Businesses are operating in an era where precision in payroll management is paramount, but many organisations are struggling to maintain compliance. A 2024 study by Rippling and Censuswide highlights the prevalence of payroll inaccuracies, which can lead to potential wage theft in Australia, and underscores the urgent need for accurate payroll management. 

Surveying 500 payroll managers across companies with 5-250 employees, the study revealed that 59 per cent admitted to making a payroll error in the past two years, with error rates escalating as companies grow.

The report identifies outdated manual processes and disparate, siloed systems as key contributors to the problem. 

As the business landscape evolves, especially with major regulatory changes such as the Fair Work Amendment (Closing Loopholes Bill) which seeks to criminalise wage theft and implement hefty financial fines, the report emphasises the necessity of adopting a centralised payroll and HR system. 

This shift is imperative for mitigating compliance risks, enhancing workforce data visibility and improving operational efficiency amid rising wage theft concerns.

What are organisations getting wrong?

The 2024 Rippling and Censuswide study provides a detailed look into the challenges faced by Australian payroll management, including:

• High error rates: 59 per cent of companies reported payroll inaccuracies in the past two years. For companies with over 50 employees, the rate of payroll errors exceeds the average, at 67 per cent.
• Common payroll errors: These include over or underpayments (48 per cent), delayed payments (44 per cent), employee misclassification (28 per cent), and failures to make superannuation contributions (24 per cent).

Identifying the root causes of wage theft

The main underlying issues contributing to payroll inaccuracies in Australian businesses included: 

1. Manual data entry

A staggering 48 per cent of businesses still rely on the manual input of employee data into their payroll systems. This approach not only consumes valuable time but significantly increases the likelihood of errors, leading to major discrepancies in employee hours, wages and entitlements.

2. Fragmented Systems

The use of multiple siloed systems to handle payroll and HR operations magnifies complexity. Our study revealed that only 10 per cent of companies have streamlined their process with a single solution, while 63 per cent employ three or more solutions, and over a third (37 per cent) juggle five or more. This fragmented approach burdens payroll staff with repetitive data entry across platforms, heightening the risk of inconsistencies.

3. Scale and Complexity

There is a significant correlation between company size and payroll errors.  While 39 per cent of small businesses (5-49 employees) report payroll discrepancies, this figure soars to over two-thirds for businesses with 50-250 employees. The critical factor is not the size of the business but the number of systems in use, with larger companies more likely to employ multiple HR management and payroll systems, increasing the probability of human error.

Moving towards a modern payroll solution

The findings from our study underscore the need for businesses to transition towards automated and centralised payroll and HR systems. By doing so, companies can reduce administrative burdens, ensure compliance and provide a more accurate and engaging employee experience. 

With nearly half of Australian businesses dissatisfied with their current HR and payroll solutions and looking to switch in the next 12 months, the time for modernisation is now.

For those ready to explore cutting-edge payroll and HR solutions, Rippling offers one unified system to streamline all employee data and operations, reducing errors and enhancing overall workforce engagement. Equipped with advanced data analytics, Rippling’s centralised solution enables businesses to make informed decisions and stay ahead of compliance requirements.

Download Rippling and Censuswide’s 2024 report and gain more insights into the state of Australian payroll here. 

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The EOFY is the ideal time to review policies, procedures and employee record-keeping to ensure everything is up-to-date and accurate. In addition, there are likely to have been compliance, regulatory and employment law changes over the past 12 months, or which will roll out in the new financial year. These also need to be accounted for.

Now is the time to take stock about the year that has passed, review what’s been done well, and identify areas for improvement in the year ahead.

Our handy checklist touches on all areas within HR’s mandate, including:

• Payroll and superannuation obligations
• Employee contracts, entitlements and awards
• Employee files and records
• Recruitment and staffing
• Performance management and professional development
• General HR hygiene (workplace health & safety, employee discipline and termination, leave policy, expenses policy reviews)

With links to relevant government websites and handy tips, our EOFY checklist will ensure your business is in the best possible position to excel in FY25.

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• Psychosocial hazards are eroding employee mental health and wellbeing.
• Psychosocial safety is an organisational culture issue and not just about compliance.
• Organisations must assess cultural risk, hold leaders accountable and support managers.

Register FREE for a Gallup webinar where experts will deep dive into this topic which is reaching crisis point in Australian workplaces.

Australian workplaces are facing a serious mental health crisis. A growing number of employees are exposed to psychosocial hazards that increase their risk of developing work-related psychological injuries. 

Mental health conditions contributed an increasing proportion of work-related injuries and illnesses in Australia in 2021-22, accounting for 9 per cent of all serious work-related claims – a rise of nearly 37 per cent since 2017-18. Psychosocial hazards create a toxic workplace environment that erodes employee relationships and provokes harmful behaviours. 

The impact of this is devastating. Nearly half of Australia’s workforce experienced workplace bullying, harassment, or discrimination in 2023, according to an Australian Workers Union (AWU) study, resulting in a sharp rise in psychological injury claims. 

In addition to the damaging effect on employees, the cost to the Australian economy due to rising psychological and psychosocial injury claims is estimated to be as high as A$39.9 billion annually. Further, lost productivity due to mental health injury claims is more than four times that of all injury and disease claims: Safe Work Australia’s 2024 Psychological health and safety in the workplace report found that the median time lost due to mental health conditions was 34.2 working weeks per serious claim, compared with 8.0 weeks per serious claim for all injuries and diseases.

Of course, toxic workplaces that engender psychosocial hazards exist everywhere, not just in Australia. More than one in five employees globally — 23 per cent — have experienced some form of violence or harassment at work, according to a 2022 ILO-Lloyd’s Register Foundation-Gallup survey.

