How Booktopia adapted to industry disruption

As a manager for two decades in the book industry, John Purcell has led people through extraordinary change.

As an author, John Purcell is capable of amazing feats of imagination. But away from writing fiction, he’s been heading up Booktopia’s marketing and buying teams, and is now Director of Books, helping the online retailer become one of the fastest growing companies in Australia. In the past nine years, annual revenue has swelled from $4m to $114m (with a compound annual growth rate of 35% per annum). This year, Booktopia won the People’s Choice award at the national finals of the Telstra Business Awards, as well as the NSW Business of the Year award.

Starting small

“When I joined Booktopia, most of the staff were doing customer service and order fulfilment,” he recalls. At that time, Booktopia was a small operation. “A bell would ring every day and all of us – including the CEO – would go down to the garage and help load a single Australia Post van with books. They gave us three minutes in their schedule, so all of us would rush out there.”

Since those early days Booktopia’s personnel has multiplied from 25 to almost 200; and Purcell now runs a team of six people including a content team, merchandisers and buyers. But that culture of “rolling up your sleeves” has remained constant, he says.

Their culture has been guided by a very clear and simple business strategy, says Purcell. “Our CEO Tony Nash is single-minded about growth. He’s always been prepared to reinvest in the business so that when we needed a warehouse, or shelving, or automation, the resources were available.”

Beneath that overriding growth objective, managers are given the scope to develop their areas of the business. “There’s no micromanagement,” says Purcell. “We have a lot of ownership of our particular areas and that makes us feel that we are part of the business. I think that’s one reason our staff retention has been so high.”

Growing pains

Booktopia’s growth has been remarkable by any standards. It is the only company to be listed in the annual BRW Fast 100 eight of the last nine years. In September it was named in the Australian Financial Review Top 500 Private Companies. But growing at such a pace does present challenges for managers, Purcell admits:

“There’s never a stable environment when you’re growing so fast. We had a very fluid decision-making process and the danger was that teams could get overloaded and some projects perhaps wouldn’t achieve return on investment.”

To overcome this, Booktopia’s leadership team had to introduce more formal processes, explains Purcell. “For our growth to be sustainable, we had to develop our own corporate structure from within. What helped us was attracting people who had been in corporate environments. Every new person we hired brought knowledge and we would alter things accordingly.”

Alarm bells

Booktopia’s growth is all the more impressive when you consider the rollercoaster that Australia’s wider publishing industry has been riding. A decade ago mobile technology began seizing consumers’ attention and refused to let go. In 2011, high street bookstores Borders and Angus & Robertson closed their doors forever. All up, close to 200 bookshops closed around this time and the Australian book market fell by 20%.

Catherine Milne, Head of Fiction at publisher HarperCollins, recalls this time with a shudder: “They were dark days. Bookshops were closing, TV was suddenly accessible on mobile screens, social media was swallowing up people’s time and the Australian dollar was so high that – briefly – it became cheaper to buy books from overseas.”

Milne, who is publishing Purcell’s new novel, The Girl on the Page, says Booktopia helped the industry fight back. “It changed the retail landscape. After the closure of so many rural and regional bookstores, Booktopia was able to service all those Australians who can’t easily travel to a bookshop – not to mention many more who simply like the speed and convenience of online shopping.”

Question everything

As leader in an industry undergoing so much change, Purcell encourages his colleagues to stay up to date. “There are new products born every month from publishing presses. If you want to keep up, reading the right newsletters and social media is vital.

Reflecting on her own experience of leading through change, Milne recalls: “During rapid change you’ve really got to question everything; question your processes, question your methods. You have to ask yourself if what you did previously is still working today – and then be prepared to change when it’s not.”

“Our CEO James Kellow is incredibly good at setting very concrete goals for us that we can reach and then celebrating when we reach them. I think that’s the best way – to really focus on the things that you can influence, the things you can change, the things you can create.”

Kellow is one of the two leaders in publishing who Purcell admires most: “James and also Louise Sherwin-Stark [CEO at Hachette Australia] have made very strong and clever push to make sure they are publishing Australian stories,” he says. “In the past 10 years, it’s become clear that Australians are reading Australians, which is extraordinary because for most of our history we looked towards overseas literature.”

Separating fact from fiction

Purcell points out that neither of these leaders inspired ‘Julia’, one of the more memorable characters in his new novel, who is a terrible leader.

“Julia is the publishing director of my fictional publishing house and she’s a terrible leader because she’s all management and no product knowledge. She thinks only of the bottom line so her ability to inspire people in the business is nil, because she has absolutely no relationship with the books. All she sees is the numbers in the end.”

So how did Purcell’s real-life publisher feel when she read this? “There were times when I winced,” laughs Milne. “I thought ‘Is that the perception people have of publishing?’ Like any industry, there are certainly managers who prioritise profit above all else, but they are few and far between in publishing. In truth, you can only be a good publisher if you put the interests of the book and the reader first and if you invest the time that a book needs to get it right.

“I’m hoping that the mere fact I’m publishing The Girl on the Page is a counterpoint to the Julias of this world!”

By Andy McLean, Editorial Director of Leadership Matters.

*The full version of this article was published in the December 2018 edition of Leadership Matters.

Ann Messenger: From Student Member to Chair of IML

 

Ann Messenger has enjoyed a varied and eventful career in a variety of influential positions. In this interview she reflects upon the toughest challenges facing managers and leaders today, and shares some of the lessons she has learnt. 

