HR ANZ Summit 2011—Planes, pop idols, private equity loans & HR

The sun was shining over the golf course at the Royal Pines Resort, Gold Coast, Queensland when the HR ANZ Summit 2011 kicked off. Tuttie Affandi, Summit Producer, marcus evans began by setting the scene for the three-day conference that brought together HR leaders from around the globe. She outlined the conference key objectives: to share ideas on key HR issues from both Australia and New Zealand, to look for ways to unleash creative talent, and to suggest methods by which companies could help retain their key talent.

Gabrielle Curtin, Executive Manager—People Operations, Qantas—the first keynote speaker—shared ideas on how HR could evaluate Gen-Y’s impact on HR strategies. She began by questioning, “Is Gen-Y changing the world, or is it simply adapting to a changing world?” She pointed out, that with much faster and wider technological coverage in the new world, there was no longer anywhere for HR to hide, and so transparency and alignment of HR policies was now critical for business success. She noted how HR had been able to embrace SMS technology during the floods in Brisbane, to keep in contact with staff and how this had sent a very positive message that HR cared about their staff, during a particularly stressful time.

Illustrating the awesome—and sometimes brand-destructive—power of modern technology, Curtin shared details of the A380 incident in November 2010. On that day within five minutes of an engine falling off one of their planes over Indonesia, the incident was reported on Twitter, picked up by Reuters—who assumed the plane had gone down and within 15 minutes of the Tweet there was a media storm that caused Qantas share prices to plummet.

In reality, the jet had returned to Singapore without reported injury to any of the 466 passengers and 26 crew. Despite this huge incident, the company held itself together and through strong leadership was able to achieve alignment across all constituents including: investors, customers, employees, suppliers and the general public. Cautioning HR to be prepared for anything, she asked the audience, “What will be your A380 moment? And what will be your response?” As well as preparedness for any business eventuality, she went on to advise HR to listen carefully to the needs of the staff, and to consider being more flexible when needed.

Keeping with an aviation feel, Simon Pomeroy, Head of Loyalty, Air New Zealand took to the stage next, and spoke about HR turning the tables by encouraging them to create an EVP that got prospective employees to reject their organisation.

He explained the way forward for HR was no longer about being an employer of choice, but rather about creating ‘employees of choice’.

What Pomeroy was referring to was the huge cost that traditional recruitment brings to an organisation. He said, “98% of all the people [potential hires] we speak to, we reject. So the cost of hire is not so much a recruitment bill, but rather a rejection bill.” He stressed that onboarding was not the time for getting people to know your business, but rather this should happen the moment they touch the company during recruitment.

He shared some of the innovative recruitment techniques that the company had deployed to help screen applicants ranging from applying to jobs via text messages—which garnered over 15,000 applications a week, to pop idol-style auditions—in which applicants were given one minute to present why they felt they were suitable for the post on offer. In the later, all eight members of the board were on the judging panel including the CEO. Pomeroy pointed out that this process also helped the board really understand what recruitment was all about, and significantly enhanced the relationship between the board and HR. The event also generated a huge amount of interest in the company, in the first day 800 people turned up, by the second day numbers had swelled to 2,000 simply by word of mouth.

Another recruitment innovation was giving the freedom to a young summer intern to set up a bebo site on behalf of Air New Zealand, with ‘some minimal corporate tweaking along the way’ to help attract young talent to the organisation. A nationwide school competition launched via the site ended with over 90% of schools getting involved, creating huge exposure to this potential talent pool at very little cost for the organisation. Measures such as these, not only helped attract new talent to the airline, but also created extremely strong advocacy among the existing staff, with the attrition rate being reduced from 7% to only 1%, following implementation.

On day two of the Summit Mark Bouris, Executive Chairman, Yellow Brick Road Wealth Management—better known as the Australian Donald Trump or Alan Sugar, from the TV show The Apprentice—spoke on HR overcoming the odds. He explained the interaction of financial capital and human capital in building up successful business empires. And few know that better than Bouris, who sold his company, Wizard Home Loans, to GE in 2004 for over US$400 million.

“You can’t possibly employ someone on the basis of a CV. Personality, body language, character and many more attributes have to be taken into account,” said Bouris, referring to his applicant screenings during the Apprentice. He added, “We had three and half thousand people apply in the first series, and eight thousand for the second series.” Bouris recounted the key criteria that had influenced his final decision as to who he chose to win The Apprentice. When recruiting the best staff Bouris explained, “It’s not about skill—skill is a common denominator. Personal virtues are much more important.”  He added, “Andrew Morello [The Apprentice winner] was not university educated, but had the ability to pull himself up when he made a mistake; the ability to garner strength from the team; the ability to accept criticism; the ability to give way and allow someone else to take the game; the ability to lead when everyone else was down; and he had humility and tenacity.”

Bouris said that one of the biggest things holding back HR, was often themselves and the HR systems that surrounded them. He said HR needed to get back to basics and advised, “The people who are recruiting a new staff member should be the ones who actually write out the job advertisement and conduct the screening interviews. Delegating those critical tasks to junior staff and simply turning up to a final interview and asking a couple of questions is not enough.”

Day three saw more HR sharing from Telstra on tackling organisational change, and from Cochlear regarding attracting and retaining a diverse talent pool. The final keynote of the conference from KPMG shared advice on how HR could leverage their workplace diversity to create a competitive advantage. Then in true Australian style, everyone had lunch and went outside for a leisurely round of golf—they certainly seem to have things sorted out in terms of work-life balance.