people2people news | September 7, 2010
Welcome to people2people news
Welcome to the people2people news site. It is intended that this site will be used as forum for the sharing of ideas and news about people2people, the jobs market and experiences from our clients and those who are seeking new opportunities. We welcome comments and should you wish to start your own discussion contact: news@people2people.com.au
The Unemployed Need Not Apply…
Posted by Lisa: August 11, 2010This morning I received an email from ERE.net - this is an American HR website and it quite often publishes ‘posts’ that are interesting from a recruitment point of view. Today the good people in the US are up in arms about job advertisements that have appeared with lines like ‘The unemployed need not apply’. I am attaching a link Here so you can go and read it for yourself.
Whilst I can safely say I have never seen an Australian company or recruitment business advertise a vacancy and actively exclude the unemployed, I have seen advertisements that do include potentially discriminatory language. The most common are those ad’s that ask for years of experience - you know the ones “..you must have 2 years experience” or “..at least 5 years experience..” kind of ad’s.
Why can’t I advertise for years of experience?
Fundamentally asking for a minimum number of years experience can lead to ‘indirect discrimination’. For example someone may have only gained 21 months experience because of parental commitments (eg. they went on maternity leave) and if they feel that they cannot apply for the role because you have specified a minimum of 2 years experience, the person may feel that they are indirectly discriminated against because of their parental responsibilities. It’s a blurry, fuzzy grey area that quite frankly you are much better off avoiding altogether.
But I know that the person that I want in this job is probably going to have worked in a similar role for at least 5 years to be at the level that I want!
I understand that you are saying, I really do - but EEO legislation doesn’t work well with ‘probably’ statements. When you think about it, what you want is someone who has developed extensive experience at that level - and that extensive experience does not necessarily refer to how long the person has done the job, but to how in depth the experience is.
Let me put it like this:
Candidate A has been an Executive Assistant for the past five years. During this time, this person has provided diary and travel management support for a Managing Director as well as developed considerable skills in word processing (80wpm), taking minutes and preparing reports.
Candidate B has been an Executive Assistant for three and a half years. Working in a large multinational, this person has been supporting the Managing Director and the Sales Director. As well as taking care of national and international travel and diary arrangements, this person coordinates various projects using Visio, manages expense claims and has a typing speed of 95wpm. This person has also had responsibility for preparing reports, but has had to liaise with senior management throughout the South Pacific to obtain the information.
As you can see both of these candidates have been working at the EA level but even though Candidate B has less experience in terms of years, he/she has more experience in terms of the depth of skills developed. Often the depth of experience is more about the type of work, or even the size of the company that the person has worked in and just advertising for years of experience is not going to identify these people.
Isn’t this all just a bit too politically correct? If I cant ‘discriminate’ against people then I would have to employ every person that applied for a job!
Recruitment is realistically all about discrimination. You HAVE to discriminate between applicants to find the best person for the job. But you have to make sure that how you discriminate meets your EEO and Anti-Discrimination legislative requirements. For example, you cannot actively just eliminate all women from your search because you don’t ‘think’ a woman is the right person for the job. You cannot refuse to employ someone because of their religious beliefs or their ethniticity. You cannot refuse to employ someone just because they are a single parent and you think that this will mean that they are unreliable and you cannot tell someone they aren’t getting the job because they are gay.
You need to discriminate based on the skills, abilities and experience required to do the job.
But what about culture fit? My vacancy is not just about the skills required to do the job; it’s about finding the person who is the best fit with our company.
You are absolutely right. How many times have we seen people with the best technical skills crash and burn at a job where they just didn’t fit into the team? Finding the person who is going be a ‘fit’ is the biggest challenge because putting someone who is not going to work well in a team into the role is an expensive failure waiting to happen. And there are real tangible costs associated with bad hiring decisions.
The problem is that you really need to be objective about your ‘culture’. Just saying “well I want a middle aged woman in this role because that has always worked for me in the past” is not an objective view of your culture. You need to think about why those people do so well - what behaviours they had, how they worked with the people around them, what was it that made them such a good fit. When you look at the behaviours you will be able to really start to put a finger on what your company culture is. Then, when considering candidates, you can look for examples of those behaviours.
There are a lot of psychometric testing systems out there in the market that can help you analyse candidate behaviour, but you don’t always have to go down that track - and in my experience psych testing a candidate adds very little value if you don’t fundamentally understand the job requirements and your company culture / team fit. By objectively analysing what you need the person to do (the job function) and identifying the behaviours of a successful employee you can start to identify (and eliminate) a potential new employee.
