Answers to HR

Interesting Stuff: Key Findings from the 08 Working Australian Opinion Survey

2008-05-14T23:11:00.001-07:00

In February 2008, Onetest invited thousands of workers across Australia to provide their opinions on various employment issues. More than 4,300 participated in the survey which revealed some particularly interesting statistics across a broad range of areas.

Here are some of the key findings:

68 per cent of people were happy to work for either a man or woman, but of those who had a preference, 70 per cent preferred a male boss.
69 per cent of people said a company’s maternity/paternity package would impact on their decision to select an employer
The majority of people would break a recruitment contract to accept a better offer from another employer
92 per cent of employees expect to receive a cash bonus between $100 - $1,000 for referring a new employee to a company
Being green and socially responsible are very important employer attributes to workers
Over 50 per cent think employers should encourage them to be fit and healthy, with 92 per cent saying they are more productive at work when at their best physically and emotionally

Want to know more? Download the survey from www.onetest.com.au/workingaussiesurvey

Organisational Values

2007-10-10T02:25:00.000-07:00

Do your organisational values match with those of employees in the company? This question is receiving an increasing amount of attention. Why? Because the answers really matter – they affect the bottom line.

Recent research has confirmed what has been suspected for some time. The level of match or “congruence” between the organisation’s values and those of its employees has important outcomes for employees and ultimately the organisation they work for. For example, organisational-employee values congruence is an excellent predictor of organisational commitment.

And not surprisingly in light of the other research findings, values congruence has been found to be a strong predictor of both employees’ intention to leave and turnover. The principle at play here is quite simple – if we remember that our individual values are like “needs”, employees who feel their needs are not being met in their current role tend to seek out work environments they perceive will better fulfil those needs.

If we know that this concept of values congruence really matters, both in terms of employee and organisational outcomes, how do we go about identifying organisational and individual values?

Consistent with the research, we need to use scientific tools, custom-built and validated for the purpose of assessing values. With these tools, we also need to ensure we measure both organisational and individual values. It is only when we assess both of these things that we can quantify the level of values congruence and accordingly give us the power to predict the important employee outcomes discussed above.

Interesting Stuff: Confidence in staff

2007-10-10T01:18:00.000-07:00

According to a global survey that included 19 Australian senior executives, Australian bosses have less confidence in their workers than the other countries.

This contrasted markedly with management within the other countries in the survey, who all expressed a significantly higher opinion of their employees. Of the 19 Australian bosses:

None believed 75 per cent or more of their staff were performing at industry leading levels
63% believed more than half of their workers were sub-par. They complained most Australian workers don't understand the mission of their employer and can't understand where their job fits into the organisation

People quality and people performance are the leading drivers of success for mid-sized Australian companies.

Compared with companies that do not expect to increase profits, companies expecting profit increases are 30 per cent more likely to focus on people quality and are 44 per cent more likely to nominate people performance as the major driver to improve business performance in the next 12 months.

Sources:
High Performance Workplace Study by Accenture, which surveyed 200 senior executives from the US, the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Australia, as reported in MIS, June 2003

“Business Insights Survey March 2004” conducted by Woolcott Research for Pricewaterhouse Coopers, as reported in Human Resources, 7 April 2004

Recruiting Safe People

2007-10-09T23:33:00.000-07:00

Did you know that:

90% of workplace accidents are due to human error?
In Australia alone, over 15 serious injuries occur every hour and at least one death per day?
1.2 million weeks are lost each year to absenteeism?
The total cost of workplace injury is estimated at more than $20 billion?

I am often approached by organisations who are looking for ways to to gauge the safety risk of candidates...after all work cover claims can have a nasty affect on the bottom line and NO ONE wants the death of a staff member on their shoulders (or in the media - eek!).

So what can companies do these days? Can you actually measure potential safety risk?

Organisations such as Vedior (formerly Select Australiasia) have reduced their work injury claims by 71% and lost time due to injuries by 40% by incorporating psychometric safety assessments- read more.

Linfox Armaguard is in the same boat (or vault - haha) - read more.

Psychometric Testing

2007-09-16T22:09:00.000-07:00

I remember the days when psychometric tests were as painful as a trip to the dentist......I'll never forget having to take 3 1/2 hours off work to go into a random city office to complete the 50 page tests. I was in a room with other applicants (talk about uncomfortable!) as well as a loud ticking clock....oh yes, I also got a parking fine - fun.

Psychometric assessments are not meant to be painful - and why should they be? The candidate experience shouldn't be a pain in the you know where. Thank god for the 20 minute online tests available now - if only I could have avoided that fine! :)

Interesting Stuff: The Sickie Culture

2007-09-16T21:14:00.000-07:00

1 in 5 people surveyed said that they would pull a "sickie" when they weren't really sick....!

Some say this is probably an underestimate of the problem with a number of surveys indicating that up to 50% of Australians have taken at least one day off when they were not really sick.

Research suggests there are a few key reasons why people take sickies....in many cases it is to cope with other responsibilities that employees have. Caring for children, for example, is a major cause of undocumented sick leave.

Our in-house org psych's say that one of the main ways to combat this type of sick leave is to have flexible work options that allow people to meet their family and other obligations, while working from home or working non-standard hours......looks like it is working for us....