Australian companies that fail to have a clearly defined strategy for their employer brand will lose talent to the increasing number who are getting it right, according to Brett Minchington, managing director of Collective Learning Australia and co-founding partner of the Employer Brand Institute. “Companies are finding it’s not enough to rely on traditional sources of recruitment anymore, as good people aren’t unemployed: they are working for competitors,” he said. Minchington, who will speak at the Australasian Talent Conference in Sydney this April, said good money or impressive titles are simply not enough to attract talent in the current employment market, and interest in employer branding has significantly grown over the past 12 months.
Office romance: the rules of engagement
Office romance is becoming more and more commonplace, but when co-workers fall in love employers need to keep their heads, according to Onetest psychologist Matthew Neale. “Studies show that 11 per cent of Australians and a whopping 33 per cent of Americans fall in love at the office, and this is likely to increase in the future as people spend more of their waking hours at work and in high pressure jobs,” he said. Yet many employers struggle with the challenges posed by workplace relationships which can have significant effects on the individuals involved as well as the broader group.
KPO: Outsourcing’s third generation comes of age
Knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) has come of age, with the market for KPO services in the financial services sector alone expected to be worth US$5 billion ($5.4 billion) by 2010, according to a KPMG report. KPO involves outsourcing more highly-skilled processes than has previously been the case with other outsourcing methods, basing its appeal primarily on intellectual arbitrage rather than the cost-reduction potential of its counterparts. “This form of outsourcing has been occurring for several years, however it is most mature in the financial services sector, and we believe this will extend to other industries in the near future,” KPMG IT Advisory director, Bob Hayward, said.
