News

Poor trading and a failed funding agreement have led to the collapse of women's fashion retailer Colette by Colette Hayman, placing 140 stores and hundreds of jobs at risk in the ongoing brutal retail environment.

The handbags, jewellery and fashion accessories brand was put in the hands of Deloitte administrators Vaughan Strawbridge, Sam Marsden and Jason Tracy on Friday.

It marks the fourth major retail collapse in the last few months, with fellow fashion retailers Bardot and Jeanswest raising the white flag in January. Discount department store Harris Scarfe also collapsed late last year.

Mr Strawbridge told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald in addition to poor trading conditions, the business had been expecting fresh funding to replenish its capital after paying off debts. However, the funding deal fell through, forcing the owners to place the business in administration.

"There was some funding the directors thought would be made available, and when that didn't come to fruition they found themselves needing to appoint administrators," he said. It was too early in the process to reveal the nature of the mooted funding, he said.

Its 140-strong network of stores, which employs 300 permanent staff plus casuals, also contains a number of underperforming stores, which Mr Strawbridge said administrators were currently assessing potential options for.

The eponymous accessories label was founded in 2010 by businesswoman Colette Hayman, the former owner of jewellery chain Diva, who operates the company alongside her husband Mark.

Ms Hayman began the handbag retailer after selling Diva in 2007 to Brett Blundy's Lovisa. It remained privately owned for much of its life before investment giant IFM Investors took a stake in the business in 2017.

Company records show the retailer, which is registered as the CBCH Group, is 51 per cent owned by Ms Hayman and her husband, and 49 per cent owned by IFM.

It has yearly gross sales of more than $140 million, with the company reportedly selling upwards of three million handbags per year. Most of its stores are located in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, and it also has 14 stores in New Zealand.

It's unlikely to be the last major retail collapse for the first half of the year, with analysts and experts warning the poor trading conditions, high rents and weak consumer confidence could see more prominent brands give up the ghost.

Fellow handbag and accessories retailer Oroton collapsed in 2017 after the upmarket brand failed to find buyers.

Mr Strawbridge, who is also overseeing the administration of Harris Scarfe, said conditions were worse than usual, but remained optimistic about the collapsed companies' finding buyers.

"I don't think we've seen this number of retailers who've struggled at the same time before," he said. "But it would be a real shame if those businesses didn't come out of administration."

Colette stores will continue to trade while Deloitte seeks to either recapitalise or sell the business, with administrators confident there would be an appetite from buyers given the strong "heart" of the business.

Staff will continue to be paid by the administrators and gift cards will be honoured.

Millennials constitute the largest percentage of the global workforce, and 7 out of 10 report that they've experienced impostor syndrome at some point in their career. This feeling of being a fraud can discourage you from taking risks and further educating yourself, and picture-perfect social media feeds have heightened our collective perfectionism, paralyzing us from making progress and contributing to a mental health crisis.

However, there’s a far more dangerous villain lurking in the sense-of-self spectrum: Overestimating your abilities. Having unearned confidence. And most of us are biologically wired to exaggerate our efforts.

Where does false confidence come from?

In social psychology, illusory superiority is a phenomenon in which we consider ourselves above average when it comes to, well, just about everything. For example, labour statistics repeatedly show we overestimate the amount of time we spend working by nearly 10%.

And in a self-evaluation study, 87% of Stanford MBA students believed they were in the top 50% of their class.

Paradoxically, the more incompetent someone is, the more extreme their bias of themselves. The reason for this is simple: incompetent people are incompetent at measuring their shortcomings.

This phenomenon is known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect. A recent real-world example, Netflix’s Behind The Curve documentary, showcases classic Dunning-Kruger Effect in action by following leaders of the flat earth conspiracy theory.

If you can’t identify your entrepreneurial Achilles heel and improve upon it, you run the risk of falling short of your goals. In order to succeed, you’ll need to disarm your illusory superiority.

Data and feedback loops are your best friend in achieving that. So here are three ways to measure your progress objectively and effectively.

1. Define your data points

Whether you’re immersed in your daily grind or learning a new skill, having data points can help keep you out of your head.

Even for seemingly immeasurable pursuits, we know from illusory superiority that you’re likely to talk yourself into thinking you’re more productive than you actually are. Measuring windows of time, words written, or phone calls made can keep you honest.

For example, I track my daily writing and articles published each week. These simple measurements, while small, give me insight into my progress and whether or not I’m on track to achieve my monthly goals.

(I also implemented this because I thought my writing was above average, which we’ve now learned is illusory superiority in action. I reach my goals faster and sideline my ego when I focus on the numbers.)

Choose something to measure that you know will move you in the direction of your goals.

• Trying to get clients? Embrace networking and reach out to a certain number of new people each day, or pick up the phone and start making calls.

• Adding a new skill to your repertoire? Measure the minutes or hours each day you spend educating yourself or practicing your craft.

Be prolific rather than perfect. If you don’t take the time to think through what you want to measure, it can be easy to let feelings run the show and succumb to inconsistency as a result.

2. Follow a ritual that historically serves you

Resist the urge to go by how you feel — this is like candy for your illusory superiority, and you’ll begin to inflate your sense of self. Instead, look for ways to systematize your flow state, that glorious headspace popularized by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

For most of us, we need triggers or a daily ritual to help get into flow state. Once you’ve begun measuring your output, you’ll be able to review data and make adjustments that put you in your sweet spot more often.

It’ll take practice, but over time you’ll build awareness. Maybe your best work comes when you’re in a certain room, wake up at a certain time, or watched a certain inspiring video before the day begins. For me, some triggers include the same coffee beverage each day, the corner seat at my local coworking space (to minimize distraction), and the same song playing in my headphones on repeat.

Document these details. Then recreate them and craft a ritual that delivers results. These small tweaks can be the difference between hundreds or thousands of words written, minutes or hours saved, or even profitability.

(If you’re a rituals nerd like me, Daily Rituals by Mason Currey is a fun and easy read about the routines of 161 great thinkers throughout history.)