Psychosocial hazards are facets of the workplace that potentially cause psychological injury and undermine employee mental health. Sadly, these hazards are often part of the day-to-day employee experience and include things such as lack of role clarity, unrealistic job demands, poor manager support, harmful colleague relationships, inadequate reward and recognition or a poor physical environment.

Leaders urgently need to deal with this mounting crisis. They and their organisations have both a duty of care and a vested interest to ensure their workplaces promote psychosocial safety and enhance the engagement and wellbeing of employees. In addition to suppressing harassment and other abusive behaviour, their organisations will benefit from improved employee retention and better collaboration, innovation and productivity. 

Four ways leaders can contribute to psychosocially safe workplaces

Governments in Australia and other countries are acting to get in front of this issue by implementing workplace policies aimed at ensuring psychosocial safety in much the same way as physical health and safety. 

“Under model work health and safety laws, psychosocial hazards and risks are treated the same as physical hazards and risks,” says Marie Boland, CEO of Safe Work Australia, a government agency that has published its Code of Practice to help identify areas of risk that undermine psychosocial safety in the workplace.

But this is not just a compliance issue: It’s also an organisational culture issue. A healthy culture is essential for both psychosocial safety and performance. 

So, what should leaders do?

1. Assess cultural risk

Culture is arguably an organisation’s most valuable asset, and one that is not easily replicated by competitors. Organisations should manage culture like they do other assets by regularly assessing its value, managing risk and ensuring it delivers a satisfactory return. Regularly assessing critical dimensions of an organisation’s culture such as ethics, diversity and inclusion, trust in leadership and wellbeing will reveal areas of cultural strength, as well as highlighting factors that may be early warning signs of psychosocial risks in the workplace. 

Gallup’s research on culture has identified 10 thematic dimensions that can be measured and benchmarked, which promote workplace ethics and integrity, employee wellbeing and a culture of inclusion, and are predictive of performance outcomes. Scanning culture across these 10 Culture Asset Index dimensions brings into sharp focus a precise picture of an organisation’s cultural health, and pinpoints where and in which dimensions there are potential risks that need to be addressed.

2. Drive accountability for leaders

Leaders are the de facto owners of their organisation’s culture. Every action they take is watched closely by everyone in the organisation, so they must be role models of psychological safety and demonstrate desired behaviours to managers and front-line employees. They should constantly ask themselves: Are our employees better off psychologically as a result of working here? If not, how can I be a role model for the organisation to ensure they are? Leaders should understand how their own strengths and style are perceived by their teams as they develop, engage and inspire performance.  

Leaders’ words and actions carry great significance for the people in their organisation and should clearly illustrate how they live and promote culture and values. For example, if a core value is “ethics and integrity”, leaders need to demonstrate ethical behaviour and integrity in every action and decision they make. They also need to hold themselves and others accountable for adhering to the organisation’s values and upholding psychological safety in the workplace. 

3. Equip and support managers

Front-line managers are essential to team engagement, performance and wellbeing. They also play a huge role in establishing an environment of trust and mutual respect within their teams. 

Employees need to feel their manager takes an interest in and cares about them – both as a member of the team and as a person. Managers can demonstrate this to their reports by having frequent, ongoing conversations with them about their individual concerns and ambitions. For some managers this comes naturally, but many need training, tools and support to transition from boss to coach. 

One practical step that organisations can take is to assist front-line managers to have weekly meaningful conversations with each member of their team. These can start with three simple questions: How are you going? How’s your work going? What support do you need? 

When managers take the time to connect regularly by having a one-to-one conversation with everyone on their team, it demonstrates they care and helps establish an environment of mutual trust — an essential element of psychosocial safety. By asking these questions, managers invite team members to share concerns about aspects of their day-to-day experience that are important to them such as workload, goal clarity, colleague relationships, or materials and equipment. This reinforces trust between managers and employees and allows managers to discover potential psychosocial hazards.

4. Create a culture of psychosocial safety — and performance

It’s hard to overstate the impact of culture on psychosocial health and safety, and why it’s essential that organisations assess their culture to identify and mitigate risk factors. But the good news is that a culture of psychosocial safety also benefits organisations through higher employee engagement. 

“Proactively managing psychosocial hazards at work not only protects workers,” says Boland. “It also benefits businesses by improving organisational performance and productivity.”

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Research by global workplace wellbeing leader TELUS Health shows the overall mental health score of employees in Australia remains at COVID-19 pandemic levels. The number of people impacted by mental health issues, and the severity of those issues, has grown since 2019, with our latest Mental Health Index (MHI) report showing 38 per cent of workers have a high mental health risk, and 37 per cent have a moderate mental health risk.

One group of particular concern are managers. TELUS Health APAC Managing Director and Senior Vice President Jamie MacLennan says the declining mental health of managers has been a “frog in a boiling pot of water” scenario, with pressures at home, the flow-on impact of COVID-19 and other issues facing their staff slowly taking their toll.  

While many company boards and directors genuinely commit to incorporating wellbeing strategies, it is the front-line managers who are left to roll them out.  While managers are “not expected to be counsellors or psychologists”, they do need to know how to respond to employees experiencing mental health challenges and how to direct them to the right support.

TELUS, for example, offers a dedicated managers’ hotline to help them with any questions they might have about supporting the mental health and wellbeing of staff. They complement this service with training programs for managers, to enable them to operate effectively.   

A ‘tick box’ approach can do more damage than good 

In April 2023, Federal Legislation came into effect that regulates the management of psychosocial risks and hazards at work across Australia, prompting a wave of new employee assistance plans (EAP) and wellbeing apps to enter the market. However, companies that subscribe to these apps without doing their due diligence risk taking a tick box approach to supporting their employees’ wellbeing, MacLennan warns.  

