October 08 Newsletter

Managing in difficult economic conditions

With global recession looming leaders and managers confront more difficult questions and choices. Outlined below are 10 steps that successful leaders take during economic downturn to maintain stability, keep an organisation moving forward and come out on top. While some steps are generally good management practices, others are unique to difficult economic conditions.

Financials:
1. Narrow focus and move quickly to control spending and reduce costs. Winners will focus on a few crucial priorities where they can acquire a clear lead, rather than pursueing unprofitable sales.
2. Avoid across-the-board cutbacks and preserve areas that customers most value. When organisations uniformly cut costs they can damage their press release ability to sell and deliver products and services. Ask your customers what they value most.
3. Bear in mind alternative strategies to layoffs. Downsizing can be positive in the short-term, but often creates negative consequences in the long-term. Consider alternatives such as; cutting management bonuses, freezing salaries, and reducing compensation options. Very importantly, communicate the rationale and impact to employees.
4. Invest in opportunity - downturns present bargains. Investment in working capital, manufacturing, and administration doesn’t pay off as well as investing in new assets and in new talent. Good areas are research and development, marketing, and customer-perceived quality.

People:
5. Keep and develop your top talent. Providing development experiences and rotational assignments helps retain top workers. During a downturn high-impact employees are often liable to being head-hunted by a competitor.
6. Ensure everyone’s together. Performance suffers when there is a lack of alignment on key goals. Effective leaders frame an agenda and meet with key stakeholders to gain support and build commitment to inclusive values and goals.
7. Empower your people. Encourage employees’ questions and new ideas and ask for their input.

Climate:
8. Handle the pressure. Leaders can be tempted to make unilateral, tough decisions. That’s often a mistake as it can lack broad based support and often diminishes constructive conflicts that challenge the status quo and impels good decision-making.
9. Communicate genuinely. Strong leaders acknowledge the challenges they deal with and so build trust from colleagues.
10. Create a realistic, positive vision and attitude. Good businesses exercise discipline and focus by activating employees to respond to customers’ values and interests. This strengthens the chance, when a downturn ends, that they come out on top.

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Challenges for parents returning to work

In a recent survey by CareerMums some key themes emerged about the challenges faced by parents returning to work:

A need for work from home arrangements for some of the week.
A lack of support by employers in attracting their staff back to work after parental leave.
The cost of child care and the failure of the 50% child care rebate in drawing parents back to work.

Kate Sykes, Founder of CareerMums said “There are some quite straightforward means to overcoming these persistent challenges. Employers and the Government need to make some simple and long overdue changes to practices and policies which will only improve productivity. There is a hidden workforce that is ready to work. Let’s start using home grown talent before we become too reliant on importing it.”

Finding flexible work was one of the biggest barriers, according to 72% of 420 parents surveyed. The flexibility parents were seeking included; job share arrangements, work from home arrangements for some of the week, part time as in a reduced number of days, part time to fit with school hours, and leave during school holidays.

‘Stay in Touch’ programs are essential in retaining employees on parental leave; only 15% of those surveyed said their employer had offered support in a return to work plan.

The cost of child care is one of the biggest barriers, as pointed out by 40% of respondents. The 50% child care rebate makes little difference to returning to work for many parents. Only 2% of respondents said that it made a significant difference. The Government needs to readdress issues with child care, including the over-privatisation of child care centres, and the monitoring and control of child care costs.

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Workplace humour lifts job satisfaction

A climate of humour in the workplace contributes to as much as 40% of employee engagement, according to new research from Melbourne's Swinburne University.

The survey of 300 workers from 20 countries also found that individual personality and mood were major drivers of job satisfaction.

Lead researcher Maren Rawlings said the study found that the more positive, rather than negative humour was used in a workplace, the more satisfied and engaged staff became. She said the survey also found that no humour, or negative humour, was associated with lower levels of job satisfaction.

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Australian Human Rights Commission

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) has undergone some changes and is now known as the Australian Human Rights Commission. The Commission’s legal name will still remain the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

This is the new logo for Australian Human Rights Commission:

The new design reflects an evolution from HREOC and includes the words, ‘everyone, everywhere, everyday’, taken from their new vision statement, “Human rights: everyone, everywhere, everyday”.

The new image of the commission is a first step to make sure Australians are aware there is an independent national institution responsible for protecting and promoting human rights in Australia. The commission’s aims are outlined in their new vision and mission statements and can be found at: www.humanrights.gov.au/about/index.html

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Temp of the month

A big warm congratulations goes to our October Temp of the Month Freya Rogul. Freya has been working for PinPoint Marketing for the last 6 months and this is what her manager had to say about her:

"Freya’s willingness to assist staff and customers alike, her ability to pick up instructions easily, her excellent attendance record, her reliability and her flexibility with start and finish times make her one of the best employee’s that we currently have on board. Freya gets the job done whilst always maintaining a smile on her face in what can sometimes be a very frustrating business. If we could order another dozen just like her our jobs as managers would be easy!"

Freya, we're so pleased that you have won our monthly award, you're a true Temp Star - hope you enjoy spending your gift voucher too!

In addition to our fantastic winner, we also received some excellent and very well deserved nominations this month. We would like to make a special mention to the following peopl..

Jarlath Mcateer – Jarlath was nominated by his manager who has been impressed by his continuous high performance since starting in his role. Jarlath has performed excellently in his role and has assimilated well within the team. He thinks outside the box, comprehends new processes easily and is an autonomous employee who shows commitment to his role.

Well done Jarlath – such positive feedback for your first role with Beaumont Consulting. Thank you!!

Eveline Hughes – Eveline went in for a short term reception position and they love her so much that if she could work full time, they would want to snap her up!! Eveline will ideally be looking for part time work though so we will be looking hard for her! Eveline, thank you for all of your hard work and conscientiousness - you have been commended for your use of initiative, warm friendly attitude and dedication. It's a pleasure working with people like you.

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Whats on in Sydney in October

Walk to Work Day – Oct 3rd

Manly Jazz Festival - Oct 4th - Oct 6th

Sydney Childrens Festival – Sep 27th – Oct 11th

Ride to Work day – Oct 15th

Spring Cycle 2008 – Oct 19th

Danks Street Festival – Oct 26th