By Jade Collins and Alanna Bastin-Byrne

 

Ann Messenger FIML is the Chair of the Board of the Institute of Managers and Leaders (IML). She is a chartered accountant and has enjoyed a varied global career, including six years working in Latin America as an equities analyst covering emerging markets.

Messenger worked in corporate finance and middle market advisory roles with professional services firms KPMG and HLB Mann Judd and later secured in-house roles such as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer with a variety of organisations including the Sydney Chamber of Commerce. Messenger has a strong interest in not-for-profits. During 2009 and 2010, she was the General Manager of St John’s College (within the University of Sydney) and in 2011 was appointed to Mosman Council’s Development Assessment Panel.

Messenger led the strategic rebrand of the Australian Institute of Management Group (AIM) to the Institute of Managers and Leaders to refocus the organisation’s purpose on setting and promoting the national standard of management and leadership competence. As part of this change, IML is the only assessing body outside of the UK offering the internationally recognised Chartered Manager (CMgr) qualification.

You are the first national Chair of the Institute of Managers and Leaders and originally joined as a student member of AIM in the 1980`s. Tell us about your long association with the organisation and how it has influenced and supported your leadership journey.

When I joined in the 1980s, management was a relatively new discipline and AIM was at the forefront of what was at that time the burgeoning field of management education and training. Since then, management education and training has become ubiquitous and IML has morphed into what it is today, the go-to professional body for managers and leaders.

IML has always had a sense of fraternity and as a young management professional there was a great sense of support in meeting others who were effectively in the same boat, not to mention a veritable gold mine of mentors who were always incredibly generous with their time and eager to help. Because IML has always been a completely independent non-aligned not-for-profit organisation, it occupies a unique position in being able to provide a nurturing forum for the profession.

What do you believe are the most pressing challenges leaders and managers face today?

The need for leaders and managers to constantly learn, adapt and change has never been greater. Nothing is static and with information at everybody’s fingertips there’s a constant expectation that we must keep up or be left behind. This is incredibly challenging and exciting but, of course, our reliance on non-curated and unverified data presents risks (and sometimes even fake news!). Seriously, though, this is where professional bodies like IML come into their own in providing sounding boards and support networks of like-minded people with whom we’re not in direct competition in a workplace.

IML has long advocated gender equality and diversity in leadership. What can organisations do to accelerate achieving leadership diversity and a culture of inclusion?

As leaders we can try to understand and appreciate that we are employing the “whole person”, not just the “professional part”. The good news is that by adopting a more holistic view of the individuals who make up our workforce – a culture of acceptance and inclusion follows. Leaders of organisations that do that are inherently promoting diversity and inclusion and, by the way, achieving much higher returns on their human resource investment.

Leaders can also dispel the myth that employees are somehow almost robotic, one dimensional units of production and accept that work is a means to an end for all but the saddest of the workaholics among us. In doing so, we bring some humanity, acceptance and inclusion into our workplaces.

As an experienced director, what would you recommend as the best preparation to those who are considering pursuing board roles?

There are a million and one sage and sobering accounts of boardroom activities, the most colourful of which unfortunately exist in court reports. Gaining an understanding of corporate governance is absolutely critical. Although experience within the boardroom via executive roles provides valuable insights, a director’s perspective is and must be entirely different. Governance is key.

What has been your greatest challenge?

There have been so many challenges. One that’s front of mind for me right now is accepting that sometimes things just have to play out and, as a leader, there are times when you just have to allow that to happen. The learnings and evolution that result for all concerned sometimes just have to come from the actual experience.

What are you most proud of?

In my role as Chair of IML, it’s got to be the rebrand and reinvention of the organisation. That is, of course, still happening. It’s been incredibly rewarding to watch the reaction to this fresh new brand.

What’s your one piece of advice for future female leaders?

I’m going to steal from Eleanor Roosevelt here. She once said something along the lines of: “Do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do because you’ll be criticised anyway!”

I guess that’s another way of saying believe in yourself and see it through – but I’d caveat that by saying, always…always listen to those who you know have your best interests at heart…and then do what you think is right!

As leaders we can try to understand and appreciate that we are employing the “whole person”, not just the “professional part”.

Responding to the data revolution with resilient leadership

By Dr Selvi Kannan, educator, mentor and Academic Specialist Advisor – Management & Innovation, Victoria University; and Dr Bill Petreski, Principal, Strategy61


Major shifts in the world are placing new demands on businesses, workforces and ultimately education and training. New Resilient Leadership skills are required for the paradigm shift that is upending organisational structures and human capital.

 

The data revolution

Sometimes called the data revolution, the fourth industrial revolution emerged since the global financial crisis of 2008 as a proliferation of our ability to capture, store and manage data that has ultimately led to widespread accessibility and its commoditisation.

By contrast, the first industrial revolution (1760 to 1840) was a defining point in history as we transitioned from hand production methods to new manufacturing processes that were underpinned by steam power, machines, tools and factories.

Inevitably our world did reckon the data revolution. The following industrial revolutions (the technological revolution between 1870 and 1914, and the information revolution between 1980 to 2005) created industries that have been defined by increasingly rapid convergence of computing, telecommunications and networking infrastructure.

Today’s new paradigm is shaping technology-driven futures underpinned by emerging automation technologies, including data analytics, deep learning, artificial intelligence and cognitive computing. Automation technologies are already becoming essential parts of everyday life and will increasingly transform our workplace.

On one hand, the profound technological changes of the fourth industrial revolution intensified competition in an increasingly borderless commercial environment. While such globalisation has led to unprecedented gains for many from the movement of goods, services, people and ideas, there are those who have lost out – economically, politically or culturally.