I don’t have time to sit around and think about our culture!
Fair call. But do you have time to constantly be recruiting for new staff? Do you have time to sit and listen to team members whingeing because they have to pick up the work when a role is vacant? Do you have time to lose your best employees because you employed the first cab off the rank and it turns out he/she is a psychopath who has made every single person in the company miserable? Recruiting the right person is a really big deal and you need to give recruitment the time and energy it requires to make sure you make the right decision.
I don’t know how to analyse my company culture - where do I start?
Well if you have an HR department - start there. The HR team should have the skills and experience to help you analyse, identify and develop the best job profile. In fact if you tell them you need help like this they are likely to throw their hands in the air with joy. If you don’t have a good HR team, partner with an experienced recruiter and allow them to guide you through the job analysis process. Doing a really indepth job analysis will allow you to identify the behaviours you need to work in the team / company. But be aware - this is not a process that you can do in 30 minutes in between other meetings. You need to dedicate real time and energy to this. Failure to do so means, well, failure.
So if I do this job analysis and behaviour stuff will it mean I will be guaranteed on hiring the right person?
Ah no. In fact I think it’s tragic that recruitment companies even feel the need to offer a guarantee to be honest. People are a fickle product. When I am interviewing for potential recruitment consultants I go out of my way to tell them that if they want a job selling a reliable, consistent product who will always do what you want it to do when you want it then this is not the industry for them. No matter what you do, there will always be some person who goes off the deep end OR some company that has a manager that offends an employee. The job analysis / culture fit process is not going to give you a rock solid guarantee that you are going to always make the right decision in employing someone; but it will reduce the number of times you make a bad decision based on vague ideas or feelings about what you think might be right.
You will never make the right decision 100% of the time. If you did recruitment companies would go out of business tomorrow. But if you are smart about how you go about doing things you will make more right decisions than wrong ones.
lisa johnson
manager, onsiite
GFC Spurs Priority Change
Posted by shannon: May 17, 2010The economic downturn has led to a change in priorities for both employers and employees. Results from PreVisor and ADP’s Global Assessment Trends Survey late 2009 show that managing the performance of the current workforce is the highest priority for HR in 2010. Whereas the highest priority prior to the downturn – external recruiting/hiring – had the largest decrease in priority. 68% of companies surveyed indicated concern about retaining employees during the economic recovery. This has led to a renewed focus on career development or talent programs as a retention strategy. Similarly, a recent Rubicor survey found that nearly 90% of businesses surveyed have established flexible work practices such as flexible start/finish times and part time work, under the belief that it will lead to higher levels of staff retention. This represents a big shift in strategy from looking outside the business to attract new talent, to focusing on looking after and developing their current workforce.
This shift in priority has not gone unnoticed by employees. In a recent survey from Kelly Services, more than a quarter of employees surveyed indicated that they feel more loyal to their employer since the economic downturn. They attributed their increase in commitment to improved engagement with their employers through better management, improved and consistent communication, and stable or increased pay.
As the recruitment freeze starts to thaw, the challenge for employers will be to follow up on promises of career development by establishing formal programs, and to continue to nurture the talent they already have on board.
Shannon Barlow
Recruitment Specialist
Criminal Background Checks - What are your rights?
Posted by shannon: May 17, 2010Some of our clients conduct criminal background checks as a standard part of their hiring process. Recently a hiring manager came to me and asked what their grounds were for conducting a police check as she believed only government departments such as child services or the police were able to access the information. Her question prompted me to research the legalities of criminal background checks for employment purposes. Here’s what I found:
- There are no restrictions for employers seeking criminal record checks provided you have permission from the candidate.
- You do not have to volunteer information about your criminal record to an employer unless there is a legal requirement to do so (e.g., working with children).
- The purpose of the check should be to comply with legislation and/or to assess whether the person can meet the inherent requirements of the job. The industry or business sector in which the entity operates is not the justification for the check.
The third point is where the ethical line begins to get a little fuzzy with employers using the nature of their business alone as the justification for conducting background checks. Where do you draw the line? Should a secretary in a pharmaceutical company be subjected to a background check despite not having access to the product? What if the crime is not relevant to the “inherent requirements of the job”? Will this really stop employers from using this as a reason not to hire? The guidelines are to discuss the relevance of the criminal record with the applicant taking into account various factors such as the seriousness of the offence, the age of the applicant when the offence occurred and the length of time since the offence occurred. But does this happen in reality? Let’s say your role involves money handling and you want to make sure there is no history of theft. Would you be able to ignore a past conviction for drug possession?