“Pre-COVID-19, many organisations did have wellbeing as a ‘tick box’ approach where they thought, ‘I’ll throw in an EAP so if anyone ever asks, I’ve got that covered, but they didn’t promote or support it in any way. But it’s not a true wellbeing strategy and it doesn’t work because it doesn’t resonate with people.”

MacLennan says a wellbeing strategy needs to be incorporated into an organisation’s overall business and people strategies, and have measurable goals and targets. TELUS, for example, provides a holistic approach to mental, physical and financial wellbeing that combines digital and in-person services, such as counselling, training, financial and legal assistance and physical health checks.

“You need to set metrics and track them to meaningfully assess it – otherwise, it’s nice to have, but what is the outcome?” he says. “We track the outcome of the work we do, and then correlate it against our global research to advise and inform clients about what is happening and how they are performing.”

Getting it right makes good business sense

MacLennan says for companies such as TELUS, measuring an organisation’s data means that the return on investment of a wellness strategy is something that can be calculated.

“A properly executed health and wellness strategy is absolutely a commercial imperative, and should be treated by management as such,” says MacLennan.

A commitment to wellness, both physical and mental, is something that employees have come to expect from employers in an increasingly competitive market. TELUS Health research found that younger workers would trade a salary increase for “greater wellbeing support”, says MacLennan.

“It’s one of those virtuous circles whereby if you support peoples’ wellbeing, they feel much more engaged with the organisation and inclined to stay with the company, and they will also be more productive,” he says. 

“But, if you get it wrong, the opposite is true. It can be a disaster for business and employees’ sense of wellbeing.”

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The spotlight on workplace mental health is intensifying – and for good reason. Workers are the lifeblood of any organisation. As businesses increasingly acknowledge the link between employee mental health and overall productivity, the imperative to cultivate supportive environments is more critical than ever. 

But, in facing the labyrinth of mental health, it’s difficult to know where to start.

You can’t hide from mental health

In recent years, we have witnessed stress and anxiety skyrocket, becoming the most common workplace injury. 

The rise of remote work, increased workloads and the demands of an interconnected world are taking their toll on individuals and impacting the overall health of organisations. In response to this, the resolutions we tend to see are surface-level work perks like fruit bowls or free coffee. But, as mental health becomes more entwined with success, that is simply not enough. 

Employers must reconcile what they say with what they do. 

Recognition serves as the first step to prioritise workplace wellbeing, but implementation is the most crucial aspect. Equipping leaders with the right tools, training and guidance to effectively support their employees is a significant milestone to addressing these issues.

Going beyond a corporate checkbox

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), often considered a checkbox in corporate policies, are not just a formality. They represent a dynamic and proactive approach to supporting employees through life’s challenges. 

When it comes to implementing a solid wellbeing strategy, EAPs sit at the heart of what a business does.

TELUS Health is a global health and wellbeing leader, serving people in more than 160 countries, delivering both digital and clinical innovative services to improve total physical, mental and financial health and wellness across the full spectrum of primary and preventative care. 

A recent merger between Benestar and Lifeworks (two of the largest EAP providers in Australia) has positioned TELUS Health as the largest EAP provider in ANZ and the world.

With the broadest corporate mental health and wellbeing team across Australia and New Zealand, TELUS Health leverages a network of 100,000 health professionals. It represents a seamless integration between online and in-person clinical options, complemented by cutting-edge digital and data analytics capabilities.

This truly holistic approach not only meets, but exceeds the evolving needs of organisations and their diverse workforces.

Addressing the nuances of mental health

One of the cornerstones of TELUS Health’s approach is the Mental Health Index, designed to provide a detailed understanding of the mental wellbeing of individuals and organisations, and the factors influencing mental health.

Data and analytics empower organisations to proactively address challenges, track progress and tailor interventions based on real-time, evidence-driven insights.  

It’s not just about the absence of illness, but the presence of true mental flourishing. 

A tech powerhouse for workplace wellbeing

The intersection of technology and health is becoming increasingly vital and is reshaping how we approach EAPs.

World-class technology forms the backbone of the modern wellbeing app, fusing digital and medical expertise with a user-friendly design to create a truly engaging experience.

The TELUS Health One app serves as a holistic portal, facilitating excellent service integration that transcends the boundaries of traditional health and wellbeing offerings. Solutions are tailor-made to an individual’s unique circumstances and delivered at the right time, through the right medium.

Managing workplace wellbeing is about creating an effective wellbeing strategy that actually drives transformation – and technology is a great facilitator for this change, helping to create a healthier, engaged and productive workforce. Fusing technology with a great clinical team, for both research and delivery, drives remarkable health experiences and outcomes.

With organisations losing millions each year to ignoring mental health issues, this isn’t just a nice-to-have – it’s a commercial imperative.

To find out more about TELUS Health and its EAP service, click here.

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But what does ‘skills-first’ mean? A skills-first approach to hiring means focusing on whether a person has the right skills for a job, rather than simply focusing on their educational background, job history or experience. 

For the longest time, people were hired based on ‘traditional’ credentials such as what degree they had, where they worked or who they knew. But now, things are starting to change. Businesses are paying more attention to skills. Applicants, too, have grown better at explaining the value they bring to the table.

For hirers, putting skills first is crucial. It doesn’t just increase the size of employer talent pools. It can also help employers thrive while developing a more nimble, engaged and diverse workforce, and helping to plug the skills gaps we currently have in Australia.