While there have been profound socio-economic impacts in all past industrial revolutions, each change has also required dissimilar organisational structures, human capital and therefore leadership capabilities.

Now is the time for all organisations to hone their management and leadership competencies to adapt to current accelerating business model innovations. Greater resilience will be the key to meet the demands that are upending human capital management and legacy hierarchical organisational structures.

Resilient leadership is the key

Resilience originates from the Latin word resiliens, which refers to the pliant or elastic quality of a substance. Broadly it often refers to positive self-esteem, hardiness, strong coping skills, a sense of coherence, self-efficacy, optimism, strong social resources, adaptability, risk-taking, low fear of failure, determination, perseverance, and a high tolerance of uncertainty.

Meanwhile, leadership is often described as taking active approaches to making decisions. It involves gaining and keeping engagement of others’ positive attention, showing empathy, insight, intellectual competence, self-direction, self-esteem, setting direction, and demonstrating strength and flexibility during a change process.

In the new paradigm of the data revolution and its emerging organisational structures and new models of human capital, resilience and leadership require additional capabilities that include technical competencies, entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity that will sustainably equip individuals for current and future challenges.

We posit resilient leadership will enable individuals to rapidly fine-tune their professional capabilities to the business model innovations stemming from the current wave of automation technologies. Similarly, businesses will be increasingly required to support their executives, who are otherwise bound by legacy organisational structures, business processes and cultural values.

Our proposed archetype, resilient leadership, will require life-long skill and knowledge development of the attributes to operate in the new agile management environment.  Resilient leaders will need the ability to propel innovative and ethical industries that are globally competitive in rapidly transforming environment to realise the beneficial futures of work and industries and support a new generation of thriving micro, small, medium and large businesses.

 Any enquiries on this research and wish to participate please contact Selvi Kannan: selvi.kannan@vu.edu.au or Bill Petreski bill.petreski@strategy61.com.au

Innovator: Karen Hayes transforming a trusted brand

By Lachlan Colquhoun

Karen Hayes FIML had decades of experience as a senior manager in business technology consulting when she realised that she wasn’t “bouncing out of bed every morning” to get to work.

After time working in Europe and Canada, she found herself back in Melbourne and sitting on a number of boards of not-for-profit organisations when the realisation struck: she was enjoying the not-for-profit world more than the commercial world where she had made her career.

She she set her sights on the much-coveted role of CEO at Guide Dogs Victoria. Having secured the position, she knew that the organisation needed to change.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme was about to begin and with it a new model of “self-directed” care, where people with disabilities would be the ones making choices on which services they use.

At the time, the philanthropic model was changing and this had major implications for an organisation that receives only 8 per cent of its funding from government.

“The days of corporates writing big cheques, handing them over and then just ticking their corporate social responsibility box are well and truly over,” says Hayes.

The vision was to move to a more sustainable model where Guide Dogs Victoria could maintain all the values that made it so beloved, but at the same time move towards being able to fund itself.

“It was about respecting the fact that the organisation had 60 years of great history, but also putting measures in place to make sure it survived and prospered 60 years and more into the future,” Hayes says.

Many of the staff, for example, had been at Guide Dogs Victoria for 40 years and the average tenure was 13 years. Hayes had come from an industry where the average stay was 11 months.

“I needed to respect the history, but not allow the history to hold us back,” she says.

Part of the reinvention was around communicating the fact that Guide Dogs does more than train and deliver the iconic guide dogs themselves.

Guide dogs are only around 30 per cent of what the organisation does, with the majority of the balance being in providing other services to the sight impaired. There are 250,000 people with low vision issues in Victoria, but most do not have guide dogs.

“We introduced a strategic plan, and that is about us being first choice as an employer, as a services provider, for people looking for an organisation to support with philanthropy and also for volunteers,” says Hayes.

“We are redeveloping our campus in Kew with the objective of diversifying our revenue stream with a vet clinic, a doggie day care centre, a dog friendly café, all of which will be revenue generating.

“We are going to build a low vision clinic and an educational auditorium, and introduce a level of predictability and sustainability in our financial model that has not existed previously.”

This is all in addition to the ‘Dialogue in the Dark’ experience in Melbourne Docklands, where people are led through an environment in total darkness and have to rely on other senses to interact.

Around 15,000 members of the public have been through the experience, which also employs a team of 20 blind people
as guides.

All these changes go right down through the organisation. All employees have balanced scorecards and KPIs that flow from the strategic plan and which are measured every year.

“When I came here I could see that this was an organisation full of individuals with very strong values,” says Hayes. “Now I feel we are also a values-based organisation with a plan everyone understands, so we are all moving in the right direction together.”

Leadership In Crisis

Written by Sebastian Salicru 

Organisations are known to invest heavily in leadership development. But in a rapidly changing world, are the traditional approaches paying off? 