3. Have a contingency trigger

You’re investing time and effort, measuring your output, and optimizing your environment. Gold star.

Now, what if you wake up one morning and just can’t seem to get into the swing of things? Your one guarantee is that you’ll have days where things just don’t seem to click, yet you’re still on the hook to deliver. Have a backup plan.

For my example around writing, if things aren’t flowing, I take a moment away from my computer, pick up a physical book (usually a fiction bestseller), and read a few pages to recall the feeling of easy prose I want to recreate.

This sort of ‘contingency plan’ can be the difference between having a small blip in your morning or letting feelings take you off the rails for the entire day. Consider a simple trigger that you can pull in when it’s taking longer than usual to hit your sweet spot.

Don't let imposter syndrome derail you

It’s important not to let impostor syndrome get in the way of your entrepreneurial pursuits. To make real progress, though, it’s good to be firm and factual with yourself. As Henry Ward Beecher said, “ Be a hard master to yourself — and be lenient to everybody else.”

Look for new ways to measure and optimize your progress, and you’ll develop a variety of tools you can use each day to achieve your goals.

The new year has begun. But what if we avoided more lame resolutions, instead aspiring toward real, actionable results. Here are 10 top tips for a terrific 2020 for you and your business, based on my experience as a motivational speaker and executive coach.

1. Aim big.

Stop thinking so small. I often coach executives, and one point I make is they need to expand their thinking. I was once coaching a senior director and asked about her long-term career goal and she said, “I want to be a vice president in this company." I paused and asked her, “Why not CEO?” We then had a long conversation about expanding her thinking. How about you? As T. Harv Eker once said: “The biggest obstacle to wealth is fear. People are afraid to think big, but if you think small, you'll only achieve small things.”

2. Have goals in writing.

Too few people have concrete goals, and an even smaller percentage write them down. Create goals for every area of your life, and this year, make sure to put them in writing. Research has shown that goals are much more effective when they are written down, so make that effort to finally put pen to paper.

3. Learn something new.

Think about this coming year and identify three things you want to learn, be it personally or professionally. Find the resources and sign up. You can hire an executive coach, take an online course, go to a live class or read a few books on the topic. When you are constantly learning, you will be reinvigorated, excited and fired up.

4. Give back.

Work with a charity, volunteer at an animal shelter or Habitat for Humanity, or maybe become a Big Brother or Big Sister. When you give back, you help others, but also help yourself by feeling good about how you can change a life.

5. Practice stress management.

When you think about the term stress management, it implies that stress can be managed, and guess what? You are the stress manager. Make a list of all the activities you can use to de-stress in everyday life. Maybe it's meditating, gardening or working out. Experiment with what works best for you.

6. Start or join a mastermind.

A mastermind is a group of five or six people who are all interested in growth and development for each member. You get together once a month and discuss ideas and how you can help each other. I was in a mastermind for a few years and found it to be an extremely powerful experience. As Will Rogers said, “A man only learns in two ways: one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.”

7. Limit negative content.

To have the right mindset, you need to be very careful about consuming negative content. Avoid negative TV, negative news and most of all negative people. I decided years ago not to have any more negative friends. It was transformational. If you have any super-negative friends, stop associating with them in the new year. Be careful, because they will pull you down with them into the abyss.

8. Stay connected to loved ones.

Your family loves you unconditionally, and you need to show that you love them back. One way is to make sure you call, email, text, visit and connect with your family regularly. Call your mom, your grandfather, your daughter, etc. Take your spouse out on a date. You get the idea. Connect.

9. Find a new hobby.  

Hobbies are a great way to get you to stop thinking about work. Create a bonsai tree, take up sailing, start oil painting, write the next great American novel. It doesn’t matter what the hobby is, so long as you enjoy it. I play the drums and find beating something with sticks to be very therapeutic.

10. Vacate.

The biggest mistake many of my clients make is they never take time off. They are always “on,” which leads to burnout and less productivity. Commit to taking a vacation this year. Here is a new idea: Pick somewhere to go you have never been to. The novelty of new places and experiences can be very refreshing. Secondly, make sure when your employees are on vacation, they don’t work.

As Gretchen Bleiler once said: “With the new year comes a refueled motivation to improve on the past one.” Happy New Year. You can do this.

The start of a new year is often a time to turn over a new leaf. But what kind of changes do employees actually want to see? 

As we pile back into work come mid-to-end January — looking a little more relaxed and perhaps sporting a tan — our to-do lists will slowly start growing and our 2020 agendas will begin rolling out. For many leaders, that to-do list will be to build on the successes of last year and to do even better this time around.

As HR professionals often play an important role in forming these agendas, here are three things you should encourage your leaders to be thinking about.

1. Carve out time for learning

How many hours do we need to spend learning in order to close a skills gap? Five hours per week, according to a study from the IBM’s Institute for Business Value.

The 2018 study, which surveyed more than 5,600 executives from 48 countries, extrapolated this to 36 days. That’s ten times greater than the time it would have taken just four years earlier.

The drastically changing skills required to perform many of today’s jobs, paired with outdated, traditional approaches to training, means that global talent shortages are becoming more of a concern than ever. IBM predicts that more than 120 million workers across the globe will need to retrain or reskill within the next three years due to intelligent and AI-enabled automation.

This isn’t just a concern for employers; staff are becoming increasingly more worried about skills shortages too.

New research from the Centre of New Workforce at Swinburne University of Technology, in partnership with YouGov, surveyed more than 1,000 Australian employees and found that 61 per cent of Australians don’t think they’ve got the right knowledge and skills necessary for the next five years of work. This is a five per cent increase since 2018.

Respondents said the opportunity to learn and grow was the second highest motivator to work (34 per cent) behind the nature of the work itself (46 per cent), yet more than half said they didn’t have enough dedicated learning time during work hours and nearly 40 per cent said their organisations had ‘unsupportive environments that stigmatised learning’.

“As technology advances, routine work will increasingly be displaced. Only learning more functional skills is not enough for a worker to secure their future,” says Dr Sean Gallagher, director of Swinburne’s Centre for the New Workforce and research lead.