However, there are challenges when it comes to skills-first hiring. To understand the challenges – and ideate the solutions – LinkedIn brought together more than 300 senior talent and HR professionals for workshops in Sydney and Melbourne. Here are some of their key insights and takeaways. 

The benefits of skills-first hiring

First, let’s look at the context. Seventy-two per cent of workshop participants agreed skills-first is the future of work. And, according to LinkedIn’s 2023 Future of Recruiting report, 96 per cent of recruiting experts in Australia and New Zealand agree that understanding the skills employees do and don’t have is necessary to make informed talent decisions. And 83 per cent of them expect skills-first hiring to be a priority for their organisation in the next 18 months.

According to staffing firm ManpowerGroup, global talent shortages are at a 17-year high, with more than three quarters of employers unable to find talent with the right technical and soft skills.

So how can skills-first help? LinkedIn’s data shows skills-first hiring has various benefits:

1. Increases talent pools by 10.2x in Australia. This makes it easier for organisations to find quality applicants for hard-to-fill roles.
2. Makes access to jobs more democratic and equitable. In fields where women have traditionally been underrepresented, a skills-first approach increases the proportion of women in talent pools by 24 per cent more than it would for men.

Bridging the skills gap

“Job titles are no longer currency. Skills are. And we need to spend 15 per cent of our working week learning and developing new skills in order to stay current.” – Ben Hamer, Future of Work expert and keynote speaker at LinkedIn’s workshop event.

The World Economic Forum suggests that by 2025, 50 per cent of employees will need reskilling. With the current uncertain economic backdrop, upskilling and reskilling are critical. Businesses must continue to understand the skills their employees have, and the skills they need.

Workshop participants were also feeling the pinch. They identified critical roles they were struggling to fill; these ranged widely across industries from engineering, data and cybersecurity to sales and nursing roles.

Here are the top nine tactics talent and L&D professionals were looking at to bridge the skills gap: 

1. Traineeships and graduate programs
2. Brand advocacy and marketing
3. Mentoring, reskilling and transferring internal talent 
4. Career pathways and capability frameworks
5. Succession planning
6. Offering flexible work arrangements 
7. Networking and referrals
8. Encouraging diversity, equity and inclusion 
9. Sourcing talent from overseas. 

Challenges to going skills-first

While companies are increasingly aware of the importance of a skills-first approach, they are at varying stages in their journey. 

LinkedIn’s Head of Public Sector – Australia and New Zealand, Becky Tyler, highlighted that 83 per cent of recruiting professionals in Australia expect skills-first hiring to be a priority for their company in the next 18 months. But only 43 per cent are in the program development stage.

The main obstacles participants identified:

1. A lack of buy-in from senior leadership, who might be risk-averse or not fully aware of the benefits of a skills-first approach
2. Traditional recruitment expectations, such as wanting a 10/10 skills match
3. A lack of time, budget and resources for learning and development.

 The proposed solutions:

1. Identify critical skills and have a competency framework
2. Use data and case studies to educate leaders 
3. Allocate time and resources for learning and development 
4. Make career pathways more visible
5. Hire junior talent and let them grow
6. Succession planning
7. Embrace diversity.

Key insights and takeaways for creating a skills-first strategy

Participants emerged from the workshop with several insights:

1. The importance of having a skills framework to identify the necessary skills, and map out how they might be systematically assessed and developed within the company. Technical skills are vital, but so are soft skills.
2. Use data-driven storytelling to demonstrate the benefits of putting skills first. Communicating the business value of the skills-first approach – for instance, its effect on staff retention – could help change senior leaders’ mindsets. 
3. Re/upskilling existing staff and allowing them to transfer internally within the organisation could also help fill critical roles. 
4. Companies will need to dedicate time and resources to learning and development, treating it as essential rather than an “add-on”.

As organisations evolve their talent strategies, there are plenty of resources that can help.One is LinkedIn’s Learning Hub, which has courses that can help companies with development of their upskilling and reskilling strategies, including:

• Upskilling and reskilling the workforce 
• Promoting internal mobility as a manager 
• Attracting, hiring and working with Gen Z
• Diversity recruiting 
• Creating a culture of learning.

LinkedIn Learning is the only development product that uses member data to create and curate courses and content based on emerging skills we see on the platform, and provides  up-to-date skill building to help and empower individual career growth.

It currently has a content library of 20K+ courses across tech, business and creative categories, led by about 3 thousand  industry experts from around the world. Sixty brand-new courses are added every week. 

To find out more about how to future-proof your talent strategy, contact your LinkedIn representative or one of our talent specialists.

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It’s something of an understatement to say that Australia’s HR teams have endured a stressful few years. The chaos of COVID-19 was quickly followed by economic disruption, interest rate hikes, skills shortages and geopolitical uncertainty.

All of the above coincides with sweeping digitalisation, hybrid working, a growing focus on mental health and a heightened urgency to meet sustainability targets. 

It’s no wonder that a 2022 survey from Workvivo found 98 per cent of HR professionals reported feeling burned out. 

“For many, a huge part of the problem is the overwhelming workload caused by endless paperwork, manual processes and a lack of cohesion across the department,” says Danny Lessem, CEO leading Australian HRIS ELMO Software. 

“Repetitive admin tasks waste valuable time, while constant fire-fighting means human error creeps in and stress levels go through the roof.”

A cloud-based solution

However, software that automates HR tasks is transforming the industry and freeing up employees to do more valuable and creative work. Cloud-based platforms that streamline protocols and take care of  essential HR functions are revolutionising workflows and providing employers with a raft of benefits, such as:

• Software programs accessible on any device and upgraded whenever necessary
• One dashboard configured to a company’s needs
• Automated payroll functions
• Data-driven insights on recruitment and staff development
• ‘From hire to retire’ service for every stage of an employee’s journey
• A single source of truth that’s always up to date and integrated across the whole organisation
• Built in appraisal templates
• Solutions that are flexible and scalable.

