workspaces are informal and open plan.


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ibliography

ACTU, 2003, ‘80% Of Workers Want Family Friendly Laws, Cap On Hours,’ ACTU National Survey of Workplace Issues www.actu.asn.au/public/news/ Australian Institute of Management, 2002, ‘Key Findings National Salary Survey 2002,’ Management Research Series, no. 2, pp. 8–9, www.aimsurveys.com.au/National_ Salary_Survey_2002.pdf Balough, S., 2002, ‘Yule be sorry BHP’, The Australian, 18 December 2002, p. 5 Brayton Bowen, R., 2000, Recognising and Rewarding Employees, McGraw Hill, New York Deeprose, D., 1994, How To Recognise & Reward Employees, American Management Association, New York Fox, C., 2003, ‘Off To Work—Best Employers 2003’, Australian Financial Review, BOSS, no. 3, March, pp. 20–27 Hewitt Associates, 2003, ‘Flight Centre and Cisco Systems Named Australia’s Overall Best Employers in 2003 Study’, www. hewittasia.com/hewitt/ap/resource/newsroom/pressrel/2003, 15 March 2003 Leadership Management Australia, 2001, The LEAD2001 Survey Leadership Employment and Direction, Leadership Management Australia & Qantum Market Research Melbourne p. 165


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Life By Design, ‘Corporate Case Studies’, www.lifebydesign.com.au/ corporate/case-studies, 2 February 2003 Managing Work Life Balance, 2002, ‘Work/Life Initiatives—The Way Ahead, Fifth Annual Benchmarking Survey. Executive Summary for 2002,’ www.worklifebalance.com.au, 7 March 2003 Mount Eliza Business School, 2002, ‘Work Life Balance Tops Managers’ Priority List,’ Mount Eliza Leadership, www.mteliza.edu.au, 8 April 2003 Nelson, B., 1994, 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, Workman Publishing Company, New York Pricewaterhouse Coopers, ‘New Australasian Research Proves Positive Link Between Effective People Management and Profitability,’ www.pwcglobal.com/extweb/ncpressrelease.nsf, 18 January 2003 Work and Family Unit—Department of Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business, 2000, 2001, 2002, ACCI Corporate Work & Family Awards Finalists Booklet, Department of Employment Workplace Relations and Small Business, Canberra


Index ACCI awards, 58–9 ACTU, 41 Acumen Alliance, 59 Acumentum Multimedia, 110, 132, 150 Addison, Garry, 13–15 aging workforce, 3 AIDS Trust of Australia, 91 Alcoa, 40 Alfred Hotel, 110, 162 Allergan, 74–5, 160 American Express, 34, 75, 112, 134, 163, 178 Amgen, 33, 75, 98 AMP, 30, 40, 92, 96 Ansett, 2 Armour, Julie, 167–9 A.T. Kearney, 98, 111 Aussie Home Loans, 137 Australia Post, 75 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 57 Australian Business Register, 81 Australian Consolidated Press, 56 Australian Graduate School of Management, 5 Australian Health Management Group, 32, 56, 157 Australian Institute of Management, 106 annual salary survey, 6 Australian Red Cross, 87 Australian Seabird rescue, 87 Australian Tax Office workplace giving program, 81 Australian Volunteers International, 82 Australia’s Wonderland, 151 Autoliv Australia, 37, 52–3 Bandaged Bear Day, 88

Barnardo’s Australia, 87 Bashinsky, Alex, 126 BBC, 101 Best Companies to Work for in Australia survey, 5 BHP Biliton, 89–90, 153–4 Bicentennial Park, 87 Biotronik, 75, 110, 131–2, 152, 162 birthday cakes, 162 Blackmores, 30, 162 Bligh Voller Nield, 176 Body Shop Australia, 44, 54, 83–5, 110–11 Bolger, Amanda, 129–30 Bondi Pavilion Community Cultural Centre, 162 Botanic Gardens, 135, 141 Branson, Richard, 162 Bridge Climb, 72, 113, 119–20, 136, 164 Bristol Myers Squibb, 75, 85–6 BTR Automatic Drivetrain Systems, 73, 98 call centres, 18, 168–9 Caltex, 31 Camp Quality, 90 Campbell, Rachael, 105 Campus MLC, 175–7 Cancer Council, 123 Canon, 18 Canteen, 89 Carlton and United Breweries, 30 Carrol, John, 146 cash bonuses, 12, 60–75 Children’s Medical Research Institute, 87