Gallagher says employers don’t need to send their staff to expensive external training courses and risk losing valuable productivity in the process. These skills, he says, are best cultivated in the workplace.

“Three things differentiate humans from technology. We are first and foremost social creatures, we can see over the horizon, and we can create new knowledge. By working collaboratively to solve complex problems or identify new opportunities, workers create new value. This is learning for the future of work. It is supported by online learning or more formal programs, as required,” says Gallagher.

2. Build a burnout strategy

You’ve no doubt heard the startling fact that burnout was declared an occupational phenomenon by the World Health Organization this year. Despite this fact, some people still place the onus on the employee to come up with a solution to their own burnout. 

Workers are plagued with advice like “Learn how to say no”, “Speak up when you feel like your workload is getting too intense”, or “Have you tried practicing mindfulness?” The latter is about as effective as telling a starving person to “just eat more food”.

While individuals should absolutely take responsibility to improve their own quality of life (and yes, there is a time and a place for mindfulness), the buck does not stop with them. If 2019 was the year of finally acknowledging the severity of burnout, 2020 should be the year organisations do something about it.

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, workplace expert Jennifer Moss said, “Leaders take note: It’s now on you to build a burnout strategy.”

So what would such a strategy look like?

Moss points to research from Gallup that breaks down the causes of burnout into five categories:

1. Unfair treatment at work
2. Unmanageable workload
3. Lack of role clarity
4. Lack of communication and support from a manager
5. Unreasonable time pressure

With this in mind, Moss says leaders need to start asking smarter questions around these points. Questions like, ‘Are our work hours reasonable?’, ‘Am I asking too much?’, ‘How can I make this work environment psychologically safe for everyone?’

It’s of utmost importance that these questions are asked in consultation with staff. If you don’t, you run the risk of disappointing them even further. 

For example, if you notice morale is low and spend thousands on a flashy new coffee machine (the really good kind that lets you froth your own milk) as a way to try and get staff back on side, what you could be doing instead is planting a constant reminder of just how out of touch you are, smack bang in the middle of the office. 

Every time Jenny walks into the kitchen that coffee machine might remind her of the end of year bonus she was denied because the company couldn’t afford it. John might see it and feel disgruntled that his request for funding for a new program was spent on a fancy milk-frothing, latte-making, ristretto shot-dripping contraption.

Of course, you can’t make everyone happy, but by taking a consultative approach you can at least make some happy.

Another tip Moss suggests is to refer to Frederick Herzberg’s dual-factor, motivation-hygiene theory when forming a burnout strategy.

Herzberg’s theory suggests that satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not mutually exclusive; just because satisfaction rates increase, that doesn’t necessarily mean dissatisfaction decreases. Managers need to keep this in mind. One way to do this is by looking at your staff’s hygiene factors and motivating factors. 

3. Find your business’s purpose

Organisations’ leaders are becoming beholden to the values of their staff, according to Gartner’s Playbook for a New Talent Deal. This means employers need to create a company purpose that aligns with staff’s values in order to create an emotional bond between leaders and their people.

This Gartner playbook is free to access and has plenty of informative case studies and research included. Some of Gartner’s other great research content is gated, however AHRI members received free access. Find out more here.

Importantly, purpose is not the same thing as culture, the playbook’s authors say. And it’s more than having a mission statement that sits somewhere on your company’s website. It’s something that sits behind every decision your company makes and, again, it should be created in consultation with your people.

“Energising internal and external stakeholders around a purpose creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading to more rapid achievement of that purpose through unified effort. A clear purpose attracts and retains employees who are willing to go above and beyond. Employees can more readily realise their potential and drive the organisation forward,” says the report.

The report offers advice from Gartner’s CHRO Global Leadership Board members for employers who want to become more purpose-driven, including:

• Emotionally connect from the get-go. During the hiring and onboarding stages, make sure you talk about the difference they can make by working with you, not just the details around their pay and role responsibilities.
• Your purpose can’t be set in stone. It’s important to consistently revisit (and sometimes re-write) your company’s purpose to make sure it still aligns with your company’s evolving mission and your staff’s shifting values.
• Walk your talk. If environmental awareness is a strong part of your business’s purpose, for example, then that should play a role in determining the clients you will and won’t work for.
• Use your HR as PR. If your company has a great purpose-led approach to work through various HR policies and frameworks, shout it from the rooftops (figuratively, of course). Getting together with your PR and marketing team and developing ideas to share HR’s successes is a great way to attract new talent and clients that align with your ethos.

By including these three points in your 2020 agenda, you’ll ensure your company starts the year on the right foot and you’ll be one step closer to a happy, engaged and productive workforce.

Is it offering worthwhile training opportunity or has it found a clever way to skirt around workplace law?

Burger chain Grill’d has come under scrutiny for its government-subsidised training program, which some workers say is being strategically used to get around paying staff award wage rates.

The program has netted Grill’d more than $7 million from the federal government’s Apprenticeships Incentives Program, which is designed to “contribute a highly skilled and relevant Australian workforce that supports economic sustainability and competitiveness”.

Grill’d promotes its program as “12-month training to ensure consistency across all our restaurants in delivering the Grill’d Experience,” which culminates in workers being awarded, depending on their state, a Certificate II or III in Hospitality or a Certificate II Retail.

 The company is permitted to pay workers less — as little as $14.50 an hour — while they are conducting the training.

 “The training we provide at Grill’d, including our qualifications, are an essential part of developing our people and providing them with the important knowledge and skills to deliver on our promise,” the company says on its website. “It’s this training that provides our team members with long term career opportunities — here at Grill’d and in the broader community.”

However, workers with the company have told news.com.au that their training was rudimentary and dragged out over a long period of time so workers could continue to be classified as trainees.

They say the company would not roster workers on to particular jobs that they needed to complete the training — keeping them working at the counter, for instance, rather than in the kitchen.

 “[The training] was really, really easy — literally like four hours’ work — (but) it took me almost two years to get it completed,” news.com.au quotes one former employee as saying. She also says the company delayed allowing her to complete the training and qualifying for the award pay rate.