“Business leaders are relying on HR directors more than ever to attract talent, implement retention strategies and nurture healthy workplace cultures,” says Lessem. “None of those can be done effectively if they’re bogged down in admin.”

Automating recruitment

Over 90 per cent of Australasian businesses are currently suffering skills shortages, according to research from Hays. Equally concerning is a finding from ELMO’s 2023 HR Industry Benchmark Report, conducted in partnership with the Australian HR Institute, that 13 per cent of new hires quit during their probation period, double the pre-pandemic rate.

“Many smaller businesses simply don’t have the resources required to identify and – more importantly – attract the best people,” says Lessem. “Recruiting for a single position can be a protracted and time-consuming process.”

And, after all that effort, the candidate may walk out after a few weeks if there’s been a mismatch between their expectations and the reality of the role and culture of the company.

“Recruitment software is a godsend to overworked HR teams struggling in difficult market conditions. It really can be transformational.” 

Its capabilities include:

• Automating all recruitment workflows
• Built-in tools to process applications and communicate with the job hunters
• Personalised job descriptions and performance targets to a company template
• Delivering exceptional candidate experiences
• Ensuring new employees have all the tools they need at every stage, including after they have started work
• Intuitive, growth-focused review cycles.

A culture of learning

One of the most effective ways to boost productivity is by implementing comprehensive employee training and development programs.

Surveys show that 40 per cent of employees will leave a job within 12 months if they feel their training is inadequate. Among millennials, nearly 9 in 10 say a strong career development plan is essential for them to stay in a job.

“A robust training program is a key success metric,” says Lessem. “But it can’t be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution, as everyone is different. Trying to stay on top of every employee manually is virtually impossible.”

Automated learning strategies don’t only monitor upskilling needs and the progression of individuals. They also identify corporate knowledge gaps, keep track of compliance requirements and empower departments to curate the right training for their changing needs.

“Managers can have complete visibility over how their teams are performing against development KPIs and see where additional courses or training modules may be necessary. A healthy culture of learning and improvement can blossom very quickly,” says Lessem.

A game-changing solution

Software platforms that replace dreary admin time with productive, morale-boosting people time are the biggest HR game-changer in decades. 

“After three years battling at the front line to support the mental health of employees, HR professionals can take steps to protect their own wellbeing and fulfil their potential as key drivers of business success,” says Lessem.

Book a demo today with ELMO Software’s award-winning, cloud-based packages that have helped thousands of Australian and New Zealand organisations transform their HR operations.

The post Transforming HR: The software replacing admin time with people time appeared first on HRM online.

LinkedIn’s latest Global Talent Trends data shows that hiring continues to slow around the world, including in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. India recorded a 34 per cent dip, Singapore came down by 42 per cent, Australia saw a 35 per cent reduction and Indonesia dropped by 34 per cent, when comparing March 2023 with the same time last year.

The hiring mania that once characterised our talent landscape now appears to have been replaced by a more focused, inward strategy, as skills-first hiring rises in importance. 

This could signal the start of a new, more sustainable ride into the future, as skills become the currency of the workplace. 

With a faster proliferation of new skill needs, where someone went to school or who they know should matter less than the skills they possess. A skills-first hiring approach widens the talent pool and helps organisations fill their roles with greater efficiency and effectiveness.  

We invited four industry experts to weigh in on LinkedIn’s latest Global Talent Trends report and share their advice to help recruitment professionals recalibrate their talent strategy for the future. 

Tip #1: Build a strong talent pipeline by putting skills first  

As the hiring market cools, orienting your talent strategy around skills instead of traditional proxies like direct experience and paper qualifications can immediately widen your talent pool by a global average of 9.4x. This can be even more significant in markets such as Australia (10.2x), India (12x) and Indonesia (13x). 

To make the shift towards a skills-first hiring strategy, Stacey Donovan Zapar, Founder of The Talent Agency, has two key recommendations: 

1. Start by taking the time to understand the skills your organisation needs 
2. Invest in a strong employer brand, making sure that your employee value proposition is aligned with candidates’ priorities. 

The Global Talent Trends report found that, despite swings in the labour market and economic uncertainty, what employees in the APAC  region value when it comes to work has stayed relatively consistent through the turbulence of the past two years.

LinkedIn Global Talent Trends: How employees in APAC rank their priorities, March 2023

How can LinkedIn help? You can use your company page’s new Commitment section to showcase up to five key values such as diversity, equity and inclusion , career growth and learning, work-life balance, workplace flexibility and more. 

You can also use the Talent Interest Pipeline, another new feature that allows candidates to express interest in working for your company without applying for a specific role, to automatically maintain a pipeline of warm candidates. 

Tip #2: Leverage internal mobility as a tool for retention 

While hiring is on a downward trend, we are seeing an uptick in internal mobility in some global industries, indicating that, amid global uncertainty, some companies are opting to fill their skills requirements from within. 

While internal mobility is increasing in some global industries, it’s still not top-of-mind for employees in some APAC markets. 

Our Workforce Confidence Index found employees across APAC are more likely to consider leaving their company than they are to look for an internal move. Employees may have internalised the idea that moving up the ladder means changing employers. 

However, there is a particular untapped opportunity in markets where employees are just as likely or almost as likely to consider moving internally: In Australia 1.1x, in Japan 5.5x and in India 1x. 

Part of the reason for this may be that they don’t see opportunities internally. This makes it all the more important to promote internal mobility opportunities to your employees. 

