Many HR leaders and managers are concerned about engagement. According to Gallup, only 21% of Australian employees are actively engaged. But our engagement conversations are missing the elephant in the room: cost-of-living anxiety. Data shows that 61% of Australian workers say financial stress directly impacts their productivity. The average financially stressed employee spends 11 hours a month handling personal money matters at work, making them five […]
Have you ever had a candidate who “failed their psych test”? Let me tell you about a candidate at an organisation I worked at, who was rejected at the psychometric stage of a hiring process. They had made it through two rounds of interviews. The hiring manager liked them. The team liked them. By all accounts, they were the right person for the role. Then the assessment came […]
I want to tell you about the moment my instincts were right, and I ignored them anyway. Early in my career, I joined a healthcare business as Sales Manager. Seven people on the team. On my first day, the GM pulled me aside and said something that genuinely shocked me. A new broom sweeps clean. Feel free to let go of anyone you do not want. I was […]
Do you know what competencies and skills your business needs to deliver what you are trying to achieve in the next two to three years? Not what you needed a few years ago. Not what the last job ad you posted says. Going forward, what are the must-haves, not the nice-to-haves. If the honest answer is not really, you are not alone. Australian research tells […]
Let’s be honest, it made sense at the time. AI tools can do the work faster, cheaper, and without a learning curve. And they do not take annual leave. Why hire a graduate to process data, draft reports, or handle routine analysis when a well-prompted model could do it in minutes? The numbers tell an interesting story. Australian graduate job postings fell almost 15% in 2025 and were […]
Here’s something most hiring managers know deep down but rarely say out loud. The one who nails the interview is not always the one who nails the job. I learned this early in my own leadership career, with a hire I was convinced was going to be a superstar. One candidate stood out head and shoulders above the rest. Relaxed. Confident. Sharp as a tack in the […]
After two years of disruption, further shifts in remote work and our lives have emerged. There’s been: the rise of individualism and independence bringing out new confidence to show up as themselves at work. (Fjord Trends 2022) hybrid employment arrangements placing more emphasis on staff being able to work remotely and maintain productivity and service delivery continued challenges to organisations due to Omicron leading to […]
Planning for a best People Strategy is essential. Your business strategy amounts to no more than words on a page if you don’t have “the right people in the right seat on the bus”. All elements of your employee life cycle must be linked: from attraction through to talent management, leadership development, and ongoing performance management. There is a great reward too in doing this. […]
People development is key to a successful people strategy in all organisations. Many managers out there have likely experienced the unsavoury situation of managing someone who believes their performance is terrific when it’s just mediocre at best. Recent studies in performance management have identified that the “underperformer” is a frequent and draining problem. But what contributes to the perception an individual has about their performance? […]
You need to attract and retain the best talent for your organisation and adopt a coaching culture to ensure you win. However, with the momentum of vaccine rollout in Australia and as the economy continues to rebound, research tells us the labour market will get tighter. For this reason, this situation will result in the war for talent becoming more likely to happen. Hybrid work […]