 “I wasn’t able to log onto the system, you would contact the regional guy, he wouldn’t get back to you. There was a lot of blatant stalling from the company.”

Grill’d has denied using its program to underpay staff, telling The New Daily that all the company’s jobs are permanent and the stores seek to commit to their team.

“Our traineeship program is accredited and administered by qualified external training providers and those completing it receive nationally recognised qualifications,” the New Daily quotes a Grill’d spokesperson as saying.

“It enhances the skills of trainees not just for Grill’d but for the trainee generally. Trainee contracts for those under 18 years of age are co-signed by a parent or guardian.”

The criticism of the burger chain comes amid reports that it is being investigated by the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO). An FWO spokesperson confirmed to that it is “conducting inquiries in relation to Grill’d” but would not provide further details.

Damage control

Prior to the news.com.au report, Grill’d founder and managing director Simon Crowe sent staff an email saying that the company was “aware of a pending media story that will wrongly claim we have worked against the interests of our franchise partners, and our restaurant teams, including how we conduct our training.”

The email was posted to Twitter by University of Technology Sydney journalism student Alex Turner-Cohen.

The email also included a video message from Crowe, in which he says the company will “always try and do the right thing by our people, by our franchise partners and the many stakeholders in the Grill’d eco-system”.

“It’s actually come to our attention that there’s a media article about to be released about Grill’d challenging who we are relative to our treatment of franchise partners, the treatment of our teams and even the culture at Grill’d,” Crowe says in the video.

“The intent of this is to give you an insight to what might lie ahead. But I also wanted to point out that our values of passion, leadership, ownership and trust have been part of our fabric since the beginning and they remain. It’s how we will engage with you; we will listen, we will learn, and we will always strive to make Grill’d a better place than she is today.” 

Getting grilled

Whether the Grill’d training program has the legitimacy the company claims for it or whether it is a workaround designed to keep wage costs down, the episode highlights some of the risks involved for businesses that must balance developing their workforce’s skills with taking advantage of the subsidies and savings that are designed to promote such activity.

Grill’d told news.com.au that the government grants are offset by its own costs in providing the training.

“The net cost to Grill’d of running the traineeship program as it relates to government subsidies has averaged in excess of $450,000 each year over the last three years,” a spokesperson said.

“Grill’d appreciates the government’s efforts in providing nationally accredited qualifications and promoting the professionalisation of the hospitality industry. This provides a pathway for young people to establish careers in either hospitality or other industries.”

Presumably, however, Grill’d benefits from having a more skilled workforce operating its restaurants. It is also questionable whether hospitality accreditation is of particular use to staff, many of whom are young workers or students who have no long-term desires to remain in the industry.

This is not the first time Grill’d has been under scrutiny for its employment practises. In 2015, Kahlani Pyrah launched unfair dismissal action  against the company, saying she was fired for seeking the award entitlement for her job. She had been paid under a Work Choices-era agreement that include overtime, weekend penalty rates, or meal and uniform allowances.

Grill’d has previously been criticised for dragging out its traineeships. Commenting on this in 2017, law firm Rouse Lawyers published an article noting that, “This incident comes as a timely reminder for employers to regularly consult with employees to identify issues which could intensify or grow if left unresolved”.

It’s yet to be seen to what extent the company will regret choosing to ignore what appears to be a three year old warning sign.  

Most organisations get the recruitment equation right just over 50 per cent of the time on average, however, a more focused, strengths-based approach can increase talent acquisition success rates to around 90 per cent, according to an expert in the area.

Organisations get recruitment right “slightly more times than they get it wrong” said Alex Linley, co-founder of Cappfinity, which is a global leader in strengths-based talent acquisition, assessment and development.

“If you look at all the statistics around retention, engagement and satisfaction at work, for example, the overall average is just over 50 per cent when it comes to successful recruitment,” he said.

Hallmarks of organisations which fail at talent acquisition
“There is quite a wide range in there, because some organisations do a really bad job of finding and recruiting the right people, while others do a really good job.”

The first hallmark of organisations which usually fail at recruitment is failing to understand what talent they require in the first place: “if you don’t know who you are looking for then chances of selecting the right person are not good,” said Linley.

The second most common challenge involves selection processes, which can sometimes be subject to personal biases on the part of agencies and hiring managers.

“Sometimes a hiring manager will make a decision based on whoever they feel is the right fit for the culture of the organisation,” he said.

“But if they get the selection process wrong, this can reinforce a culture of command and control because the hiring manager then needs to work extra hard to try and get the new employee to get the job done.

“This then leads to resentment, low performance and disengagement – and ultimately the employee leaves the organisation,” said Linley.

Hallmarks of organisations which succeed at talent acquisition
However, organisations which have a better handle on talent acquisition basically do the opposite of the above.

They have a solid understanding of who they are looking for, what it will take for someone to succeed in a particular role, and who would be a good fit for the organisation.

“They understand what high performers already do well, what their best people are like and what it is that differentiates them,” he said.

“Knowing this, then they can design for consistent, replicable, objective selection processes that allow them to hire more people who are like that.

“I say consistent, replicable and objective because they are likely to use some sort of assessment, structured interview process or group exercise – so they are able to compare like with like and compare people against a standard, as opposed to organisations in which selection processes are forever shifting based on how the hiring manager feels that day.”

“Some organisations do a really bad job of finding and recruiting the right people, while others do a really good job”

Organisations which are good at talent acquisition are typically very good at bringing new starters on board – not just from a process perspective, but also in terms of giving them work which matches their expectations and what they are interested in and want to perform.

“When people are doing things they want to do, they are more likely to enjoy it more and stay with an organisation that enables them to do that,” said Linley.

Hiring based on strengths
Similarly, organisations which understand this tend to perform much better in terms of recruitment, retention, performance and productivity.

“We certainly see across our client organisations that when are recruiting based on strengths, they consistently get it right around 90 per cent of the time,” said Linley.

“There might be a figure of about 10 per cent of attrition in the first year, because 90 per cent would be a very realistic benchmark we could be aiming to meet and exceed.”