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chill out rooms, 170 Christiaans, 71–2, 148, 161 christmas parties, 133–4, 136, 141, 151 Cisco Systems, 57, 89, 116, 126, 162, 165, 177 City To Surf, 31 Clean Up Australia Day, 90 Cleveland Street High School, 88 C91.3, 124 coaching, 14, 93, 95–7 Coates, Todd, 119 Colonelli, Noreen, 109 Commonwealth Bank, 40–1 Community and Public Sector Union, 37 community projects, 76–92 Conder, Chris, 67–8 Conservation Volunteers Australia, 89–90 Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, 38 Copabella Mine, 27–30 corporate social responsibility, 77 counselling, 98–9, 101–2 Cowell, Sue, 161 CPA Australia, 13 CRS, 98 CSL, 98 Daffodil Day, 88 Daus, Barry, 123 David Jones, 154–5 Davidson Trahair, 97 Dell Computers, 138 Deutsche Bank, 136 Devlin, Adam, 131 DHL Worldwide Express, 90 Diageo Australia, 30–1, 72, 109, 147 Dimension Data, 152 discounted share options, 62 Diversity at Work, 83 Downs, Kerry, 114 Dupont, 17 Earthwatch Institute Australia, 87 EL Consult, 61 Electrical Trade Union, 38 Employee Assistance Program, 97 Enron, 2, 62

Environmental Solutions International, 54 Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act (1999), 38–9 Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, 38–9, 44–5 Ernst and Young, 91 FAI Insurance, 2 Families at Work, 44 Family Based Care Association, 59 family friendly practices, 8, 35–59 Flight Centre, 33, 74, 107–8, 116, 122, 150, 166, 178 Fonte, Aurora, 125 Ford, 88 Freehills, 152 French, Zarli, 51–2 Fringe Benefits Tax, 13–15 Fujitsu, 18 Gavin Macleod Concrete Plumbing, 59 Gelhard, Julia, 34–6 General Electric, 17 gift(s), 153–64 tokens, 154 vouchers, 154, 156, 161 Gillis, Claire, 132 Godfrey Pembroke Financial Consultants, 96 Golland, Lorraine, 146–7 Good Grief Program, 91 Goodman Fielder, 96 Granger, Ellen, 84–5 Grocon Construction, 38 Gruse, James, 176 Hackham and Seaford Bottle Co, 59 Halls, Jonathon, 101 Hardy, Darren, 161 health and fitness initiatives, 16–34 Heat Group, 53 Hemopo Denise, 125 Henricks, Greg, 124 Hewitt Associates, 5, 118 Heywood, Louise, 18–19 HIH, 2, 134 Hills Industries, 75 Hinde, Corey, 17–18


INDEX Hochberg, Daniel, 63, 104–5, 159 Hollywood Hospital, 39 Holy Sheet!, 103–5, 147–8, 159 hot desking, 167 HSBC Bank, 87 humour workshops, 99 Hutchinson, Ian, 96–7, 101 Iams Australia, 146–7 IBM, 40, 152 Inchcape Motors Australia Limited, 96 Insearch Language Centre, 162 International Gaming Technology, 33, 57–8, 69–71, 88, 113–14, 132, 151–2, 178 Jaensch, Debrah, 49 Jeans for Genes Day, 88 Johnson and Johnson Jansenn Cilag, 32 Kayrooz, Patrick, 158 Keep Our Kids Alive, 88 Kennard, Andy, 121 Kennards Hire, 32, 65–9, 111–12, 120–2, 151, 163–4 Kirby, Rosemary, 175–7 Kool 4 Kats, 130 Krautil, Fiona, 39, 45

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MacKillop Foundation, 91 Macquarie Bank, 168 Macquarie Graduate School of Management, 7, 116 Magic Door Industries, 148 Mallesons, 30, 91 management style, 115–32 Managing Work Life Balance, 36 Maree, Gerard, 131 Marshall, Kirstie, 47 material rewards, 2, 6 Melbourne Water, 56, 108–9, 152 mentoring, 93, 97 Merck Sharp and Dohme, 31, 50–2, 73–4, 89, 98, 112, 149 MLC Financial Services, 30, 165–6, 170, 174–7 MLC School, 138–9 Montgomery, Grant, 61–2, 64 Moore, Michael, 86 Morrison, Stephanie, 49–50 Mount Eliza Business School, 41 Muletic, Sharon, 19–20 Mumford, Adam, 127–8, 161 Murphy, Lee, 25–6