THE PROBLEM: 

In a world of complexity, turbulence, high-velocity and continuous change, the context for leadership, as we know it, has been turned upside down. Recently, we have witnessed what I call the ‘three Ds’ of leadership – distrust, doubt and dissent. These are the outcomes when leaders fail to respond effectively to the changing context in which they must lead and the expectations of their stakeholders. Distrust and lack of engagement flag the need for leaders to rethink how to exercise leadership and engage their followers. Traditional leadership approaches no longer hold water. The briefest glance at the television news or daily newspaper paints a vivid picture of the global and local leadership crisis, with escalating trends and all-pervasive images to dismay even the most casual viewer. I would contend that data, facts and figures say far more than even a thousand words. Credible research at the forefront of contemporary thinking tells us that current investments in leadership may not be paying off:

  • Only 13 per cent of employees worldwide are engaged at work (Gallup)
  • 81 per cent of CEOs rate leadership development programs as less than highly effective (PwC 2015, Annual Global CEO Survey)
  • Of 7500 business and HR leaders in over 100 countries, 55 per cent judge the return on investment (ROI) of their current leadership development as fair to very poor, and less than 20 per cent are confident they have the leaders they need to deliver on strategic priorities (Korn Ferry, 2015 Global and Regional Real World Leadership Report).
  • Of 2200 global HR leaders, 86 per cent believe their organisation’s future depends on the effectiveness of their leadership pipelines, but only 13 per cent are confident in their succession plans, with 54 per cent reporting damage to their businesses due to talent shortages (Deloitte’s 2015 Global Human Capital Trends: Leading in the new world of work)
  • Only 6 per cent of executives feel ‘very ready’ to meet their leadership needs in 2016 (Deloitte’s 2016 Global Human Capital Trends. The new organization)
  • 86 per cent of the 1500 world’s foremost global experts believe that the world is currently experiencing a leadership crisis (World Economic Forum. Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015)
  • Only 7 per cent of organisations feel they have a ‘Best in Class’ leadership development program (Harvard Business School Publishing. 2016 State of leadership development survey).

Meanwhile, in Australia, research conducted in 2016 by the Centre for Workplace Leadership, University of Melbourne revealed 75 per cent of employees needed better managers and leaders. Gallup estimates the cost of the resulting lack of engagement is $54.8 billion a year. This precarious state of affairs exists despite the fact that organisations invest heavily in preparing their leaders. The 2016 Harvard Business Review article ‘Why leadership training fails – and what to do about it’, describes this growing multibillion dollar leadership development industry as failing to deliver results and asserts that corporations have become victims of “the great training robbery”. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that urgent change is required.

 

“This precarious state of affairs exists despite the fact that organisations invest heavily in preparing their leaders.”

 

My research identifies that the following practices will create adaptive leaders and high-performing organisations and deliver leadership results:

  1. Painting a clear picture
    Keep it clear and simple – this encourages people to adapt to change and act. In times of uncertainty, people want to know: what’s the story? Effective leaders are adept at painting a clear picture through storytelling and can help others to interpret and respond positively to change.
  2. Build leadership capability
    Traditional leadership approaches mistake management, authority and power with leadership, which involves exercising influence, whether you are in a position of power and authority or not. Traditional approaches to leadership development are individual-centred only. They confuse ‘leader’ development with ‘leadership’ development. Leadership development historically has focused on enhancing the knowledge, skills and abilities of those holding senior managerial positions only. This focus needs to expand to improve the leadership capacity of the whole organisation, and to develop and improve the relationships and collaboration that knit all units, departments, and networks together.
  3. Move beyond competencies
    Competency models emerged in the 1970s as a way of codifying the required behaviour for particular leadership positions. They drew on past successes by identifying relevant and effective behaviour as opposed to examining mindsets needed for the future. A more holistic and integrated approach to leadership development is required that addresses the many (less visible) mental, emotional, and psychological processes that often determine behaviour. The solution is moving towards using ‘adaptive’ or ‘meta-competencies’ – the sets of knowledge, skills and aptitudes that underpin or allow for the development of other competencies, especially those that people will need in the unpredictable future. Meta-competencies enable learning, adapting, anticipating and creating change. Both self-leadership (personal mastery) and leadership development require going beyond competencies, though they are grounded in competence and skills. Developing character is the key to effective leadership and, given that leadership is a relationship between people, leadership effectiveness is related to everyone’s efforts to create positive relationships in the organisation. Kevin Cashman, CEO at Korn Ferry, explains that “competencies get us to the doorway of leadership, but character gets us through the doorway of leadership. Managers tend to control resources to get results, but leaders exert character to build a sustainable future.”
  4. Focus on creative thinking and innovation
    Modern organisations need to innovate continuously to ensure their long-term survival and success. Leadership is the precursor of all innovation. Strategically, leaders establish work environments that are conducive to creative thinking and innovation, which in turn leads to a competitive advantage.
  5. Conduct impact evaluations
    Evaluation is an important component of the leadership development process itself with three main benefits: extending the reflective dimension of the program by inviting participants to consider the value of the experience and how they apply it; gathering valuable suggestions for improvements to the programs; and fostering employee engagement and loyalty.

THE SOLUTION: 

Collective leadership involves all employees and means that everyone is responsible for the team or organisation’s success and not just for their individual role. This means leadership is distributed, rather than being centred on a few individuals in formal positions of authority. The broad distribution of responsibilities is naturally more inclusive, as it involves all participants, which makes collective leadership more effective than individual leadership.

This approach to leadership offers each individual voice in the organisation. This, in turn, empowers people, who then feel more valued, trusted and heard. In this way, everyone’s interaction and effort at every level drives performance and shapes the culture of the organisation.

Collective leadership is relational rather than hierarchical. It enables everyone to be active in leadership roles as it flattens workplace structures. Giving people more responsibility also means allowing them to be more accountable, take risks, make mistakes and learn from them. This can allow individuals to be more accountable and empowered, making them more committed, engaged, creative and innovative. In this context, leaders become mentors, supporting each other to achieve an organisation’s collective goals and outcomes.