With a strengths-based approach to recruitment, Linley said companies spend time understanding what success in a particular role looks like, who they’re looking for and who would be a good fit on a number of levels.

This allows the organisation to recruit based on a success model or framework, in which candidates are screened against exactly what is required to deliver high performance in a role.

“We are looking for an authentic match with consistency and rigour, and this flow through the recruitment process all the way, so there are no surprises,” he said.

Linley observed that a strengths-based approach to recruitment also delivers improved diversity and inclusion outcomes.

“Because strengths are inherently human, we are helping recruit from a wider pool and find people that might have overlooked through traditional methods of recruitments,” he said.

“Using strengths in recruitment goes beyond the surface and looks to find candidates who are going to shine and be successful with an organisation because of their strengths.”

However, there is no “silver bullet” when it comes to effective recruitment, and he said this simply come back to the hallmarks of organisations which are clear about who they are looking for, and steps and processes to find such candidates.

“There is a lot of hype but not a lot of substance in terms of what is actually being delivered and meaningful results”

Pros and cons of technology in recruitment
Technology is playing an increasingly important role in talent acquisition, and Linley observed that it is a “tremendous accelerator of recruitment – when done well”.

“I think the best results will always be achieved through a combination of authentic human experience and technology, and using the data in a way that can make the process more efficient and effective,” he said.

“It’s about the right balance and combination of technology and the human experience; that’s where the magic happens.”

Linley said technology is playing an important role in reducing the amount of administrative work in the recruitment process.

However, one way that technology can get in the way is where biases are unwittingly built into the algorithms, and this can negatively impact the shortlisting and selection process.

“It’s about finding the right ways to deploy technologies and using data in combination with strengths and that human experience to ensure this delivers the best recruitment experience,” he said.

“It should make it more efficient for the organisation, and more immersive and authentic from a candidate experience as well.”

There is a lot of talk about artificial intelligence and machine learning in the recruitment market, said Linley.

“There is a lot of hype but not a lot of substance in terms of what is actually being delivered and meaningful results,” he said.

Ideally technology has to deliver a faster, better and more cost-effective outcome for organisations, however, this can be limited by existing processes which can hamper the full potential of technology in the recruitment process.

“Some larger organisations which have been around for a while try and reposition themselves as digital, tech-focused and ready for the future, but when you get into their recruitment processes they are quite traditional and there is a lot of scope for improvement,” he said.

A holistic HR strategy has played a critical role in the business turnaround of boutique hair product business ghd with significant increases in both operating income and employee engagement, according to ghd’s people manager for Australia and New Zealand, Symeon Leslie.

Prior to 2016, there was no HR presence within the company, and it was suffering from all-time high turnover rates, low employee engagement, low productivity and a lack of policies and procedures.

“This was costing the business thousands of dollars,” said Leslie.

“It was clear that there was a lot of work to be done, from the basics like policies, procedures and position descriptions, to ensuring we had the right people in the right places.”

ghd (Good Hair Day) employs around 65 people and makes a range of hair products that are sold to around 4200 regular salon customers, and in August 2016 it conducted the first of its annual engagement surveys.

This survey clearly highlighted employee concerns with recognition, communication, culture and opportunities for promotional and L&D opportunities within the business, Leslie explained.

“This was a turning point for ghd, prompting a much-needed period of change involving all employees, but most importantly, a re-established and reinvigorated HR function,” she said.

Key elements of ghd’s HR strategy
Attracting and retaining a high-performing team is a key part of the business’ global values for success, according to Leslie, who said that the HR team has every responsibility to deliver on this promise.

“When creating our local HR strategy, we asked our team to first create a clear vision that they were excited and motivated by, ensuring that it aligned with the global vision and could be supported with measurable results,” she said.

The strategic goals were split into 3 key pillars: (1) attract and retain, (2) engage and (3) train – each of which contain solid, defined, ‘SMART’ goals which are measured frequently.

Leslie explained that one of the key strategic elements that sits within the engagement pillar is “ghd life” which is the company’s holistic health and wellbeing program.

“It was clear that there was a lot of work to be done, from the basics like policies, procedures and position descriptions, to ensuring we had the right people in the right places”

Introduced in January 2018 following the previous year’s engagement survey, this engagement program was “created by ghd employees, for ghd employees” and has four pillars: live, grow, drive and feel; “each containing initiatives designed to support our team in all facets of life”, said Leslie.

The “live” pillar promotes healthy living and encompasses initiatives that are focused on teams’ mental, physical and nutritional wellbeing, and ensuring all team members are able to achieve work-life balance.

The “grow” pillar places a focus on teams’ personal professional learning and development and includes initiatives around technical and soft skills training, leadership training, onboarding, competency and succession planning.

The “drive” pillar ensures employees have a clear purpose and are rewarded and recognised for their achievements, explained Leslie, who said the final pillar “feel” helps to improve the way we people coming to work every day.

“We know how employees feel about work and those around them has a huge impact on their state of mind and happiness,” said Leslie, “so initiatives for this pillar include community and charity involvement, team building, employee benefits and providing platforms for our team to have a voice and have an impact on how we do things.

“ghd life represents the way we care for and treat our employees, both personally and professionally.

“By helping our team to become healthier and happier versions of themselves and offering opportunities for continuous self-development, we can be confident in providing an environment where they can reach their goals, our goals, and enjoy themselves along the way.”

Adoption and implementation of strategy
One of the keys of success to any people-related strategy or initiative is to provide a level of consultation with all team members, Leslie said.

Prior to the creation of the HR strategy and ghd life, input from the entire team was sought through the annual engagement survey and ongoing pulse checks.

“We quickly adopted our communication to highlight that everyone was responsible for driving cultural change – it was a two-way street”

These short monthly surveys are designed to gain a quick snapshot of how employees are currently feeling at work and provides them with a platform to deliver feedback and have their say on a variety of topics.

Key themes include understanding what is important to the team, their values and where they feel improvements could be made.

“There was no point in creating something that our teams did not care about, so we used the results of these surveys to shape the ghd life program we have today,” said Leslie.