Lahoud, Dounnia, 109 Lamond, Professor David, 116–17 Lancken, Peter, 66 Landcare, 88, 90 Learning Links, 82 Lee, Patty, 98–9 Legis, Olivier, 156 Leichhardt Fitness Studio, 19–20 Lend Lease, 31, 89 Life By Design, 96, 101 Ligias, George, 68–9 Lilly, Ian, 106–7 Lindsay, Katrina, 27 Lion Nathan, 74 Longreef Beach, 87 Longstaff, Dr Simon, 79

Nash, Kate, 129 National Breast Cancer Foundation, 91 National Occupational Health and Safety Commission, 171–2 National Survey of Workplace Issues, 41 National Training Information Service, 94 National Work and Family Awards, 48 Netscape Communications, 138 New South Wales Rural Fire Service, 87 Nokia Australia, 25–7, 54–5, 73, 87, 160, 165, 170, 177 non cash benefits, 153–64 non material rewards, 2 Northern Land Council, 88 Norton Street Newsagent, 138 NRMA, 90 Nutrafit Training Systems, 17–18, 22

Macarthur Coal, 27–30 McCarthy, Paul, 145–6 McDonald’s Australia, 98

O’Connor, Melanie, 7–8, 11 OECD, 117 office parties, 133


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One.Tel, 2 open plan office, 168 Optus, 135 Oz Child, 91 Paul McCarthy Advertising, 53, 113, 120, 145–6, 150 Permanence, 109, 158 Petersham TAFE, 123 pets at work days, 144, 146–7 Pharmacia, 96 Portmans, 20 Positive Outcomes, 78 Powerlink, 32, 53, 73, 98, 113, 121, 131–7, 150, 160, 165–6, 170, 172–4 professional and personal development, 93–114 profit sharing, 6, 8, 60–75

Spastic Society, 91 special events, 133–52 STA travel, 148 Star City Casino, 75, 105–7, 163 Starlight Children’s Foundation, 87 Starr, Ben, 123 Stephan, Shane, 27–9 Strategic Human Resource Solutions, 7 Sunrise Bakery, 90 Sydney Airports Corporation Limited, 135 Sydney City Mission, 88 Tasmanian Forestry Commission, 18 Telstra, 90 Tempo Interiors, 161 training, 93–5, 101, 103–14 Truffle Group, 135–7

Randwick Community Pharmacy, 144 Ray White Real Estate, 137 Red Cross Blood Bank, 90 Red Nose Day, 91 Redmond, Louise, 78–9 Regent Hotel, 152 Rescue Helicopter Service, 88 Retailink, 72, 91, 113, 125–6, 148–9, 164 RSPCA, 87

United Breweries, 30 United Way, 91 University of New South Wales, 132 Urban Contractors, 90–1 Use My Mind, 53–4, 88, 127–9, 138, 161

St James Ethics Centre, 79 Sapin, Serpil, 157 Sara Lee Household and Body Care Australia, 33, 55–6 Sarah Lorden Real Estate, 162 Savings and Loans Credit Union, 33, 47–50, 110, 149, 160 SC Johnson and Son, 57 sex segregated workforce, 117 Sharpe, Anne, 144 Shell Australia, 91 Smith Family, 88 Smith Kline Beacham, 148 Smith, Michelle, 174 Somerville Community Services, 33, 58 Southern Cross Radio Network, 163

Walter Construction Group, 38 Western Power, 91 Westpac, 30, 40, 88, 98 Westpoint Shopping Centre, Blacktown, 125 Wheat, Sally, 135–7 White Space Consulting Group, 134–6 Wintringham, 73 Woodside Energy, 40 Workcover, 131 Working Armour, 167 Workplace Australia Group, 55, 149 World Wildlife Fund Australia, 87

Virgin Blue, 129–30, 152, 162 Volaric, Mirjam, 154–5 Volunteer Bushfire Brigade, 90

Yarra Valley Water, 32, 98, 150 Young and Rubican, 152

Just Rewards: Reward Your Staff and Reap the Benefits

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The Cloak and the Staff

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