How many candidates really want the role they apply for?
Posted by Sarah: April 30, 2010Recently we advertised a role for a Junior Office Assistant, offering $35K + Super. From that advertisement, we received an overwhelming 172 applications for the role. After filtering through the resumes, ranging from high school graduates to overseas residents from an array of backgrounds and experience, we were only able to determine 27 potential candidates that were worth screening for the role.
Of those 27 who reached the initial shortlist, we were able to connect with 16 candidates with the remaining 11 receiving voicemails to return our call. Interestingly, only 5 of those actually returned our call… Looking at this from a statistical standpoint, only 15% of applications received matched the criteria listed in the advertisement. In addition to that, over 50% of candidates who we determined fit for the role didn’t even return our call?
It seems there is a trend appearing with candidates applying for every possible role they can, regardless of the requirements set out in the advertisement. But if you get a nibble, why not return the call? Has the market made a shift on demand? Or is this a pattern we should presume the norm for these relatively junior roles?
Sarah Reed
Consultant
Is a job in the hand worth two in the pipeline?
Posted by shannon: April 19, 2010Early signs in the past six months show promise for job market recovery, but as businesses start to come up for air are candidates also confident of a buoyant market ahead?
- Skilled vacancies rose by 2.4% in November from the previous month.
- In December, job advertisements increased by 56% in NSW compared with July 2009. Nationally, unemployment eased to 5.5% down from 5.6% in November.
- February saw an 11 year high in increase of job advertisements from the previous month.
- In March, skilled vacancies again rose by 2.4% and the economy added 30,100 full time jobs.
- Closer to home, people2people is also experiencing a rebound. March in particular was a heartening month for people2people. Our temporary business continued to steadily regain leverage and our permanent placements were at pre-GFC levels – the highest since November 2007.
The news is encouraging and it seems as if things are slowly but surely on the up; but are candidates feeling the same level of optimism?
Our experience tells us no. We have seen a trend of candidates being more risk adversive than prior to the downturn. Candidates seem to be less willing to hedge their bets and hold out for the better opportunity, and more likely to opt for security by accepting the first position offered. We have seen candidates pull out of interviews for permanent positions because they have accepted a contract role, or take a lesser paying or shorter term temp role because they would rather take the “sure thing” than risk being out of work.
Last week alone, one of our temporary consultants had two candidates withdraw from temp to perm opportunities to take shorter fixed term contracts. One candidate interviewed for a 6-month temp to perm position at 9.00am, with a decision expected by 5.00pm. By lunchtime she was offered a different fixed term contract and accepted the contract immediately rather than waiting the few extra hours to see if she was successful for the more attractive temp to perm position. Luckily our consultant was able to put out that particular burning bridge and she was offered and accepted our role. The point is though, she had not been willing to risk even a few hours of uncertainty in return for a better prospect.
What has your experience been? Are candidates still “playing the game” or has looking after your best interests turned from juggling job prospects to the very last minute before taking the best offer, to playing it safe and securing a job as soon as you have the chance?
Shannon Barlow
Recruitment Specialist
Would you choose the environment or a job?
Posted by the Editor: April 1, 2010Last week saw much of the world participate in Earth Hour including people2people. We ensured that on Saturday night our lights were out and any unneccessary appliances were switched off. This year we also conducted a survey, asking our clients and candidates their views on how the environment and environmental credentials affects decisions when choosing an employer.
The results are very interesting with 91% of respondents believing that environmental issues are important. When it comes to choosing our employer, however, only 71% considered the environmental credentials of the potential employer and when pushed further and asked to choose between two offers on the same day only 48% said that these credentials would play a part in their decision. It could be said that environmental issues are important to individuals on a cerebral level but once forced to consider options and to make final decisions the environment does start to fall down an employee’s priority list.
When asked if respondents knew whether their employer was carbon neutral 58% had no idea and 10% did not understand what ‘carbon neutral’ was! 61% of employees did want their employer to do more for the environment.
In summary it appears that the environment is an issue for employees and consequently should be considered by employers who want to hire the best and retain their staff.
