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‘Employers of Choice’ provide real choices for Candidates
Many companies these days lay claim to the title of ‘Employer of Choice’ – but few have really earned the right to that moniker.
Here is a small sample of some of the real choices on offer today to entice new talent or to retain existing superstars:
- Sign-on bonuses – to compensate for foregoing an accrued bonus with the first employer
- Flexible, “shopping list” of benefits - choice of benefits based on individual needs – such as childcare benefits, subsidised gym memberships, dry cleaning allowances.
- In-house health and wellness programs
- Paid maternity leave and paid paternity leave
- In-house crèches (and Mother’s rooms for breastfeeding)
- Access to paid professional services such as tax advice or estate planning
- ‘Phasing in’ program for people returning to the workforce (and a ‘phasing out’ plan for people leaving the workforce)
- ‘Mental health’ days – up to 1 per Quarter to encourage work/life balance
- Regular time off to volunteer for charities or community events
- Access to internal or external mentors
- Secondment to various business units to broaden and deepen knowledge
- Profit-sharing
Increasingly, though, it will be an employer’s willingness to offer increased flexibility to all sectors of its workforce that will set it apart from the crowd. There is a growing trend within the financial services industry to explore alternative candidate sources by offering greater flexibility in working conditions. Solutions such as job-sharing and more part-time opportunities are likely to attract older, more experienced candidates looking to scale back working hours, and return-to-work parents who would happily work shifts in line with school hours. Greater creativity in looking after and attracting the best talent will certainly underpin business success.
Barber & Bunton: Caring for our Community
At Barber & Bunton, our team of dedicated professionals is our most important asset. The value we place on our people extends well beyond the office walls and our commitment to the wider community continues to grow in a number of ways.
Our involvement as a corporate sponsor of Berry Street Victoria goes back many years. Our support for disadvantaged children extends to the collection and distribution of Easter Eggs at Easter and Christmas presents at Christmas, but perhaps our biggest commitment is our annual Berry Street Fun Run where we encourage friends and family to sponsor us in our quest to clock up as many kilometres as possible in an hour to fund a specific project nominated by Berry Street – we get fit, have a laugh and raise a significant amount of money for a good cause. We challenge other companies (if they are not already) to get involved with this worthwhile cause that performs a valuable role in the lives of disadvantaged children and their families.
We encourage all our staff to continue their personal and professional development so it makes perfect sense for us to sponsor The Smith Family’s Learning for Life Program, which provides disadvantaged children throughout Australia with financial support for their education. We love getting the letters from the children we sponsor – it is very rewarding to see how our support can have such a profound impact on a child’s future.
The Cancer Council’s Biggest Morning Tea is a very popular event in our office. The annual event has evolved from a simple cup of tea and a biscuit to this year’s full-blown chocolate-coated strawberries-champagne, Trash ‘n Treasure stall, competitions and raffles galore
extravaganza! Of course, our goal is not just to add weight but to raise valuable funds for a very worthwhile cause. We try to out-do ourselves each year and we seem to be succeeding extremely well!
On the business front, for a number of years Barber & Bunton has been proud sponsors of Finsia’s Young Finance Professionals. The Financial Services Institute of Australasia (Finsia) is an industry body for financial services professionals throughout Australia, New Zealand and across the globe, with a membership of over 20,000 members. The Young Finance Professionals’ mission is to provide young professionals across the sector with opportunities to network with senior practitioners, access information from industry participants, enjoy career management support and a voice to communicate with the financial services industry in a collective way. More information on Finsia and the Young Finance Professionals is available on their website.
