Am Institute & Institute of Strategic Management Facilitated

AM INSTITUTE & INSTITUTE OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT FACILITATED

HUMAN RESOURCES ROUNDTABLE - DISCUSSION RECORD & OUTCOMES

Australian Defence Credit Union, Sydney CBD – Monday 23rd March 2015

1.  List of Participants

This is a record of the discussion and outcomes from the sixth HR Professionals Roundtable Discussion. The invitation list now includes some 28 interested participants of which seventeen were able to attend drawn from 7 x credit unions and 1 x mutual bank along with 2 x AM Institute and business partners. This Forum also included presentations from suppliers - Elmo Talent Management Software and Aon Hewitt (see full list attached).

Ken provided a briefing on the changes unfolding at AM Institute at both a governance and a management/staff level covering:-

·  the resignation of the recently appointed CEO and the Board’s process for the recruitment of a General Manager by mid-year.

·  that Sonya had taken the opportunity through the restructure to seek redundancy and she would be finishing up on 1st April.

·  After having completed his management services contract at the end of December 2014, albeit for a couple of carry over items during part of January such as management of the Business Strategy Forum program held in February, has been re-engaged by the Board to manage operations through to the handover to the incoming General Manager.

·  Whilst the resignation of the CEO has been an unfortunate event the Board remains clear about the strategic direction of the Institute and is confident that its plans remain on track.

·  A new name and a rebranding of the Institute will be launched later this year.

Ken also confirmed that the guest speaker sessions for today have been scheduled for 10:00am (Elmo) and 1:00pm (AON Hewitt).

2.  Topics Nominated for Discussion

Participants are invited to nominate topics and then lead the discussion on their topic so as to ensure that they get relevant feedback to help them either shape or refine their thinking around the topic – to tap into and share ideas.

A list of topics was gathered prior to the Forum and reissued as the agenda on the day. A key topic within this list was “Learning Management System” which commenced with a presentation from Hayley Wardle and Jason Portelli from Elmo Talent Management Software who had been invited by Joanna Vella. This in turn led to an extensive discussion of the experiences of some of the participant mutuals with various aspects of LMS.

In the afternoon there was a presentation on the remuneration market analytics capabilities that the Aon Hewitt team bring to the market led by Simon Wolnizer together with an exploratory discussion about how future HR Forums might evolve and in particular whether there might be scope to develop and schedule a one or two day conference to focus on the professional development of HR practitioners in the sector.

Post Forum “topic leaders” have been asked to provide a summary of the take-outs from their perspective for inclusion in this record of discussion and outcomes to both optimise the learning value for all those in attendance and to share the information as best as possible with those who were not able to attend on the day.

3.  Learning Management System - Presentation by Hayley Wardle and Jason Portelli from Elmo Talent Management Software

Following a brief overview and recommendation from Ross Williamson (ADCU) at the last HR Forum Meeting, we decided to invite ELMO to give a demonstration to the group. In brief:-

·  ELMO is an Australian based company with over 12 years’ experience as an online learning platform.

·  Can offer four functionalities: Recruitment, On-boarding, Learning Management System and Performance Management System.

·  The software is cloud based

·  ELMO has an extensive pre-built eLearning course library.

·  ELMO provides flexibility to edit all library items and tailor them to your own requirements.

·  Compliance modules are legally compliant to Australian standards and legislation.

·  Elmo has an author tool to create your own courses.

ADCU introduced ELMO in 2014, with great results, and TMB are in the project stage of implementing the system into their organisation. For further information contact Hayley Wardle from ELMO on (02) 8305 4600.

4.  Case Study – Sharing the experience of building the business case for investment in a LMS at TMB (Snezana Novakovic and Mathew Khoury)

General Points

You should do a sufficient amount of research into your area of focus and understand the issues your organisation is facing and the potential solutions that you would like your organisation to spend their budget on.

Network with as many key people you can in order to learn more about their issues and experiences. Ensure you do this as early as you can.

You need to have the support of your team and manager/s so they can back you and assist you with your cause.

