Last week I had the opportunity to go to Queensland Leaders event for the first time – and there were a lot of things I liked about the session. Initially – there is an ‘Ask the Expert’ session where my senior Clint Adams and I paired up with Gary Myburgh, a consultancy business owner in the I.T space. He had …
As many SMEs know, the labour market and inflation are tighter than at any time since the 1970s, and there is little hope for improvement in the short term. There is no doubt that solving such structural problems will require strong government input, and with the recent change following the 2022 elections, we are unlikely to see any major upheaval, …
In part 2 of my blog series focusing on Inflation, Minimum Wage and Strategic HR I’ll be covering what SME’s can do to better manage their workforce to set-up for long term success (if you haven’t yet read part 1, check it out here). This blog focuses on Workforce Planning and how adopting a well thought out strategy catering to operational …
On Thursday 12th May, Ben and I attended the Queensland Leaders monthly event at Brisbane City Hall. This time before getting stuck into the Expert Mentoring Sessions, Ben was tasked with delivering one of the three Industry Expert Workshops. He presented some great insights into the concept of Sustainable Culture and provided a quick but very useful Self Audit for the attendees …
Is your culture sustainable? To answer this question, we first must define culture. Ask one hundred business owners how they define a good culture, and you will get 90 + different answers based on their individual experiences. We have been HR and Business Advisory Consultants at the wattsnext Group for 15 years and one thing that has never been more difficult …
SHRM is hosting a conference in New Orleans, USA, in June 2023 – and we eagerly look forward to having Ben Watts and Sue-Ellen Watts representing wattsnext and how they are bringing their global learning from Australia to provide cutting edge new HR thinking for SME’s. In this session, Sel is one of the only two speakers on the ‘ChangeMaker …
We recently discussed inflation in our blog, noting leading economists were predicting an underlying inflation rate of 4.25% for the past year – a figure much higher than what Australia (and the world) has gotten used to. Shockingly, the underlying rate came out at 5.1% – so what does this actually mean for your business and the broader economic conditions? …
A part-remote, part-office work-life has been referred to as providing employees and their employers with the best of both worlds, but is this the case? Since the pandemic, many employers and employees across the globe have had to adapt to a seemingly ever-changing work environment. A lot of workplaces took up the ‘Hybrid Working’, a flexible working approach where employees …
The Federal Government announced some exciting changes to incentive programs to attract and retain Apprentices, whilst supporting businesses with some of the associated costs. Broadly the 2022/2023 budget confirmed the following: Apprentices – Priority Occupations The Federal Government has not yet clarified what occupations will be included, but we can expect an update on this in the coming weeks/months. Wage …
Ben and Anita attended the Queensland Leaders’ April event. It was the usual hustle and bustle of great local businesses getting together to share ideas and help each other out through what looks like to be another crazy year. Trends in the market for this month appear to be: Candidate shortage! This has now moved to a whole new level …