Mark Smith
Director
State of the Market - March 2010
Posted by zichuan: March 10, 2010The results of the people2people snap poll are in and whilst I needed a couple more to be statistically viable, thanks to everyone who participated. I cross checked the results with other research and was interested to see that the general trend is similar. So what’s going on out there? Well, according to one respondent “the market is booming gradually”. Incongruous as it sounds there is some truth in that statement.
According to my respondents, 75% are actively looking for a new role and 25% would move if something good comes up. These results are quite close to research based on a statistically viable larger sample, 71% of that survey are actively looking around and the total number of people thinking of jumping ship (i.e. including “passive candidates” - those who would move if “something good comes up”) is 95%.
Whilst they correlate with each other, these stats could be inflated. Surveys/emails from recruitment companies appeal more to those who are looking for a job than those who aren’t. However the general feel of the market and the volumes of ad response also suggest that there are a lot of people looking around in the accounting/finance industry (at all levels).
So what’s the “competition” like?
It is still a competitive market. Many who’ve survived 2009 (from both Chartered and Commerce) are looking for a change and around half of the “passive candidates” say that they expect to be actively looking for a new role in 3 months.
On the employer’s side, they still hope to find that elusive “perfect” candidate. If someone’s background is an exact fit to what the employer’s looking for they will have a distinct advantage. The number one frustration of the market expressed to me is that client’s are still being extremely picky (equal first with “it’s a sluggish market”).
From this side of the desk, if employers are willing to be flexible on one or two “key requirements”, it opens up a plethora of highly skilled people that they can bring on board making their recruitment processes shorter and less of a headache for everyone involved.
What’s the “view” of the market?
Post GFC (that’s if you subscribe to the view that the GFC is over) people are falling into two camps. Some are more cautious when moving jobs. Moving for higher pay is still a motivator but it’s weaker and more consideration is now placed on the environment, company stability and work/life balance. The other group is perhaps a little more blasé and willing to take the risk resigning with nothing to go to in a still relatively undercooked market. My December analysis suggested that there would be an increase in people leaving jobs with no job to go and this has featured in the market to date although more so at the higher levels.
Passive job seekers are more likely to think that the market has improved. This could be due to the influence of media reports and the fact that looking at internet ads every 2 weeks is very different to watching them daily. These factors are also likely to be similar to what influences employer perceptions of the market as they often only have anecdotal information and news reports to work from.
Roughly equal numbers believe that the market has either improved or hasn’t changed whilst some still believe the market is getting worse. At different levels, the $120,000+ level are the most optimistic about the market’s improvement (that part of the market was probably the hardest hit in the later stage of 2008), those under the $120,000 level are generally still positive but aren’t as optimistic.
Overall there has been an increase in vacant positions compared with last year however the recent headlines touting the “biggest increase in job ads ever” belie the all important detail. The ANZ survey noted: “Total job ads are now 27.5% higher than they were at their seasonal trough in July 2009, but they remain 42.6% below the all-time peak reached in April 2008”. This is roughly the same outcome as our internal statistics. So while things have improved overall and we’ve passed the half way mark, the market is hardly booming.
What’s the expected outlook?
From last time:
Whilst there is a possibility that the rate of people changing jobs in 2010 could be the same as 2009, the market looks on track for February - April 2010 to continue to improve with a return to a pre-GFC level of activity/more wide spread “candidate short market” around May 2010.
The effects
• Early 2010 could see a surge in staff leaving jobs without a new one to go to, people will (and are already starting to) throw their arms up in the air and call it a day. There will be a proportion of roles that are not be replaced as businesses carry out restructuring and some businesses have access capacity with all the part-timers but a tipping point will be reached where enough people quit their jobs forcing a surge in recruitment activity – many HR departments and line managers are working on ways to mitigate this risk.
• Once a tipping point is reached (expected around March/April 2010) this could result in what one client called “lemming” behaviour resulting in more resignations and the musical chairs starting as people rotate throughout roles.
The accounting market is patchy and we’re going back to a pattern seen pre-2009 where different sections e.g. Accounts Payable or Payroll, “surge” slightly at different points in time but without the strong undercurrent of general recruitment activity to create opportunities across the board.
There are a few more qualified/part qualified jobs out there but this part of the market is probably the quietest overall so far. I still expect the market to continue its improvement during the next six weeks or so and in some areas the candidate short market is returning. The rate of improvement has been slower than expected so to once again reach the heady heights of 2007/early 2008 by May is looking less likely. However, if half of the “passive candidates” became “active” in their job search like they say they will then this will push us over the tipping point and result in a more fluid market.
