September 06 Newsletter

Coming Soon!

We have partnered with Oxygen Learning once again (as they were so much fun!) to host an exciting complimentary presentation titled MASTERING YOUR MOTIVATION.

This presentation will focus on:

Increasing your Potential
Improving your Performance
Managing your "emotional state" more effectively

The presentation will be held on the 1st of November – we will keep you posted and send you more information soon, but keep this date in mind as I’m sure you wouldn’t want to miss an evening such as this!

As Anthony Robbins will tell you: it's never a matter of skill . . . it's a matter of motivation!

Here's some of the feedback from our last Oxygen Learning session....

"It was great, it flew by and held my interest the entire time, I really liked the way they linked the ideas, it made me remember the key points.”

"The whole evening was really good . . . Marcus was really interesting and entertaining."

"The workshop last night has done good things for me already! When I came home last night I wrote up 2 long emails that I've been postponing for a while now and today I've been going berserk with work . . . it's been a very productive 24 hours. Thanks for inviting me and I'd love to hear about more in the future!"

"I really enjoyed the workshop and thought they were very creative. I was particularly impressed that they managed to make all the people laugh."

"Loved the workshop, very impressed, fantastic . . . I've raved about them to everyone!"

Green work space the key to retaining Gen Y workers

Providing an environmentally sustainable workplace is becoming increasingly critical for employers wanting to attract and retain the Generation Y worker, delegates were told at a recent Property Council of Australia Congress on Queensland's Gold Coast.
During a panel discussion, Bovis Lend Lease's head of sustainability, Paul Edwards, said that providing a sustainable, well-designed workplace was emerging as a key issue in staff retention.

He highlighted the move by Lend Lease from its long-time Sydney headquarters in Australia Square to the award-winning The Bond development in Millers Point, Sydney, which was at the forefront of green development in Australia.

During a post-occupancy staff survey, Mr Edwards said staff had nominated a range of health benefits from the move. Fifty-seven per cent of staff had complained of sore eyes in Australia Square versus 36.6 per cent in The Bond.

When it came to tiredness, the outcome was 53.1 per cent versus 17.3 per cent. As for headaches, 33.6 per cent of staff had suffered in Australia Square compared with just 12.6 per cent in The Bond.

And far fewer workers had contracted colds or sore throats in their new working environment.

Overall, 84 per cent of staff said they were more comfortable in The Bond and 42 per cent indicated they were more comfortable in the extreme.

Fair enough, but had that translated to higher staff productivity?

Mr Edwards acknowledged yesterday that it was still virtually impossible to measure the impact of work spaces on productivity; he argued that even a minor improvement - say 2 per cent - was enough to pay for the cost of introducing environmentally sustainable design initiatives into new commercial buildings.

"We as an industry produce 40 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from buildings," Mr Edwards said. "We have a responsibility to change how we produce buildings for tenants."
One of the real drivers of change will be the Generation Y worker.

Panel speaker Simon Hunt, national executive director of commercial and retail leasing for Colliers International, said that Generation Y was very concerned about sustainability and the environment and there was evidence to suggest this had an impact on staff recruitment and retention.

With that generation to represent 40 per cent of the Australian workforce in five years time, up from 20 per cent now, Mr Hunt said this would become increasingly critical for employers.

In some cases, it had already been a significant factor in company relocations such as the recent PricewaterhouseCoopers move to Freshwater Place in Melbourne.

Staff issues aside, there was a general agreement among yesterday's speakers that green buildings would soon provide a tangible benefit for building owners in the form of higher property valuations.

Green Building Council chief executive Romilly Madew said discussions were under way with the Australian Property Institute to assess the techniques employed in valuing green buildings.

An issue for valuers had been that the green rating systems hadn't been in place in Australia for long enough - indeed, there weren't enough green-rated buildings - for valuers to have the necessary evidence to benchmark the impact of green initiatives on property values, Ms Madew said. This would be addressed in a report to be completed early next year.

Article from: Kathryn House, Australian Financial Review

Update on record keeping requirements

For those of you concerned about the introduction of the new employee record keeping regulatory obligations on 26 September please be aware that the federal government has announced a further six month period for preparation.

Employers are now required to comply with the employee record keeping obligations from 27 March 2007.

What’s happening with Beaumonts?

Congratulations Pip! - Our beautiful office manager Philippa has been gallivanting across the US of A for the past month. She does have a good reason though – it was her honeymoon! Big congratulations go out to her and her husband Matthew. Welcome back Mrs Burke, we missed you!

Our big boss Nikki has just left for India for a month on another of her aid trips! - Last year Nikki undertook a trek to a remote village in the Huayhuash Mountains in Peru to install solar lighting which, for families who usually burn wood or dung for heating & light in their 12 hours of darkness a day, made an enormous difference! This year Nikki is taking part in a similar scheme in India and has been raising funds for the past 6 months to supply these solar lights and to buy essentials for needy children & families in India. Things we take for granted such as books, crayons, pens, paper are almost unknown luxuries to children in these communities - Nikki says that the gratitude the recipients show for these simple gifts would melt the hardest heart!!

This trip is to one of the least visited and uninhabited parts of the Indian Himalayas, the Kumoan region. Most of this area has been off-limits to foreign travelers until recent years. Nikki will be joining a small team of volunteers to take solar lighting and other supplies to some of the most remote villages in the Kumoan region. Following ancient trails once used for trade with Tibet and crossing the Nanda Devi Mountains, the high altitude trek will take Nikki 7 - 10 days with 18 porters trekking for 6 – 10 hours a day just to reach her destination. There she will assemble the lights using local help in small tents under freezing conditions. Let's hope she comes back safely...

And last but by no means least… - a big welcome to the new girls! Emily Wheeldon joins the Business Support team in the city and Louise Robinson is the lovely new face in our Chatswood office. We wish them all the best!

Temp of the month

Outstanding performance from our temps doesn’t go unnoticed. We truly appreciate their efforts and therefore would like to acknowledge the great work they are doing for us.

Our September Temp of the Month award goes to Kirstin Donaldson. She has received fantastic feedback with her employers saying she has been doing a really good job and has been very versatile in her role.

Kirstin is pictured here whilst on assignment at Regal Health Services. She gets a $100 voucher from the store of her choice.

Joke of the month

What did the zero say to the eight?
Nice belt!

Quote of the month

Do or do not. There is no try.

- Yoda, 'The Empire Strikes Back'