Every year, usually over the March long weekend, accounting firm Gooding Pervan shouts its 45 employees to an overseas holiday in a five-star hotel.
Every year, usually over the March long weekend, accounting firm Gooding Pervan shouts its 45 employees to an overseas holiday in a five-star hotel.
Everything is paid for by the company, save for a few meals, including group activities like whitewater rafting.
Over the years, the company has visited Bali, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, while local destinations like Broome have also made the itinerary.
Human resources manager Mardi Gooding believes the main benefit of the holiday is that it allows colleagues to interact in a setting outside the workplace.
“We get very good feedback from our young staff in particular, who get to see the partners in a different light,” she said.
In the past, staff contributed to the group holiday out of their pre-tax bonuses.
However, Gooding Pervan scrapped its bonus policy earlier this year after an internal survey showed staff didn’t regard bonuses as part of their overall salary package.
“The majority of people really wanted the money in their salary and they didn’t want anything dependent on performance,” Ms Gooding said.
“I think that’s a reflection of the employment market – it’s employee-driven.”
Staff retention is a growing concern for many Western Australian businesses, and despite benefits like free travel, financial reward remains front of mind for most employees.
A survey by national recruitment consultancy Hudson in November found 75 per cent of 384 employers in WA used financial rewards as a key staff engagement tool.
WA was the only state where financial incentives were favoured over flexible work options as a retention strategy.
According to employee engagement consultant, James Adonis, money might attract people to a company but it doesn’t keep them there.
He says non-financial rewards are essential to retention.
“The general rule of thumb is if an employee has resigned for less than a 20 per cent increase [in salary], then it’s not the real reason they’re leaving,” he said.
“Employee loyalty to companies no longer exists, whereas employee loyalty to colleagues is becoming so much more important.”
This was supported by research from the Institute of Chartered Accountants, which indicated that 44 per cent of respondents stayed in their current position due to their work mates.
The study also found 45 per cent of respondents planned to stay with their employer for less than three years, and were most likely to leave due to lack of career growth, low remuneration, unchallenging work and poor management performance.
To encourage career development, marketing agency Synovate has introduced a personal development plan for each employee to identify future goals and strategies, which the company supports with an individual training budget.
While more companies are responding to their employees by defining clear career paths, non-financial benefits like flexible working conditions are in high demand.
Companies in the oil and gas sector have been at the forefront of this trend, offering nine-day fortnights for staff.
Intec Engineering recruitment consultant Bernard Mackin said his company offered a compressed working week to meet the needs of young families.
“The opportunity for staff to get a greater quality of time with family is often quite an attractive proposition, particularly to the mid-level engineer,” he said.
Chevron Australia has had a nine-day working fortnight for the past eight years, which is available to all staff across the organisation.
“It’s highly encouraged and role modelled by our senior executives. We think it’s good for work-life balance,” human resources manager Kaye Butler said.
Henderson shipbuilder Austal Ltd is also considering more flexible working hours for employees.
“We’re looking at introducing nine-day fortnights, shift work, buying annual leave, taking of long service leave outside the norm,” human resources manager Linda Devereux said.
“Most of what we’re focusing on now is internal, around staff development and flexible workplace conditions.”
Austal has several other incentives for staff, including an arrangement with retailer Rick Hart to open a store especially for employees one night every few months.
The company also provides a bank teller on site every week.
Benefits like these, which make life easier for employees outside the workplace, are the focus of many retention strategies.
In July, architectural firm HASSELL introduced a parental leave and allowance policy, available to all female staff members.
The allowance is $45 per child per day, paid during the 12 months directly following the employee’s return to work.
It was introduced after research by the firm showed that financial costs associated with returning to work often discouraged employees from returning at all, or meant they resumed with a lighter load.
“Our industry tends to be dominated by men, so we targeted a change in our policies to attract and retain a wider cross section of female staff,” Perth managing principal Andy Sharp said.
While small businesses may have fewer resources to draw upon than their large counterparts, some have found creative ways to provide employee benefits.
West Perth-based web development company Eduka Solutions Pty Ltd has an arrangement with several of its clients to perform work in exchange for a client’s product.
The products – which in the past have included bikes, jewellery and wine – are then gifted to the employee who worked on the project.
The arrangement also avoids fringe benefit tax – which has a limit of $5,000 – from being incurred by the employee.
With skills shortages a major issue for businesses across the state, strategies to retain workers close to retirement are becoming more common.
The WA government recently became the first jurisdiction in Australia to introduce a policy to allow public sector employees aged 55 years and over to access their superannuation entitlements while working full-time.
Keeping baby boomers in the workplace for longer is also the focus of research being undertaken by the Perth office of architectural firm Woods Bagot.
The research, which is part of a broader $2 million research program, will assist the firm in providing workplace solutions for its clients.