Years of traditional leadership have resulted in systems that value hierarchy, status, authority and control. The move to collective leadership requires change not only at a leadership and cultural level, but also at an individual level. The challenge in shifting to collective leadership is that people are not used to having a voice. Instead, they are used to a dependency created by the pervasive ‘leader–follower’ paradigm. Dependence on a leader does have some clear implications, even though influential leadership can wean followers off their dependence. First, it implies that the followers or subordinates have limited ability to make decisions and get work done without guidance or permission. This results in hesitation, employees who feel vulnerable and threatened by change, and substandard decision making, which produces less than desirable results and decreased productivity. Psychologically, this means the subordinates’ self-esteem and motivation depends on receiving recognition and approval from their leader.

As William James (1842–1910), a philosopher considered one of the fathers of psychology, said: “The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated”. Leadership dependency creates this craving and keeps individuals in a cycle of looking for recognition from places beyond their control. This often leads to dissatisfaction, powerlessness and anxiety.

Second, it means that for leadership to succeed, the followers must idolise their leaders, often as authority figures, attribute to them unrealistic qualities and create unrealistic expectations of them. In turn, leaders on pedestals can be pressured by the need to always be correct and can become overly defensive to criticism.

“Collective leadership means each individual has a voice in the organisation.”

Finally, dependence stifles followers’ creativity and kills any chance of them offering innovations. Traditional leadership patterns rely on control, obedience and conformity. Followers who dare not depart from their leader’s ideas are not engaged in their own creative processes.

Empowerment, on the other hand, is about providing others with autonomy and independence. This occurs when people feel valued for their experience, potential and contribution. Empowered individuals are motivated, believe in their ability to perform successfully and are also more creative. Collective leadership allows individuals to develop their own abilities and independent thinking skills, which builds collective social identification and self-efficacy – a shared belief in the ability to accomplish tasks and achieve common goals. This in turn fosters team creative thinking and innovation, which creates an environment rich with job satisfaction and improved results.

Clearly, collective leadership is a relational, fluid and evolving approach where multiple (if not all) employees or individuals assume leadership roles in a group or organisation in response to specific situations, settings or contexts. It means everyone takes responsibility for the success of the organisation as a whole. With everyone taking responsibility for the organisation’s success, power needs to be distributed to where the right capabilities, expertise and passion exist.

Collective leadership, therefore, requires networking and collaboration across organisational boundaries. It draws on a firm’s social capital and builds on the knowledge, skills and abilities of all employees. It requires individuals to engage in high levels of communication and to work openly and interdependently to share ideas and have a joint vision and common goals.

When done successfully, collective leadership benefits everyone, allows for more innovation, allows organisations to adapt to change quickly, and delivers outstanding performance and results.

 

Escape To The Country: Are Your Skills Portable?

 

 

What do employers need to do to get good people from metro areas to relocate to regional areas? By Nicola Heath

 

Scott Timmins AFIML never wanted to move to Townsville.

“I thought ‘it’s a small country town . . . and I won’t get much out of my life up here,’” he recalls. Twenty years later, the people solutions specialist at TP Human Capital says he’s now considered a local.

Australia is a heavily urbanised nation. According to figures from the Grattan Institute, three-quarters of Australians live in cities with a population above 100,000.

We also live in a knowledge economy, where highly educated people gravitate towards inner cities – “where knowledge-intensive activities are clustered, and where demand for knowledge workers is highest,” states Deloitte’s 2015 report, The Purpose of Place: Reconsidered.

The challenge for employers in regional areas traditionally reliant on declining primary and secondary industries is to attract skilled workers from the cities.

They are up against significant anti-regional bias. Like Timmins before his move to Townsville, most Australians are reluctant to relocate to a regional area for work.

A survey by SEEK found just two out of five Australian workers would consider relocating to a regional area.

 

What skilled workers want

Nearly half the survey respondents said they would relocate for a pay increase to the tune of $20,000 to $30,000 a year.

Timmins recommends regional employers carry out a market analysis of metro wages to come up with a competitive remuneration package, and consider offering perks like a car or rent assistance.

Concerns about career progression is another issue. More than half of those surveyed said they felt that moving to a regional area would limit their career.

But Timmins says employers can sell roles in regional areas as good experience. Whereas a career in the CBD often leads to specialisation, in the regions, jobs are often multi-disciplinary.

A manager in a government department in outback Queensland may require skills across three or more different industries, says Timmins. “That can be really beneficial for them in the long term.”

The breadth of experience they gain in such a role can assist their career progression, whether they want to stay in regional Australia or return to the CBD.

 

What makes a region attractive?

Lifestyle is a big factor. Australians love living by the sea – 80 per cent of Australia’s population lives within 100 kilometres of the coast.

Jock Collins, Professor of Social Economics at UTS Business School, singles out transport infrastructure and an effective broadband network – “not one that goes through copper wires but one that’s very fast” – as critical measures to attracting people to regional Australia.

Investment in regional universities is crucial in both generating employment and stemming the flow of young people moving to the city to work or study.

Migration can drive economic growth, bringing “skills, experience, tastes and preferences that contribute vitality and vibrancy,” states the Deloitte report.

Employers, particularly in non-coastal areas, are increasingly looking to foreign workers to fill skills shortages, says Collins, who surveyed 1000 skilled migrants in regional Australia about their experiences. “Most said they had a warm welcome in the bush,” he says.

Regional cities can also build prosperity by enhancing their connections to inner cities and developing tertiary industries that employ knowledge workers.