Reliving glory days?
Maybe we’re living in the past and perhaps we shouldn’t naturally expect the market to reach its previous heights so soon, it could be like expecting all the shares to again reach their peak by May (it would be nice if they did).
Overall the market should continue to improve but there are lingering issues related to the credit crisis that can and most probably will pop up resulting in potential threats in the later part of 2010 and into 2011. When I last wrote it was Dubai, most recently it was Greece and the others within the PIGS EU group (Portugal, Italy, Greece,
Spain). The Greek situation had a longer lasting negative impact on global confidence than
Dubai and it is entirely possible that the next scare will be worse than the two that have passed.
So with still relatively uncertain times, it’s good that the positive mood has continued. If we can get activity levels back to 75% of the previous peak and if employers approach recruitment with a broader mind that will still provide a broad range of opportunities. After all, very few people who want to move companies to do exactly the same job, most people move to tackle new challenges.
ZiChuan Lim
Senior Consultant Accounting and Finance
Recruitment Market update December 2009
Posted by the Editor: December 6, 2009 comment on this post | read comments (0) | Email This PostMarket Analysis December 2009
Posted by zichuan: December 1, 2009State of the market December 2009
In May 2009 people2people’s market update was published with these main points:
- There was a dichotomy between the top end of the market and the clerical end.
- Throughout this year we have seen “spikes” in activity where a number of new roles come in one week then everything will go quiet with few or no new roles for the next four/five weeks. [This has continued and I refer to this below as the “intra-GFC cycle”]
- We should see the trend turn to an increase in temporary needs within the next 2 months [July 2009] (coinciding with the traditionally busier year end period so may be a false positive) and a trend towards the permanent market picking up towards September/October 2009
- Whilst the temporary market has the potential to pick up during the 08/09 financial year end, it is more likely to pick up towards September/October.
- The recruitment market, like most markets is largely based on confidence. Confidence that business can afford to employ and confidence that candidates can find a better opportunity.
- The permanent market should improve around March/April 2010.
So how accurate were we?
Our analysis shows the actual trend lines of numbers of working temps and permanent jobs (both Business Support and Accounting) and follow the predictions from our May outlook. In the case of permanent recruitment it can be seen that although there has been an increase, we’re still below the “half way” mark.The bulk of the increase in “temp numbers” and permanent jobs has been in the Business Support side of the people2people with accounting remaining generally flat although with a slight improvement compared with the first half of 2009.
There are a number of key issues looming for the first half of 2010.
- The first is economic and a big risk to the down side. The risk is that all the good news and “growth” that we have heard about in the news is unsustainable and primarily due to inventory restocking and government stimulus as opposed to a resumption of “normal” economic activity. Many of the loudly extolled “newly created” jobs are part time positions pointing to a serious underemployment issue. This is supported by the US’ weak October housing construction data and summed up with US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s comment that the US’ employment situation was “getting worse more slowly” at the Economic Club of New York on Monday 16 November. The “Dubai shock” was a brief flash in the pan but there are some out there who say that the bigger shocks will be down the track. As with the 1987 crash and 1997 Asian crisis there is a possibility that we avoided recession because the slowdown hasn’t really hit yet.
- The phrase “new normal” is being bandied about increasingly and there are a number of proverbial elephants in the room regarding the structural flaws in the overseas banking system, China’s economic stability/growth and if economic growth wanes China’s social stability – both of which warrant separate articles in themselves, Global inflation/debt and the environment. These factors will change the paradigm in which businesses operate and the ripple effects will impact on the demand for labour as businesses weigh up their options globally.
- Australia’s demographic issues and ageing population will continue to play a role with older workers hoping to stay working for longer (as many can’t afford to retire thanks to depressed asset values and superannuation accounts – many would have invested more at the top of the market in the hope of increasing gains and reducing tax) and skill migrants are still disproportionately highly represented in job seeker statistics so employers will need to think outside of traditional moulds.
Outlook 2010
- Whilst there has been an increase in activity to date, activity is not necessarily a recovery. Even though things feel like they’re getting better, the World started very far in the negative region so there is a way to go before we reach “zero” again. Because of this it would be a little premature to call a full scale global recovery now.
- So far November has provided a burst in activity consistent with the intra-GFC cycle and the second half of December and January are always quiet for recruitment but there are signs of the December slowdown already occurring in some sectors.
