With 3,500 staff spread across seven Directorates, since 2006 Golf Coast City Council has included recruitment and retention of staff among its top ten risks.
Located in the southeast Queensland growth corridor, the region’s high level of building, infrastructure and property development provides major competition in attracting and retaining quality staff.
Specific positions that are hard to fill include civil engineers, designers, town planners, local laws officers, tradespeople, project managers and building surveyors.
In 2006/2007 Council’s staff turnover was nine per cent, but in these hard to fill areas turnover was 25 per cent.
Council’s Director Program Reform, Mark Harvey, said that Council was struggling to meet the market rate for remuneration in these areas.
Council also recognised that it needed to improve how it was viewed as an employer in the marketplace.
To improve its employer branding, Gold Coast worked with IPA Personnel to undertake a campaign that focused on the City’s attributes in terms of lifestyle, location and exciting project work opportunities available.
Council advertised positions in a number of Australian and New Zealand papers and 11 online job boards, as well as participating in a number of career expos.
Council’s website was revamped to promote its many attributes as a potential employer.
Starting with 52 hard to fill positions, this campaign resulted in 19 placements (36 per cent), with 50 per cent of staff coming from the southeast Queensland region, 30 per cent from interstate and
20 per cent from New Zealand and the UK.
For its hard to fill areas, Council has also introduced a Temporary Incentive Payment (TIP). Some 340 positions across Council are eligible for this one off annual payment of up to 20 per cent above the agreed remuneration.
Turnover of staff who signed up for TIP is just seven per cent as against a nine per cent turnover across the whole of Council.
For further information contact Mark Harvey email mharvey@goldcoast.qld.gov.au