One way to achieve this is “for governments and industry to locate significant knowledge-intensive activities in regional cities,” states the Deloitte report.

This worked in Orange, NSW, where the Greiner government moved the NSW Department of Agriculture (now the Department of Primary Industries) in the 1990s, at a time when traditional manufacturing jobs were in decline.

Today, Orange is thriving. It has a university campus and a new hospital that has cemented its position as a regional health centre. Unemployment remains low at 4.1 per cent, while property prices have risen 11.8 per cent in the 12 months to June 2017.

Back in Far North Queensland, Timmins has come to love Townsville, a city with “a country feel about it.”

“I never thought I’d see myself living in Townsville for the rest of my life, but I don’t see myself going anywhere else.”

Scott Timmins AFIML is a speaker at IML Leadership Matters Conference: 7 attributes of very successful leaders at Rydges Southbank Townsville on October 17, 2017. Book tickets here.

 

 

 

The Importance of neurodiversity in the workplace

By Candice Chung

 

When it comes to attracting diverse talent, most companies tend to think of this in the context of improving gender or ethnic diversity. In recent years, however, the concept of neurodiversity has emerged as an area of growing interest on the HR frontier.

Put simply, neurodiversity refers to the idea that workplace inclusivity should extend to neurological differences. This means finding a way to hire and retain talents with conditions such as ADHD, dyslexia, Tourette’s syndrome, or those who may be on the autism spectrum.

In Australia, over 80 percent of people with autism are unemployed or underemployed. Neurodiverse candidates often get left behind in standard hiring processes, with some struggling to fit in with typical corporate culture or missing social cues.

And yet according to a 2015 study by Drexel University, many high-functioning autistic job seekers have the kinds of skills, focus and problem-solving abilities that are highly sought after in specific industries.

“Technology-related work resonates for many on the autism spectrum, with many excelling at mathematics, cryptography, and programming,” says Andrew Ramsden, Founder and CEO of leadership development firm, Alpha Transform.

Companies that are currently leading the charge in hiring neurodiverse workers include accounting firm EY, software company SAP, Microsoft, and Hewlett Packard Enterprises, which pioneered the highly successful Dandelion program in Australia. Launched in 2015, it’s a holistic pilot program that includes on-the-job and life-skills development training, matching candidates with autism with roles in testing, analytics and cyber security.

“Research tells us time and again that diversity in all its forms will galvanise a company culture, so long as the culture doesn’t perpetrate silos,” says HR expert Nathalie Lynton from Shared and Halved Consulting. “The more diverse and inclusive a workplace, the better and faster problems are solved. Innovation will occur at a greater rate, too.”
To improve workplace neurodiversity, Lynton suggests being open and transparent in everyday recruitment practices. This means incorporating taglines like, ‘Our company supports diversity in all its forms, neurodiverse candidates are encouraged to apply’ in job ads.
Also, don’t hire purely on ‘cultural fit’, says Ramsden. “This can too easily become a ‘gut-feel’ excuse to reject those who are different.”

“Remember that for many roles, job-hunting skills are very different from the on-the-job skills required. Allow applicants opportunities to show you the work they’ve achieved and what they’re capable of. On-the-job tests and trial periods allow a better assessment of what people are actually capable of.”
In the end, just as some employees will be introverts and some extroverts, some will be neurodiverse. ”Part of a leader’s tools box is learning how to interview and communicate with different people and understand [the opportunities they may bring to the company],” says Lynton.

 

 To gain further insight on Emotional Intelligence, Self Awareness and Neurodiversity, be sure to book at one of our upcoming Conferences on the 7 attributes of successful leaders today.

Change With A Capital C: What Works?

We should all expect to go through upheavals during our working lives, which is all the more reason to become competent at dealing with it. By Professor Danny Samson FIML

 

 

Organisational change is hard and often unsuccessful because even seasoned managers can fall prone to underestimating organisational inertia. We often insufficiently attend to the concerns employees have about change, principally what will happen to them. Yet in these highly turbulent times, surely change management should be a core capability of every competent leader and every organisation that wants to sustain its survival and prosperity. So, what works and what are the pitfalls?

When change is radical, being “Big C” change as against incremental in nature, then the stakes and the risks are commensurately higher. By radical or Big C change, we refer to large transformations or makeovers, whether they are of culture, structure, size, technology, location, product range, distribution channel or any other core element of an organisation.

With radical change in particular, it’s critical to have a strong and compelling vision that motivates and justifies the change. Otherwise, when the going gets tough (and it will), the doubters will emerge and get a strong voice.

The next step is communicate comprehensively the necessity of such a change. Deal openly with the naysayers, and get quickly into the implementation phase. This brings us to the crucial and proven element of successful implementation of major change: create a solid project plan and drive it with tough, hard accountabilities expected from all participants. The project plan is the guiding ‘change map’ that overcomes the chaos that would otherwise result.

Otherwise we’re asking for chaos through ‘ad hockery’. If difficult decisions need to be implemented, such as downsizing and redundancies, then these need to be anticipated as part of the plan, and implemented in a thoroughly professional and precise manner. All employees will want to know their future, so the sooner this can be resolved, the better.

Successful change management is planned and executed in a fast and decisive manner so that the organisation can settle and stabilise.

This approach works much better than the “death by a thousand cuts” approach of multiple incremental steps in an attempt to get to the same end point. I saw this major contrast in New Zealand when both their Post and Telecom businesses were going through major restructuring and downsizing, with one doing a radical change process and the other announcing a five-year downsizing process.