Doing so can come with big payoffs, starting with higher employee retention – LinkedIn data shows that employees stay at companies almost twice as long if the employer is highly committed to internal hiring. 

You may also be helping to uplift certain employee groups more than others, thereby building a more diverse and equitable workforce along the way. 

Employee groups  most likely to benefit from internal mobility

LinkedIn Global Talent Trends: Employee groups that are most likely to benefit from internal mobility, February 2023 

To strengthen your internal mobility and your hiring culture and process, LinkedIn Learning instructor Stacey Gordon suggests: 

1. Making it easy for internal candidates to find opportunities, such as through an internal job board 
2. Quantifying the skills you’re looking for
3. Building a culture of internal mobility and securing managers’ buy-in and support. 

As a recruitment professional, you can put LinkedIn hiring tools that you already know to good use, leveraging features such as the Internal Candidate Spotlight in Recruiter to find and connect internal talent to internal opportunities. 

Tip #3: Invest in upskilling and reskilling the next generation of leaders 

Our Global Talent Trends data suggests Gen Z employees are the least likely to make internal moves, and people leaders in management roles are more likely to benefit from internal moves compared to individual contributors. 

However, our Future of Recruiting 2023 report found career advancement and skill development consistently ranked within the top six priorities of workers across Australia & New Zealand, India and Southeast Asia. In fact, companies generally see a seven per cent higher retention rate at the three-year mark when employees have learned skills on the job.

Learning is clearly a compelling driver for both internal candidates and external hires. To help employees acquire the skills and achieve the growth that they desire, Christopher Lind, Vice President and Chief Learning Officer at ChenMed, recommends: 

1. Understanding where employees are in their careers right now and what help they need to progress internally 
2. Focusing on leadership and management training 
3. Offering targeted mentorship programmes. 

Watch these five LinkedIn Learning courses to jump-start your company on implementing an inclusive, skills-first talent strategy – they’re free until July 28, 2023. 

• Upskilling and Reskilling your Workforce with Lori Niles-Hofmann

• Promoting Internal Mobility as a Manager with Alisa Cohn

• Attracting, Hiring, and Working with Gen Z with Sophie Wade

• Diversity Recruiting with Stacey Gordon

• Creating a Culture of Learning with Naphtali Bryant and Jason Mulero.

Some of the biggest changes and opportunities today are being driven by artificial intelligence (AI). We know how important building AI-related skills will be to navigate virtually every role and industry. Your employees can access over 100 free AI courses until June 15, 2023 to upskill in AI and learn what it means for the future of work.

Tip #4: Make the business case for skills

As the hiring market cools and the macroeconomic climate weighs on businesses, employee retention is a concern for virtually every organisation. According to LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report, this is true for 94 per cent of organisations in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, and 99 per cent in India.  The vast majority of these organisations are providing learning opportunities in a bid to stem attrition. 

Our Global Talent Trends data tells us companies that focus on skills can expect nearly a 10 per cent higher retention rate, which should be enough to get your leaders to sit up and pay attention.

Gallup estimates the cost of replacing an employee can range from 1.5 to 2x the employee’s annual salary. While this is likely to vary from market to market, over 80 per cent of learning and development professionals in APAC agree that it’s less expensive to reskill a current employee than to hire a new one. 

To help you build a business case for skills, Crystal Lim-Lange, CEO and Co-Founder of Forest Wolf and LinkedIn Top Voice 2022, recommends quantifying the value of leadership training and skills-building. 

Taking the next step 

As the world of work continues to shape-shift around us, the best first move is to start asking hard questions about your company’s internal mobility culture and processes. 

Are internal moves encouraged? Do employees know how to access open internal roles? Is there a clear working model between the teams most likely to be accountable for internal mobility (i.e. talent acquisition and talent development)?

The answers to these questions will set you on the right path as you recalibrate your talent strategy for the future. To help you along, see the further resources below.

Read the full Global Talent Trends report here: 

• Global Report 
• Australia & New Zealand edition

The post How to recalibrate your talent strategy as hiring slows appeared first on HRM online.

An employee leasing an electric vehicle could now save thousands of dollars thanks to a new government initiative aimed at boosting the number of environmentally friendly cars on our roads.

The Electric Vehicle Discount was launched in late 2022 to make clean energy vehicles with a retail price of less than $84,916 cheaper to access by exempting them from fringe benefits tax (FBT) and import tariffs when they are associated with a novated lease.

This means EV drivers could save twice as much as those leasing petrol engine cars when they take out a novated lease.

What is the EV Discount?

The federal government introduced the scheme, which applies to any novated lease taken out on or after 1 July 2022, to accelerate the take-up of more sustainable cars.

Unlike leases on petrol cars, the EV Discount is exempt from the 47 per cent FBT and five per cent import tariffs, potentially saving another $3000 to $5000 a year compared to a lease on a petrol car. It’s available for both new and used vehicles. 

“Looking at a petrol car like the MG ZS Essence, someone earning $80,000 per annum could save over $10,000 over a five-year novated lease,” says Liam Day, EV Product Manager of Australia’s largest novated lease provider Maxxia. “But under the EV Discount, the potential saving is over $26,000 over the life of the lease – a difference of over $16,000.

“It’s a significant benefit that simply isn’t available outside of their employment, but also a financial motivator for employees to reduce their carbon footprint, likely years before they’d otherwise be able to do so.”

It’s good news for company fleets too, with potential savings of over $10,000 per year on cars assigned to employees.

