Stop Press from Australia!

In 2007, the Year Digby Morgan acquired HR Partners in Australia, the business was ‘Highly Recommended’ in Human Capital Magazine’s annual awards for ‘Australia’s Top Service Provider in HR Recruitment.’ In 2008, HR Partners was awarded the Bronze medal and now the company has scooped the Silver in 2009’s awards. David Owens, MD of HR Partners, said that: “the team in Australia is delighted to have been making year on year improvements over the last three years and it’s a wonderful acknowledgement of the quality work being done by our teams in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. We’re doing well in a tough market but still have everything to play for. Like all Australians, we’re looking to win Gold in 2010 and establish ourselves as number one in our field.”

We’re now approaching our summer here in Australia and this year we have an added reason to have a spring in our step says David Owens from Digby Morgan’s Australian head office in Sydney.

There are positive signs that the global recession is abating and that confidence in our local labour market is high. In HR land, matters of staff engagement, leadership development and the refining of policy in reaction to legislative changes dominates thinking and, having had headcount and the use of additional resources such as interims on ice for most of the last 10 months, there appears to be something of a thaw going on.

Work flow into each of our three offices in Australia has increased and our interim consultants are busy dealing with a significant uplift in demand. Permanent recruitment has been improving in Sydney for some months now and our teams are abuzz with activity. There is still some need for restraint, this is not a champagne market - it is, in truth, probably about half of what it was twelve months ago.

Things are changing though and we have confidence again that the market is firming. I expect that we will continue to see a gentle lift in activity over the next six months or so but, beyond that it is very difficult to say.

It is true, however, that HR professionals have had a major impact on thinking during this recession. Australian workforces have been largely protected from major downsizing and the war for talent may have dropped in intensity, but it has kept going. Workers hours and bonuses may have been cut but unemployment in Australia has peaked at 5.8% for the last three months and I think HR professionals can take some credit for actively pursuing a calm, no mass cut backs approach.

Furthermore, I believe that their foresight will be rewarded as companies coming out of recession may find they benefit from stable workforces of well trained, truly engaged staff looking forward to a shared future in which prosperity for all has been part of the plan. In the next phase, poor HR practice including poor execution of effective engagement strategies will see firms punished with high turnover and the associated costs will be very damaging.

HR professionals will show their true value as companies who have handled ‘people issues’ well, will accelerate out of the doldrums much faster than the rest. Bring it on…


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