NZ Post was successful in doing it fast and hard, then rebuilding its systems and culture, introducing new technology and renewing almost every aspect of its operations and service levels.

 

“It’s critical to have a strong and compelling vision that motivates and justifies the change.” – Professor Danny Samson

 

 

Similarly, when I served on the board of the TAC (Transport Accident Commission) in Victoria, we chose to implement new e-business technologies, even though it meant that many jobs would change and some would disappear in our pursuit of higher levels of productivity and client service.

Perhaps the hardest thing to change in an organisation is people’s behaviour and culture. As a young engineer (many years ago) working at ICI in Sydney, I was amazed at the negativity of the industrial culture, and the gulf in attitude between managers and the workforce, along with the many insipid managerial attempts to chip away incrementally at the unproductive culture there.

Finally, with necessity being the mother of invention, the need for radical change was realised. A new site manager was brought in to overcome the deeply resistant and negative situation that had built up over decades. He brought sincere, yet firm, intentions, restructuring the workplace arrangements very substantially, enduring personal threats from militant resistors.

When the going got tough during a six-week strike he even had to deal with second thoughts from head office, which was ready to buckle on some of the core issues. He showed a huge amount of personal courage to see through the changes and implement the visionary plan to bring the company out of the industrial dark ages.

Executing radical change needs a vision and a plan, and the ability to demonstrate and communicate benefits of change to the business the. But tying it all together is the leadership team with the determination — let’s call it the stiff backbone — to see the journey through.

 

Leadership and implementing creativity in the symphony orchestra

By Vincent Ciccarello, Managing Director, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

For decades, leadership and management literature has pointed to the relationship between the conductor and members of a symphony orchestra as a commendable paradigm of organisational teamwork, collaboration and the alignment of resources to a common vision.

But when it comes to implementing creativity, an orchestra is actually more akin to a team of elite athletes: spectators (the audience) may long for flashes of individual brilliance (for example, a breathtaking solo) but, at the end of the day, it’s the ability of the team to execute the game-plan (score or composition) as envisioned by the coach (conductor) that really matters.

Similarly, the sporting team’s coach and players, and the orchestra’s conductor and musicians, must ultimately deliver performances in line with goals and strategies set by the Board and management.

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra with conductor Nicholas Carter.

The sporting analogy doesn’t end there: most sporting teams and orchestras have a well-established hierarchy and leadership group; and there are the expectations of a host of internal (staff, volunteers) and external stakeholders (fans, subscribers, sponsors) to consider.

It is the primary responsibility of the leadership of these organisations to create the conditions and environment for peak performance – through the recruitment and retention of the right people to the right roles; by making available the necessary physical resources; developing a strong organisational culture; the careful management of workload and injuries; and so on.

ASO Managing Director Vince Ciccarello congratulating Juris Ezergailis at the Adelaide Town Hall stage – following the 2016 final Master Series.

Fostering a climate of trust and excellence encourages individuals to realise their potential; but, in reality, sporting teams and orchestras must demonstrate an extraordinary collective discipline to succeed. A champion team will always beat a team of champions…

Symphony orchestras primarily exercise creativity through the music they choose to perform, the composers they choose to commission and in the way they respond to the conductors they choose to lead them.

In most cases, this is a consultative and collaborative process, in which the musicians – collectively or through their representatives – have a voice in the orchestra’s artistic program and ambitions.

It’s a process that usually starts with the orchestra’s senior management and chief conductor but it’s not entirely straightforward. It requires a vision for the business, the ability to clearly articulate it and the skills to build a case to bring people along with you; while at the same time being open to the aspirations of the team, being willing to listen to feedback and recognising that not all of the company’s knowledge, history and wisdom – or even good ideas – reside in the C-suite.

In order to balance the artistic health of the playing group with the organisation’s commercial imperatives, a long-range view is required – and that means no matter what happens on the stage or on the field, for the leadership team, it’s not enough to take it one week at a time.

 Vincent Ciccarello will be speaking at our Adelaide TEL event ‘Lifting the Curtain on Leadership in Arts and Entertainment’ on the 23rd of August 2017.

 

Book Now to hear more from Vincent and others about what is needed for leadership in the arts today.

 

 

 

 

 

The Proactive Approach To Retention

Kate Jones outlines how a multi-pronged approach to managing staff can reap significant dividends in terms of staff retention.

Put your workers first, your customers second and your shareholders third, says Richard Branson, and the rest will take care of itself.

Prioritising staff ahead of customers bucks the “customer comes first” mantra corporations have held dear for decades. Yet a gradual power shift has seen employee well-being, remuneration and physical health become more vital than ever before.

Research shows better staff retention is better for business. Fostering a workforce of happy and engaged employees lifts productivity levels and drives business growth.

What’s more, an effective retention strategy saves companies time and money. It also means organisations avoid the expenses involved in engaging recruitment firms and the time spent interviewing and training new staff.

A high turnover of employees can place pressure on workers forced to pick up the slack, resulting in a drop in staff morale. It can also expose businesses to a loss of corporate intelligence, which can leave them vulnerable in a competitive marketplace.

Why are employees leaving?

IML has identified the chief reasons for taking on another job role.