Adopting and communicating new initiatives and or processes to all levels of the business has been relatively easy for us with the introduction of an online hub and mobile app called “ghd world” which serves as the home for e-learning, policies, workshop bookings, communications, weekly newsletters, how-to-videos, forums, frequently used documents, photo uploads and more.

“It’s frequently updated, and even more so alongside the launch of new initiatives to ensure all levels of the business have new and engaging content available and kept informed throughout their journey at ghd,” said Leslie.

Challenges and lessons learned
Along with the typical challenges around budgets for new initiatives, Leslie said the most prominent challenges were around HR-led activities and a large proportion of the company’s broader team which are based in the field.

“When we started shaking things up a little and introducing initiatives such as ghd life, there was definitely a mindset among our team that it was the newfound HR team’s job to improve engagement and culture alone,” she said.

“We quickly adopted our communication to highlight that everyone was responsible for driving cultural change – it was a two-way street.

“We could launch initiative after initiative but unless our teams were getting involved ‘you spoke, we listened’ and placing an onus back onto the team, no-one would get anything out of it, and we certainly wouldn’t get the engagement we needed to reach our goals.”

Having a geographically dispersed team bring other challenges, and one-third of ghd’s employees work remotely across Australia and New Zealand, “so we were challenged in thinking of innovative ideas that could engage these team members as well,” said Leslie.

“I can tell you now: it’s a lot easier to drive engagement when your team is all within the same four walls, rather than spread across two countries and five different time zones.”

Not all strategies would have the same effect on the field team as they would on office-based team members, so to counter this ghd world is utilised as much as possible for communications and competitions, while team members are flown in numerous times a year for teambuilding and training sessions are offered in virtual formats.

“I can tell you now: it’s a lot easier to drive engagement when your team is all within the same four walls, rather than spread across two countries and five different time zones”

Results and outcomes
There have been some notable outcomes from both a business and HR perspective over the past 12 months, according to Leslie.

On a business level, operating income is up by 72 per cent while it is also attracting 4.5 per cent more candidates this year compared to last year.

Staff turnover has reduced by 11 per cent for the same period while there has also been an 80 per cent increase in tenure among employees with 2-5 years’ service.

Overall engagement score is sitting at 90 per cent (which is right on the company target), said Leslie, who noted that there has been a 16 per cent improvement in the overall ghd team engagement score over the past year alone.

Results from employee pulse checks show a 7 per cent increase in “promoters” internally and a 5 per cent decrease in detractors.

In terms of training, two-thirds of employees are involved in some form of non-mandatory training and 87 per cent are satisfied with the amount of L&D offered (a 12 per cent increase on the previous year) and 95 per cent of employees are participating in at least one elective activity through ghd life.

“We are also seeing results due to the focus we place on L&D through internal promotions and advancement,” said Leslie, who added that there has been an 18.5 per cent increase in promotion or advancement opportunities in the business (a 7 per cent increase on the previous year).

Over the same period, ghd has been named finalists as an ‘Employer of Choice,’ ‘Australian HR team of the year’ and ‘Best Learning & Development Program’ in the Australian HR Awards.

“We are really proud of the work we are doing here at ghd and of the results we are seeing – we always have room for improvement, and we are excited at the prospect of some of the initiatives we have planned for the future to do so,” said Leslie.

Most organisations get the recruitment equation right just over 50 per cent of the time on average, however, a more focused, strengths-based approach can increase talent acquisition success rates to around 90 per cent, according to an expert in the area.

Organisations get recruitment right “slightly more times than they get it wrong” said Alex Linley, co-founder of Cappfinity, which is a global leader in strengths-based talent acquisition, assessment and development.

“If you look at all the statistics around retention, engagement and satisfaction at work, for example, the overall average is just over 50 per cent when it comes to successful recruitment,” he said.

Hallmarks of organisations which fail at talent acquisition
“There is quite a wide range in there, because some organisations do a really bad job of finding and recruiting the right people, while others do a really good job.”

The first hallmark of organisations which usually fail at recruitment is failing to understand what talent they require in the first place: “if you don’t know who you are looking for then chances of selecting the right person are not good,” said Linley.

The second most common challenge involves selection processes, which can sometimes be subject to personal biases on the part of agencies and hiring managers.

“Sometimes a hiring manager will make a decision based on whoever they feel is the right fit for the culture of the organisation,” he said.

“But if they get the selection process wrong, this can reinforce a culture of command and control because the hiring manager then needs to work extra hard to try and get the new employee to get the job done.

“This then leads to resentment, low performance and disengagement – and ultimately the employee leaves the organisation,” said Linley.

Hallmarks of organisations which succeed at talent acquisition
However, organisations which have a better handle on talent acquisition basically do the opposite of the above.

They have a solid understanding of who they are looking for, what it will take for someone to succeed in a particular role, and who would be a good fit for the organisation.

“They understand what high performers already do well, what their best people are like and what it is that differentiates them,” he said.

“Knowing this, then they can design for consistent, replicable, objective selection processes that allow them to hire more people who are like that.

“I say consistent, replicable and objective because they are likely to use some sort of assessment, structured interview process or group exercise – so they are able to compare like with like and compare people against a standard, as opposed to organisations in which selection processes are forever shifting based on how the hiring manager feels that day.”

“Some organisations do a really bad job of finding and recruiting the right people, while others do a really good job”

Organisations which are good at talent acquisition are typically very good at bringing new starters on board – not just from a process perspective, but also in terms of giving them work which matches their expectations and what they are interested in and want to perform.

“When people are doing things they want to do, they are more likely to enjoy it more and stay with an organisation that enables them to do that,” said Linley.

Hiring based on strengths
Similarly, organisations which understand this tend to perform much better in terms of recruitment, retention, performance and productivity.

“We certainly see across our client organisations that when are recruiting based on strengths, they consistently get it right around 90 per cent of the time,” said Linley.

“There might be a figure of about 10 per cent of attrition in the first year, because 90 per cent would be a very realistic benchmark we could be aiming to meet and exceed.”