“Under the EV Discount, the potential saving is over $26,000 over the life of a five-year lease! It’s a significant benefit that simply isn’t available outside of employment.”  – Liam Day, Maxxia

Savings from novated leases

When an employee takes out a novated lease, they pay for it through deductions from their pre-tax wages, potentially reducing the amount they pay income tax on.

Such leases don’t just have to cover the purchase price, stamp duty and registration – they can also include running costs such as insurance, fuel, tyres and servicing. So practically every expense associated with their car could represent a further reduction in income tax. 

Maxxia not only sources the vehicles through its nationwide fleet discounts – it can also help arrange finance, insurance and fuel discounts. All repayments and costs can be combined into one regular payment to make servicing, repairs and paying bills as easy as possible. You can find out more here.

Standing out from the crowd

But the EV Discount benefits don’t stop with employees – there are several reasons why both small and large organisations are jumping on board.

“More and more people want their employers to be good corporate citizens,” says Day. “An initiative as simple as offering EVs through salary sacrifice is a great opportunity to stand out from the crowd, enhance your ESG credentials and signal that you’re committed to taking tangible action on environmental and sustainability issues.”

At a time of widespread skills shortages, it’s more important than ever for organisations to nurture strong employee value propositions to attract top talent. And a commitment to reducing carbon emissions can be an effective strategy.

“An initiative as simple as offering EVs through salary sacrifice is a great opportunity to stand out from the crowd.” – Liam Day, Maxxia

Two thirds of those surveyed in a global IBM study last year said they were more likely to accept a job if their new employer was strongly committed to sustainability. Worryingly, another report found 83 per cent think their employer isn’t currently doing enough. 

The electric advantage

EVs are still more expensive than standard petrol engine models, but they cost far less to run. The average Australian drives 15,000km a year, which sets them back around $2160 if they fill up with petrol, but only $600 if they plug into the mains instead. And, if all their household power comes from solar panels, then that figure drops to zero.

Not only that, EVs have fewer moving parts, so repair bills can also be slashed. Tesla even claims that its cars are designed to eliminate the need for service as wear and tear is kept to a minimum. 

But it’s the environmental impact that draws most drivers to finally ditch the 95-octane unleaded, as petrol guzzlers emit over three times as much CO2 per kilometre as EVs. Over a car’s lifetime that can be 40 more tons!

Join the rEVolution

Maxxia is Australia’s largest novated leasing provider and an expert in helping organisations roll out the EV Discount to benefit their employees. 

Download Maxxia’s guide The EV Discount explained for employers.

The post How the government’s new electric vehicle discount could benefit your organisation appeared first on HRM online.

The good news? Firstly, you’re not alone. There’s a whole world of professionals facing the same challenges. Second, there are plenty of tea leaves to help you predict the future of recruitment — if you know where to look.

That’s the idea behind the latest data-driven LinkedIn report: The Future of Recruiting 2023. Informed by interviews with dozens of talent leaders, surveys of thousands of recruitment pros and analysis of billions of data points generated on LinkedIn, this report makes 17 predictions grouped into 5 core themes on the future of recruiting. 

While every prediction may not play out precisely as described, preparing today can leave you better-equipped for whatever tomorrow holds. These predictions align with a handful of key themes:

• The role of recruiting: from the proverbial ‘seat at the table’ to using generative AI, here’s how recruitment’s remit is evolving.
• Economic uncertainty: a look into how the macroeconomic picture is impacting workforce planning, DEI and compensation.
• Employer brand: the need to examine what candidates really want and whether organisations are conveying that through their company culture.
• Skills-first hiring: a move to assessing candidates by their capabilities and potential, not just their pedigree or experience.
• Internal mobility and upskilling: why organisations are pairing internal recruiting practices with employee learning and development.

In short, recruitment leaders will be called on to be more strategic, adaptable and in tune with what candidates want, what skills they possess and how their careers can progress within your company. 

Read on for a detailed look at some of these predictions, or click here to read the full report online and find insights, advice and perspectives on the future of recruiting.

1. Prediction on the role of recruiting: Recruiting leaders will drive business-critical changes

After braving the trials and tribulations of the pandemic and the Great Reshuffle, recruitment leaders have emerged with a stronger, more strategic place in the business. Some 87 per cent of recruiting pros surveyed agree that talent acquisition has become a more strategic function over the past year.

The remit of recruitment leaders will continue to grow in both breadth and depth. You’ll be working with broader teams, such as learning and development, across the employee lifecycle, while also becoming more sophisticated in recruiting tactics like skills-based hiring. 

“In the past year, I’ve seen more and more talent leaders get hired with a scope that goes beyond talent acquisition,” says John Vlastelica, founder of Recruiting Toolbox. “They’re expected to connect different pieces together and lead with a more holistic perspective.”

A similar sentiment is shared by Brett Baumoel, Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition, Engineering, at Microsoft, who noted how recruiters will have new responsibilities in the future. 

“In the next 18 months, recruiters are going to be asked to do everything,” he says. “Instead of aligning to one goal, you’ll be aligning to 10 business goals, and they may change every week. That’s why a recruiter’s learning agility is so critical.”

The upside of all this new responsibility? Recruitment teams will be able to profoundly influence the business in ways they couldn’t just a few years ago. 

“Recruiting professionals have never been able to make a bigger impact than right now,” says Brett. “You used to be able to say, ‘These hires helped our company.’ Now you can say, ‘I changed the makeup of our company, I changed where we work, I changed what we look for, and I changed how we hire.’”

Read all the predictions about the changing role of recruiting here.

2. Prediction on economic uncertainty: Employers will hire more contractors to hedge their bets on the business cycle 

The labour market has confounded prognosticators time and time again over the last few years – for many, it’s never been so difficult to see around the corner. 