New challenge – 81.9%
Limited career advancement opportunities – 56.5%
Insufficient financial reward – 44.4%
Conflict with Staff/Manager – 29.6%
Logistically difficult – 21.8%
Lack of development/training -18.5%
Lack of recognition – 16.7%
Feeling unsupported/overworked – 12.0%
Insufficient non-financial reward – 8.8%
Underutilised – 8.8%
Lack of flexible start-finish times – 4.6%
Unrealistic goals being set – 4.2%
Lack of flexible working arrangements – 3.2%
Other – 11.1%

Source: 2016 National Salary Survey

 

Retention Strategies

 

The latest research into staff retention reveals the smartest strategies are multi-pronged, proactive and sustained.

The 2016 Staff Retention Report by the the Institute of Managers and Leaders shows 54.6% of Australian organisations are concerned about how to keep their employees, compared to 48.8% the previous year. However, an increased focus on ways to improve engagement of in-house talent may be responsible for a falling resignation rate.

Since 2012, resignations have fallen by 13.4% to 10.3%.

To reduce resignation rates businesses used a range of methods including exit interviews, reviewing or updating staff remuneration and conducting job satisfaction surveys.

Local Government Association Queensland (LGAQ) HR manager, Angie Gibson says job satisfaction surveys have helped her keep a pulse on employee engagement. For the past three years the LGAQ has recorded job satisfaction scores of 93%, 85% and 92%.

“If you look after your staff, they will look after you and that’s reflected in our survey, and I’m really proud of that,” Gibson says.

The LGAQ uses various methods to ensure staff retention and chief among them is a program called Well At Work. The program is steered by an eight-person Wellness Committee, which assesses the effectiveness of current practices. The program has been recognised by the Queensland Government’s Happier. Healthier. Workplaces initiative and with an Australian Human Resources Institute award.

Gibson says it includes everything from pedometer challenges to family social days.

“We look after emotional, physical, mental, social and occupational areas of an employee,” she explains. “Some people think its all airy-fairy, but its very physical, emotional, social – all those sort of things. We really support people.”

A new 12-program will be launched at the LGAQ this month to check and encourage employee health and promote inclusion through social activities.

“We’ll do things like ergonomic assessments, healthy heart checks in May, flu vaccinations, our social day at Simpson Falls, Mount Coot-tha, on a weekend so all families can get together,” Gibson says.

“We’ll do a Walk to Work day and have a breakfast here, we’ll have end-of-year functions, a Melbourne Cup function, mental health days. There’s something every month and every second Wednesday is Wellness Wednesday where we have massages and meditation in our rooms.”

In addition to the wellness program, the organisation also has a reward and recognition scheme that acknowledges outstanding work in the form of a presentation and a gift voucher.

As all-encompassing as these initiatives are, they mean little without measurement and assessment. Throughout the year, Gibson conducts job satisfaction surveys that quiz staff on everything from healthy eating at work to the issue of bonuses.

Gibson also performs a thorough remuneration check to ensure they are not falling behind industry rates.

“I do a remuneration benchmarking report every year, so I use the National Salary Survey which is one of my main things for the corporate side of the business,” she says.

“I look through all the State Government public sector wages and federal and always request reviews from the larger agencies like our Hays, Robert Walters and I research particular jobs on Seek. And every three or four years I’ll go out to a specialist company like Mercer who survey say the top six roles in the organisation to make sure their work value’s there, to make sure we’re not getting too far behind the ball.”

 

The Pay Factor

So what’s more important – pay or job satisfaction?

The  2016 National Salary Survey shows the top three reasons for employees taking on another job role are: seeking a new challenge at 81.9%, limited career advancement opportunities at 56.5% and insufficient financial reward at 44.4%.

Charles Go, Research Product Manager at IML, says remuneration should be a top priority for those developing retention strategies.

“No matter how cool your office is, how many benefits they have or how supported they feel at work, at the end of the day, people still need to pay their bills, save for holidays and afford to live the lives they want,” he says.

“At the very least, review and benchmark your employees’ salaries on a yearly basis and provide increases that are in line with inflation.”

Sales staff traditionally receives salary bonuses, but Go says it’s now becoming common for support, technical and finance staff to receive bonuses. He recommends clearly defining expectations, checking performance to make sure that they are on track and ensuring the bonuses are based on the company’s overall targets so the company doesn’t pay them if it is not making any money.

“Go one step further by encouraging and supporting them to reach those stretch targets to get their bonus,” he says.

“You’ll be surprised at the increased level of engagement when people truly feel like they are closer and closer to the finish line.”

Not every company can offer cash incentives or raises. Instead, they should consider giving better benefits, says Go.

“It could translate to long run savings for the employee,” he says.

“For example, if a staff member can work from home one day a week that will save them $100 a week on day care expenses, which will be about $4,800 a year.”

 

Other Benefits

 

Flexible benefits can have a surprising affect. Organisations offering time in lieu to reimburse overtime had resignation rates of just 9.8% compared to 10.9% for those who didn’t compensate staff for extra hours worked.

Additional super contributions also make a difference. Organisations that made extra super contributions had a lower than average resignation rate at 9.5% compared to 10.5%.

Developing a supportive learning environment is key to keeping workers challenged. More than 18% of employees report resigning because of a lack of professional development and training.

Research shows personal interviews are the most effective way of evaluating training, followed by pre and post training surveys and training feedback forms.

Building an effective staff retention plan is about more than just meeting an employee’s needs. It’s about surpassing them.

In today’s disruptive market, staff retention strategies need to take a holistic approach to give employees the support they need to do their job well. A continual, proactive strategy creates a happier, more engaged workforce and safeguards organisations against the eroding effects of continual resignations.

Visit  National Salary Survey and find out how we can help your organisation to attract and retain top talent.