- The market looks on track for February - April 2010 to continue to improve with a return to a more wide spread “candidate short market” around May 2010, some say that the candidate short market never left us (see SMH – although this is more mining related).
- A client recently said “there are definitely two types of candidates on the market at the moment”. Employer expectations are still very high and the accepted criteria very narrow. Anyone who has recruited recently will know it’s time consuming to sift through the good from the not so good, yet taking the “easy way out” and trying cull candidates by narrowing the search so much that many good applicants are excluded because they don’t have the exact job/industry experience or ERP system is not thinking outside of traditional moulds and not truly taking advantage of the talent on the market at the moment. This is a huge opportunity cost to business.
- Restructuring and relocations are still taking place. The cost cutting measures initiated a year ago are coming into play and people are still being made redundant as teams merge or their roles move offshore/to other states within Australia or offices move to cheaper suburbs.
- The world still spins and life goes on and there is a swelling discontent within the candidate market at all levels – being grateful just to have a job is now passé. Reduced hours, pay freezes and the removal of career progression options are taking their toll.
- It’s not just “typical Gen Y” but also Gen X and Baby Boomers who are reportedly feeling itchy – data from Seek suggests that up to 60% of people are currently dissatisfied and looking for a change.
- Whilst a business owner or level headed manager may think this is unreasonable and short sighted given unprecedented conditions in the past 12 months the resounding message from candidates at all levels is “I still have to think of my career”.
The effects
- Early 2010 could see a surge in staff leaving jobs without a new one to go to, people will (and are already starting to) throw their arms up in the air and call it a day. There will be a proportion of roles that are not be replaced as businesses carry out restructuring and some businesses have access capacity with all the part-timers but a tipping point will be reached where enough people quit their jobs forcing a surge in recruitment activity – many HR departments and line managers are working on ways to mitigate this risk.
- Once a tipping point is reached (expected around March/April 2010) this could result in what one client called “lemming” behaviour resulting in more resignations and the musical chairs starting as people rotate throughout roles.
Replacing staff with minimal disruption to the business
- If staff are replaced, managers must be committed to the recruitment process but build in some flexibility to think outside the traditional brief. “Testing the waters”, delays, changing the brief half way through the process and continuously asking “is there anyone else out there” will show the market that the organisation is not serious in hiring. The process will drag on, candidates will become wary as long vacant roles signal internal issues and this will deter the best candidates.
- If roles remain vacant for an extended period of time, the internal effects are that uncertainty and work pressures build up on the existing team continuing the drag on morale and boosting dissatisfaction.
- Whilst many organisations now have onsite recruitment teams/dedicated HR based recruitment and candidate databases, databases quickly go out of date and many onsite recruiters are stretched trying to cover many roles in many different business units and assistance from external agencies is still appreciated.
- With an estimated 45% reduction in the number of Sydney recruitment consultants, experienced Sydney recruiters with established client networks and candidate contacts are highly sought after as their insights into the psychology of the market gained from both good and bad times are invaluable.
- Many of the large international players in the recruitment field made deep cuts in their consulting workforce during the down turn and are now scrambling to rebuild their teams so be prepared for some new kids on the block. In comparison, the “greenest” consultant at people2people has been with us for over 2.5 years. The depth of this experience allows us to be a valuable partner going into 2010 minimising the disruption and changes in team dynamics caused by staff turnover.
If you have any questions please feel free to call me on 8270 9725 or via zichuan@people2people.com.au or comment below.
ZiChuan Lim
Consultant Accounting and Finance
New temporary employee award
Posted by Kaden: September 28, 2009With our economy performing exceptionally well compared to most others in the world. At people2people we know our temps work very hard, and finally they get the recognition they deserve where it counts most, in their hip pocket!
Our temps are covered by the ‘Clerical and Administrative Employees in Temporary Employment Services (NSW)’ award, and have recently had the maximum award rate increased from $22.50/hr to $23.15/hr. This means that from today, any temp who is paid under $23.15 will be entitled to overtime benefits. Overtime is calculated in the following way:
Weekly
First 38 hours - normal time
Next 2 hours - time and a half
Additional hours - double time
Daily
First 8 hours - normal time
Next 2 hours - time and a half
Additional hours - double time
Temporary or contract staff that are paid in excess of the maximum award rate are considered to be paid above the award and are paid for every hour they work but are no longer entitled to overtime benefits. Should you have any questions relating to the new award rates, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with your people2people consultant.
View the full award here.
Kaden Kennedy
Human Resources Specialist - people2people