Transforming your business with a leading edge mobility strategy
INSTO Australian Finance & Capital Markets Magazine July 2006
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The truth about rewards and remuneration
Financial Review
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Winning Trust and Influencing People
Weekend Review
Recognition and rewards deliver satisfied employees, says a human resources lecturer.Story Narelle Hooper
Human resources lecturer and consultant Karen van Druten says she can tell a good employer the minute she walks through the door or into the lift. It’s the vibe. “They have a different feel. There’s a sense of optimism that you don’t feel in other places.”
Van Druten, a lecturer at the Australian Graduate School of Management who is also a judge on best employer panels, says those voted the best companies “they’re not nirvana … but on average, their experience outweighs the experience for the also-rans.”
And the secret to being a best employer and truly winning the hearts and minds of your employees? It’s a combination of recognition and rewards, two-way feedback and the quality of the leaders. “It’s simple to say. It’s very difficult to sustain and very difficult for large organisations to deliver over time,” she says.
This is borne out by some of the former stars who no longer feature, including the likes of Flight Centre, Macquarie Bank, brewer Lion Nathan and Deloitte, for example.
Van Druten says creating a best employer takes consistency and it is vulnerable to changes at the top. People often want a quick fix, so they get HR or the learning and development people on to it.
“What they don’t get in my opinion is that they need to change their own behaviour. If you think of a chief executive or senior executives who’ve cut the mustard politically in an organisation, they as a rule are either unwilling or unable to fundamentally reassess what they do,” she says.
She says that unless a company is on its knees, or the chief executive has been ousted, few senior executives reassess their behaviour.
“Very few people [are] capable of reinventing themselves,” she adds. “If you look at all the literature there are enduring themes: trust, honesty, integrity – about doing what you say you will do.
“It is about a more authentic leadership, about communication and the creation of something of meaning. That means cleaning-up jobs so they are actually attractive for people to do and creating an environment that someone might actually want to work in.”
"Chief executives, or senior executives who’ve cut the mustard, as a rule are either unwilling or unable to reassess what they do."
She says US research shows that it means training intensively – in excess of 12 days of formal training per person per year.
Van Druten says one of the best employers she knows keeps that claim to themselves. It is the Christmas hamper company Chrisco. It has a call centre, a production line, it has menial work and a casualised labour force.
“They pay casuals a heap of money and they have full-timers they can’t employ all year [because] it’s a seasonal business.
“The chief executive talks to each employee and the most junior person can stop the production line if there is a problem.”
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Human Resources
Guidelines on Emerging Good Practice
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AVCC Staff Development and Training
Summer 2006 Bulletin
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Good Ideas for Managing People
The Office of Public Employment
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People Management
CCH Australia
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Australian Graduate School of Management
2006 Profile
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Ovation
Bringing Audiences to their Feet
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