Skilled tradies are leaving work for more benefits
Norweld, a four wheel drive tray and canopy manufacturer based in Cairns in far north Queensland with locations around Australia, is getting creative about how to attract the staff it needs. The company wants skilled tradies that normally work in the building sector and is offering four day work weeks, upskilling workshops, employee discounts and other “work perks” to get what they want.
The company says that the work perks and its product range have also been successful in attracting tradies from high paying jobs as electricians, boilermakers, carpenters and fly in fly out workers. It says they’re keen to leave their previous jobs in mining – some suffering burnout and other mental health issues – and embark on a new career.
The company’s product range targets camping and fishing enthusiasts, which its human resources manager, Rhiannon Woodbridge, said attracted tradespeople who were already doing off-roading, camping and fishing as their hobby.
To prove its point, the company said its workforce has more than doubled in the past two years, including 55 new hires in the last 12 months.
Design Declares Australia announces new chief and board members
Design Declares Australia has appointed Andrew Simpson as its new chief executive. Simpson is founder of Vert Design, a Sydney based design house focused on commercial designs. The collective, which launched in August and started with 58 signatories after its launch event, has now grown to 71 signatories over the past two months.
The collective commits designers, design studios, agencies and institutions dedicated to declaring and actively addressing the climate and ecological emergency.
Alongside Simpson’s appointment, new board members were announced: Nicola Rennie, operations director of Design Declare; Sasha Titchkosky, co-founder of Koskella; Dr Michelle Douglass from Torrens University; Mirella Arapian, founder of MEK Studio; Ben Rennie, partner at Reny Studio; Oliver Dykes, service design at Meld Studio and Glenn Barry, founder of Genius Group.
NABERS on a growth path
The latest annual report from the sustainable property rating system NABERS shows an increasing growth in jobs in the industry. The organisation reported a headcount increase of 26 per cent. The headcount increase in the year prior was at 38 per cent.
With several new tools on the line, NABERS has also accredited more than 90 assessors after the launch of its energy and water for schools rating tool and another 70 assessors for the NABERS energy for retail stores tool.
It’s already trained 77 new trainees who joined the pool of accredited assessors. The team held its first accreditation training webinar in January and expects the popularity of its courses to continue as growth in ratings for sustainable buildings ramps up.
RSM Australia hiring support roles as mandatory reporting creeps in
Appetite for sustainability disclosure advisory firms seems to be on the rise as RSM Australia looks to hire a raft of new support and finance-related roles. The company acts as the Australian branch of RSM, the world’s sixth-largest network of quality assurance, tax and consulting firms, its website claims.
The firm’s partner in ESG and climate services, Linda Romanovska, whom The Fifth Estate recently bumped into in Sydney at a private event, said there was a scramble to upskill company directors to meet sustainability disclosure regulations early next year as well as a raft of voluntary frameworks such as TCFD, TNFD, GRI and PRI.
Romanovska wears a number of other hats, including as a member of the EU Platform on Sustainable Finance, a sustainable finance advisory body to the European Commission, Standards Australia; Environment-Climate for the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group, Melomys Advisory, Fresh Thoughts Consulting and the Australian Sustainable Finance Taxonomy Advisory Group