With a strengths-based approach to recruitment, Linley said companies spend time understanding what success in a particular role looks like, who they’re looking for and who would be a good fit on a number of levels.

This allows the organisation to recruit based on a success model or framework, in which candidates are screened against exactly what is required to deliver high performance in a role.

“We are looking for an authentic match with consistency and rigour, and this flow through the recruitment process all the way, so there are no surprises,” he said.

Linley observed that a strengths-based approach to recruitment also delivers improved diversity and inclusion outcomes.

“Because strengths are inherently human, we are helping recruit from a wider pool and find people that might have overlooked through traditional methods of recruitments,” he said.

“Using strengths in recruitment goes beyond the surface and looks to find candidates who are going to shine and be successful with an organisation because of their strengths.”

However, there is no “silver bullet” when it comes to effective recruitment, and he said this simply come back to the hallmarks of organisations which are clear about who they are looking for, and steps and processes to find such candidates.

“There is a lot of hype but not a lot of substance in terms of what is actually being delivered and meaningful results”

Pros and cons of technology in recruitment
Technology is playing an increasingly important role in talent acquisition, and Linley observed that it is a “tremendous accelerator of recruitment – when done well”.

“I think the best results will always be achieved through a combination of authentic human experience and technology, and using the data in a way that can make the process more efficient and effective,” he said.

“It’s about the right balance and combination of technology and the human experience; that’s where the magic happens.”

Linley said technology is playing an important role in reducing the amount of administrative work in the recruitment process.

However, one way that technology can get in the way is where biases are unwittingly built into the algorithms, and this can negatively impact the shortlisting and selection process.

“It’s about finding the right ways to deploy technologies and using data in combination with strengths and that human experience to ensure this delivers the best recruitment experience,” he said.

“It should make it more efficient for the organisation, and more immersive and authentic from a candidate experience as well.”

There is a lot of talk about artificial intelligence and machine learning in the recruitment market, said Linley.

“There is a lot of hype but not a lot of substance in terms of what is actually being delivered and meaningful results,” he said.

Ideally technology has to deliver a faster, better and more cost-effective outcome for organisations, however, this can be limited by existing processes which can hamper the full potential of technology in the recruitment process.

“Some larger organisations which have been around for a while try and reposition themselves as digital, tech-focused and ready for the future, but when you get into their recruitment processes they are quite traditional and there is a lot of scope for improvement,” he said.

A holistic HR strategy has played a critical role in the business turnaround of boutique hair product business ghd with significant increases in both operating income and employee engagement, according to ghd’s people manager for Australia and New Zealand, Symeon Leslie.

Prior to 2016, there was no HR presence within the company, and it was suffering from all-time high turnover rates, low employee engagement, low productivity and a lack of policies and procedures.

“This was costing the business thousands of dollars,” said Leslie.

“It was clear that there was a lot of work to be done, from the basics like policies, procedures and position descriptions, to ensuring we had the right people in the right places.”

ghd (Good Hair Day) employs around 65 people and makes a range of hair products that are sold to around 4200 regular salon customers, and in August 2016 it conducted the first of its annual engagement surveys.

This survey clearly highlighted employee concerns with recognition, communication, culture and opportunities for promotional and L&D opportunities within the business, Leslie explained.

“This was a turning point for ghd, prompting a much-needed period of change involving all employees, but most importantly, a re-established and reinvigorated HR function,” she said.

Key elements of ghd’s HR strategy
Attracting and retaining a high-performing team is a key part of the business’ global values for success, according to Leslie, who said that the HR team has every responsibility to deliver on this promise.

“When creating our local HR strategy, we asked our team to first create a clear vision that they were excited and motivated by, ensuring that it aligned with the global vision and could be supported with measurable results,” she said.

The strategic goals were split into 3 key pillars: (1) attract and retain, (2) engage and (3) train – each of which contain solid, defined, ‘SMART’ goals which are measured frequently.

Leslie explained that one of the key strategic elements that sits within the engagement pillar is “ghd life” which is the company’s holistic health and wellbeing program.

“It was clear that there was a lot of work to be done, from the basics like policies, procedures and position descriptions, to ensuring we had the right people in the right places”

Introduced in January 2018 following the previous year’s engagement survey, this engagement program was “created by ghd employees, for ghd employees” and has four pillars: live, grow, drive and feel; “each containing initiatives designed to support our team in all facets of life”, said Leslie.

The “live” pillar promotes healthy living and encompasses initiatives that are focused on teams’ mental, physical and nutritional wellbeing, and ensuring all team members are able to achieve work-life balance.

The “grow” pillar places a focus on teams’ personal professional learning and development and includes initiatives around technical and soft skills training, leadership training, onboarding, competency and succession planning.

The “drive” pillar ensures employees have a clear purpose and are rewarded and recognised for their achievements, explained Leslie, who said the final pillar “feel” helps to improve the way we people coming to work every day.

“We know how employees feel about work and those around them has a huge impact on their state of mind and happiness,” said Leslie, “so initiatives for this pillar include community and charity involvement, team building, employee benefits and providing platforms for our team to have a voice and have an impact on how we do things.

“ghd life represents the way we care for and treat our employees, both personally and professionally.

“By helping our team to become healthier and happier versions of themselves and offering opportunities for continuous self-development, we can be confident in providing an environment where they can reach their goals, our goals, and enjoy themselves along the way.”

Adoption and implementation of strategy
One of the keys of success to any people-related strategy or initiative is to provide a level of consultation with all team members, Leslie said.

Prior to the creation of the HR strategy and ghd life, input from the entire team was sought through the annual engagement survey and ongoing pulse checks.

“We quickly adopted our communication to highlight that everyone was responsible for driving cultural change – it was a two-way street”

These short monthly surveys are designed to gain a quick snapshot of how employees are currently feeling at work and provides them with a platform to deliver feedback and have their say on a variety of topics.

Key themes include understanding what is important to the team, their values and where they feel improvements could be made.

“There was no point in creating something that our teams did not care about, so we used the results of these surveys to shape the ghd life program we have today,” said Leslie.

