Attracting and keeping skilled people is about more than paying good wages. This is
particularly true during skills shortages when workers have many employment opportunities
and higher expectations of their employers.

It’s therefore useful to review your work practices with the aim of not only increasing efficiency and profitability, but also of becoming an employer of choice.

Efficiency gains can potentially be made by such means as:

• reorganising work arrangements so that existing workers can handle all tasks
• upskilling existing staff
• devolving responsibility
• introducing performance-based rewards
• flattening the organisational structure.

Strategies to consider in making your business a great place to work include:

• ensuring good communication in the workplace
• creating a culture of mutual respect
• giving positive feedback
• providing flexible and family friendly work conditions, for example, full-time/part-time work, work from home and job sharing
• promoting a healthy work-life balance.

Specialist consultants can advise you on how to become a more efficient business and an employer of choice.

For more details see the Skills & HR links on this website.

Case Studies

Flexible work conditions
The owners of a hardware store in regional Victoria believe that providing staff with flexibility is the key to being able to attract and keep good people working there.

Two female employees of the store are employed on a permanent part-time basis and have arranged to arrive at work after they have dropped their children at school and leave in time to pick them up. Many of the men in the store have sport commitments and they are also able to work their shifts around these. Rosters also take into account obligations that staff may have in
volunteering for community organisations.

Referral networks
Businesses in the Orange engineering cluster are referring work to other businesses on a regular basis when they are unable to complete it on time within their own resources.

Best practice HR management
Victoria’s dairy industry is addressing the labour shortage by improving its image as an employee friendly workplace.

A leading employer, Gipps Dairy, invited local farmers, employees and union representatives to work together to develop guidelines on best practice in human resource management, with a strong focus on employer-employee communication. The guidelines cover issues such as pre-employment, the selection process, working together, the work team environment, and ongoing review and feedback.