To stay nimble and hedge their bets no matter which way the market moves, recruitment teams might increasingly turn to contingent talent, like contractors who work for a specified amount of time. This gives the business more room to react to changing market conditions without long-term commitments.

“On the rebound of any crisis, organisations usually learn a lesson about flexibility,” says Marc-Etienne Julien, Chief Talent Officer at Randstad Global. Even as the market starts to improve, wary employers may still be drawn to contractors, he says. 

“When bouncing back from a crisis, demand for contingent work will spike quicker than demand for permanent staff, because employers don’t know yet whether the recovery will be sustained.” 

LinkedIn’s own Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition, Jennifer Shappley, believes that this goes beyond just contractors. “This is part of a larger trend of getting more flexibility in how you scale your team,” she says. “It’s not just more contract workers, but also more flexible work arrangements, and more gig assignments internally that enable mobility and upskilling.”

Read all the predictions about navigating economic uncertainty here.

3. Prediction on employer brand: Recruiting will double-down on employer branding as talent regains leverage

While the economic outlook may be cloudy in the medium term, recruitment professionals appear more optimistic about the long-term prospects for candidates: 64 per cent predict that, compared to recent years, the next five years of recruiting will be more favourable to candidates and employees rather than employers. 

That means companies need to stay focused on building talent pipelines, even if their hiring has slowed for the moment. That may be why many companies are taking this opportunity to refine or reinvent their employer brand.

Randstad’s Marc-Etienne sees it as a prudent step to take in anticipation of a stronger economy. “When the economy recovers, the competition for talent is going to spike back up very quickly,” he says. “So it’s really important for companies to make progress in how they position their employer brand and, more importantly, how they bring it to life.”

Though employer branding is but one of many line items in a recruiting budget, it was anticipated to grow even as budgets shrink overall. While most in-house corporate recruitment professionals believe their overall budget will stagnate or decrease this year, an ever-growing share (60 per cent) believe their employer branding budget will increase. 

Of course, regardless of how much you budget for employer branding, it won’t be effective if it’s not an accurate, authentic reflection of your company culture. 

“When you think about employer branding – how you articulate your culture to attract, engage and retain talent – you need to go beyond the performative,” says John Graham Jr., Vice President of Employer Brand, Diversity, and Culture at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. 

“Candidates can see through it. They’re tapping into their networks to understand who you really are, beyond what your career site says.”

Read all the predictions about employer branding here.

4. Prediction on skills-first hiring: Recruiting for skills, rather than pedigree, will become the gold standard

Skills-first hiring is the practice of valuing a candidate’s actual skills over more traditional signals, like an impressive alma mater or a decade of experience at a blue-chip employer. 

Whether you look back at recent trends or look forward to future priorities, the skills-first hiring practice is on the rise and will be regarded as the gold standard.

Looking back, we can see that recruiters searching for candidates on LinkedIn are increasingly filtering by skills more than they were just three years ago. Looking forward, three out of four talent professionals (75 per cent) predict that skills-first hiring will be a priority for their organisation over the next 18 months. 

Critically, hiring this way can make it easier to surface talented candidates who may not have the flashy experience or elite qualifications that often catch hiring managers’ eyes. 

“How do we get better at filtering in, not filtering out?” asks Jennifer Paylor, Head of Global Talent Innovation and Skills Transformation at Capgemini. 

“Recruiters have been trained to copy and paste a job description so they can hire really, really fast. They’re not really looking at what the work requires and what skills are needed. That’s starting to change.”

Alex Fleming, Regional President of Northern Europe at Adecco, has also noted this recent change. “There’s been a real shift in the past year,” she says. “We are in a scarce talent market, and recruiters need to think differently and be more flexible, thinking about potential and skills rather than qualifications and job titles.”

Read all the predictions about skills-first hiring here.

5. Prediction on internal mobility and upskilling: Recruiting will collaborate more with L&D

Recruitment teams are already starting to partner with learning and development (L&D) teams – but there’s still a long way to go. While 62 per cent of recruiting pros say they already work closely with L&D, 81 per cent say they need to work even more closely going forward.

According to the LinkedIn 2023 Workplace Learning Report, L&D professionals are seeing the same trend: Most (56 per cent) say they’re already working more closely with talent acquisition this year. 

Many companies are using this moment to strengthen the bonds between their two teams. “As hiring slows, now is the time for companies to review their workforce strategies and see how they can find and fill these gaps internally,” says Elsa Zambrano, Senior Vice President of Talent and Culture at NXP Semiconductors. 

But even when hiring speeds back up, L&D teams will have a critical role to play – particularly when many companies are competing over a scarce talent pool with in-demand skills. 

“In the future, companies won’t always have the luxury of hiring someone who has already done the job,” says Randstad’s Marc-Etienne. “Employers will have to really distinguish between what skills are good-to-have versus must-have, and how they can help employees learn more. That’s probably the most important adjustment companies need to make in the future.” 

Read all the predictions about internal mobility and upskilling here.

Final thoughts

Again, every prediction LinkedIn put forward may not play out precisely as described. But recruitment and business leaders still need to look forward, anticipate what’s ahead and help steer their company through the uncertain future. 

“As recruiting leaders, it’s so important that we meet at the moment,” says Jennifer Shappley, LinkedIn’s Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition. “We can’t rely on the strategies of the past to build our future.”

Change is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be a passive observer as recruiting evolves. You’re in a position to reshape the way the world works – and ensure it works for everyone.

This blog post is just a preview — you can read the full global report online (or download it as a PDF) to see all 17 predictions on the future of recruiting. The Australian edition also available here.

The post 17 predictions on the future of recruitment for talent leaders appeared first on HRM online.