Adopting and communicating new initiatives and or processes to all levels of the business has been relatively easy for us with the introduction of an online hub and mobile app called “ghd world” which serves as the home for e-learning, policies, workshop bookings, communications, weekly newsletters, how-to-videos, forums, frequently used documents, photo uploads and more.

“It’s frequently updated, and even more so alongside the launch of new initiatives to ensure all levels of the business have new and engaging content available and kept informed throughout their journey at ghd,” said Leslie.

Challenges and lessons learned
Along with the typical challenges around budgets for new initiatives, Leslie said the most prominent challenges were around HR-led activities and a large proportion of the company’s broader team which are based in the field.

“When we started shaking things up a little and introducing initiatives such as ghd life, there was definitely a mindset among our team that it was the newfound HR team’s job to improve engagement and culture alone,” she said.

“We quickly adopted our communication to highlight that everyone was responsible for driving cultural change – it was a two-way street.

“We could launch initiative after initiative but unless our teams were getting involved ‘you spoke, we listened’ and placing an onus back onto the team, no-one would get anything out of it, and we certainly wouldn’t get the engagement we needed to reach our goals.”

Having a geographically dispersed team bring other challenges, and one-third of ghd’s employees work remotely across Australia and New Zealand, “so we were challenged in thinking of innovative ideas that could engage these team members as well,” said Leslie.

“I can tell you now: it’s a lot easier to drive engagement when your team is all within the same four walls, rather than spread across two countries and five different time zones.”

Not all strategies would have the same effect on the field team as they would on office-based team members, so to counter this ghd world is utilised as much as possible for communications and competitions, while team members are flown in numerous times a year for teambuilding and training sessions are offered in virtual formats.

“I can tell you now: it’s a lot easier to drive engagement when your team is all within the same four walls, rather than spread across two countries and five different time zones”

Results and outcomes
There have been some notable outcomes from both a business and HR perspective over the past 12 months, according to Leslie.

On a business level, operating income is up by 72 per cent while it is also attracting 4.5 per cent more candidates this year compared to last year.

Staff turnover has reduced by 11 per cent for the same period while there has also been an 80 per cent increase in tenure among employees with 2-5 years’ service.

Overall engagement score is sitting at 90 per cent (which is right on the company target), said Leslie, who noted that there has been a 16 per cent improvement in the overall ghd team engagement score over the past year alone.

Results from employee pulse checks show a 7 per cent increase in “promoters” internally and a 5 per cent decrease in detractors.

In terms of training, two-thirds of employees are involved in some form of non-mandatory training and 87 per cent are satisfied with the amount of L&D offered (a 12 per cent increase on the previous year) and 95 per cent of employees are participating in at least one elective activity through ghd life.

“We are also seeing results due to the focus we place on L&D through internal promotions and advancement,” said Leslie, who added that there has been an 18.5 per cent increase in promotion or advancement opportunities in the business (a 7 per cent increase on the previous year).

Over the same period, ghd has been named finalists as an ‘Employer of Choice,’ ‘Australian HR team of the year’ and ‘Best Learning & Development Program’ in the Australian HR Awards.

“We are really proud of the work we are doing here at ghd and of the results we are seeing – we always have room for improvement, and we are excited at the prospect of some of the initiatives we have planned for the future to do so,” said Leslie.

Has there ever been a better sitcom than The Golden Girls? OK, wrong question. I’ll rephrase. Has there ever been a better sitcom that showcases the power and beauty of strong friendships than The Golden Girls? I reckon not. It’s a message proclaimed loudly even in the catchy theme song: "thank you for being a friend".

There’s another reason, beyond the benefits of companionship and solidarity, for being thankful of friends and that’s the way they make you happier at work. I’m not referring to friends at work, though that always helps. I’m referring to friends outside of work whose influence, you might be surprised to learn, extends beyond your social life and into the confines of your workplace.

Which is interesting when considering the extent to which we sacrifice friendships, or at least the time we spend with friends, because of the extended hours we’re devoting to work. Just last week I was remarking to a colleague that I’m content with only one social engagement per week. But according to research due to be published next month, that is evidently not enough.

In an initial study of more than 700 respondents, the scholars from George Mason University analysed the impact that friends, as opposed to family, have on self-esteem and wellbeing. Friends came out "substantially" on top because to be someone’s mate is a voluntary act, unlike our family who we rarely get to choose.

"When people choose to cultivate and maintain supportive friendships with us – because they want to and not because they have to – it conveys that we are valued and worthy of their limited time", write the scholars. Such sentiments of value and worthiness boost our self-esteem. The better we feel about ourselves, the more likely we’ll perform our job confidently and competently.

That last sentence was proven in their second study, which this time comprised more than 300 participants. It found non-work friends even improve our job satisfaction. They have as much of an impact on how much we love our job as do the friends we have at work. (Despite not actually being at our place of work.)

That’s because, according to the researchers, "we consider their perspective trustworthy and reliable, which is not necessarily the case for all coworkers".

These types of friends also tend to be our preferred outlet for venting about work-related matters, which is an avenue that may not be available at the office.

So even though friendships can be easy to neglect when confronted by pressures at work (or even pressures at home), neglecting our friends can turn out to be harmful and counterproductive. That’s why, when determining how to create a better work/life balance, we need to consider "not only how to balance work and family demands but also how to cultivate and sustain supportive friendships".

It’s for that reason I never discriminate when it comes to requests from my employees for flexible work arrangements. It’s irrelevant whether their need for a desired schedule is due to, say, parenting responsibilities or a craving to hang out with a best mate. What matters is the opportunity to engage in a nourishing activity outside of work that will definitely have a flow-on effect at work.

So even though we might not sit around a kitchen table eating cheesecake like Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia, there’s a lot we can learn from the golden girls. Here’s how Dorothy described their friendship in the final episode:

"It’s been an experience I’ll always keep very close to my heart and that these are memories I’ll wrap myself in when the world gets cold and I forget that there are people who are warm and loving."

What research has now proven is the power and beauty of friendship when it’s not so much the world that gets cold but the workplace.