October 18, 2018 Organisational Strategy, Recruitment

Could your employer brand be stopping you from recruiting the top candidates? Here’s how to improve it

Struggling to get the number or quality of applications for your latest jobs? Have you considered whether your “employer brand” – the sum-total of how potential employees see your organisation – could be the problem?

Mark Puncher, founder and CEO of Employer Branding Australia works with organisations to present themselves to candidates in the most authentic way, and says it’s critical to approach candidates with a different message than one you might present to the public, to donors or to clients.

September 25, 2018 Conference, Human Resources, Organisational Strategy

How CanTeen developed an HR strategy that makes everyone accountable for success

Does your organisation’s HR strategy have contributions and buy-in from your whole organisation? The idea of collecting feedback from every single team or department in your organisation to shape your HR strategy might sound like a colossal challenge – or even a waste of time. Yet this is exactly what youth cancer charity CanTeen has […]

August 27, 2018 Conference, Organisational Strategy

Dealing with high staff turnover? Here’s what you need to do

Change can often make people feel stressed and uncertain of where they stand, which can lead to dissatisfaction, low morale, increased absenteeism and presenteeism – and, eventually, high staff turnover. It’s an issue that affects many organisations, with change often being a constant in NFPs. So how can you ensure your organisation can keep your staff on […]

August 17, 2018 Culture and Values, Organisational Strategy

How co-designing your values can improve your organisation’s culture

Collaboration isn’t just a buzzword – getting input and buy-in from your people can have huge benefits for a project and for staff too. Yet many organisations still rely exclusively on their HR function to establish their organisational values. Organisational values, by definition, affect every single person in the organisation, so it actually makes little […]

August 13, 2018 Managing People Well, Organisational Strategy

Could greater autonomy be the secret to growing your impact and improving staff engagement?

The introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has been a catalyst for high levels of change in Australia’s NFP workforce.

With greater empowerment and choice for NDIS participants has come greater demands on service providers and their staff.

In turn, old workplace structures, processes and practices have sometimes struggled to keep up with new demands for flexibility, responsiveness and client-centred approaches.

One innovative solution lies in equipping staff with the autonomy to make their own decisions.

July 30, 2018 Health & Wellbeing, Organisational Strategy

Working four-day weeks for five days’ pay? Research shows it pays off

Employees at a New Zealand company behind an innovative trial of a four-day working week have declared it a resounding success, with 78% saying they were better able to manage their work-life balance.

An analysis shows that the employees working four-day weeks felt better about their job, were more engaged, and generally reported greater work-life balance and less stress – all while maintaining the same level of productivity.

May 21, 2018 Culture and Values, Leadership, Organisational Strategy

What Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, has to teach NFP leaders about high standards

“High standards are contagious. Bring a new person onto a high standards team, and they’ll quickly adapt. The opposite is also true. If low standards prevail, those too will quickly spread. And though exposure works well to teach high standards, I believe you can accelerate that rate of learning by articulating a few core principles of high standards.”

That’s Jeff Bezos – founder and CEO of Amazon, and also the wealthiest person in the world.

While you might wonder about how much a billionaire has to teach leaders in Australia’s NFP sector, the lessons from Bezos’ annual letter to his shareholders are hugely relevant for leaders in any organisation, of any size.

October 23, 2017 Making Decisions, Managing People Well, Organisational Strategy

How “design thinking” can change the way your NFP works

Are teams in your organisation open to new ways of working?

While “innovation” may be something everyone says they love, when push comes to shove, convention and tradition – ‘the way things have always been done’ – often rules supreme.

That’s because innovation can be risky, unproven – and scary. But given that not-for-profit organisations deal with some of our society’s most important problems, the need to apply creative solutions in order to make an impact is even more important – particularly with a rapidly changing external environment and increasingly strained budgets.

Enter “Design Thinking”.

September 13, 2017 Organisational Strategy

How are smartphones affecting your staff’s performance at work?

Smartphone use is a relatively new office challenge, emerging with the rise of social media and the smartphones which make Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the rest accessible at any time, and in an instant.

But this instant access is changing the way our brains work, training us to constantly demand and expect updates from the external world, and potentially creating a constant distraction from the present moment.

That’s why this new research is worrying.

September 6, 2017 Health & Wellbeing, Managing People Well, Organisational Strategy

Three sources of staff burnout in your NFP – and how to tackle them

Burnout is a common problem in Australian workplaces – and in the NFP sector in particular.

Among the “most at-risk occupations” for mental heath claims, community sector workers – “social and welfare professionals” and “health and welfare support workers” – occupy two of the top five positions.

So do your organisation’s leaders recognise the role that your own processes might be playing in creating a high-stress environment?