Writing Proposals

Ensure you make use of approved organisational proposal templates and if they don’t exist, create your own and suggest your organisation uses it.

Keep your content concise and in-line with the language and level of the approving individuals/committee.

You should make it simple for managers and executives to understand the following:

•The Pain that your organisation is experiencing.

•The Positive impacts of the solution/idea you are proposing.

•Costs associated with your solution.

•Timeframes for the implementation of the solution.

•The People and Resources you believe will be required.

•The Impact of doing nothing or declining your proposal.

Have all reference material in one central place or at the very least, keep a log of where your information, statistics and contact numbers are stored.

5.  Development of Position Descriptions – What is in vogue and what is out of vogue (Louise Ryan)

Louise Ryan from My Credit Union asked the group for feedback on current practices when developing position descriptions.

Louise highlighted that she was looking to re-evaluate how PD’s were developed/constructed within her own Credit Union and was keen to find out if other Mutuals were developing more sophisticated position descriptor templates for roles.

Feedback and discussion from the group pinpointed the importance of understanding “the purpose” of the Position or Job Description. It was agreed that position descriptions should change as individual roles change over time. The PD should be continually reviewed and updated to reflect the current needs of the positions which then can contribute to pushing the organisation forward to meet its strategic goals.

Discussion progressed to competency based PD’s and their value in recruitment and performance management.

6.  AON Hewitt Presentation by Simon Wolnizer (Bernadette Gates)

Hardcopies were handed out during the session and a copy of the slide presentation was circulated to all participants.

7.  School Based Traineeship Guidance Committee Progress Report & Discussion Around Next Steps – Amy Simpson

Amy reported that the last meeting was held on 26th February 2015 at ISM’s innovation and training facility, Jones Bay Wharf, Pyrmont.

We invited Luke Tabone from MEGT to the meeting to discuss the process of school based traineeships. Included in the discussion were details of an introduction to an organisation called 2 realise, they are a youth charity delivering programs to inspire young people to achieve goals in well-being, education and employment. Contact details were provided by Luke post meeting and distributed to the participants.

The Committee also discussed the training of the trainee, and it was confirmed that the training needed to be at a Certificate III level as Certificate II was not from a Department of Education perspective a part of the school based traineeship program. The course build selected by the Committee was designed around providing life skills and general work skills to the trainee, as well as specific financial industry skills.

The Committee is working on getting a representative from the NSW Department of Education to visit with the group at the next scheduled meeting.

Any organisations that would like to join the Committee are welcome to join and should contact myself or one of the members of the Committee. Currently the Committee attendees are Ross Williamson (ADCU), Vanessa Tomic (G & C), Tracey Jackson and Luisa Pearson (CFCU) and Danielle Albany (Teachers MB).

8.  Forum Discussion – Format of future HR Roundtable Forums

Discussed the merits of scheduling a special one day HR Forum focused on tailored professional development activities and designed to also encourage participation from outside the Sydney area. The main points were:

·  AM Institute did facilitate a similar forum for 3 years – the first two were well attended however numbers fell away for the third, possibly due to cost constraints of attendees.

·  Mindful of other HR Groups/activities in the same space (eg: AHRI, COBA Legal for IR advice, workshops and webinars, AFEI for IR Advice and training, annual COBA/AM Institute Convention) and not wanting to overlap or duplicate - what is already out there that we might be able to leverage off?

·  Need to be aware of available resourcing at AM Institute (as it is undergoing strategic change) and their ability to co-ordinate such an event.

·  Aware of cost restrictions for interstate travelers, budgets are tight for many Mutuals

It was agreed:

·  Not to discard the idea; and to leave the special one day HR Forum on the table for future consideration.

·  Ken to provide copies of the brochures used to promote the previous AM Institute Strategic HR Forums and circulate to the planning committee.

·  To continue the quarterly HR Roundtable Meetings in the current form, to support and encourage attendance by peers.

·  Where possible, to arrange two presenters at each HR Roundtable Meeting that can aid in professional development or deliver relevant HR/IR information to the group.

·  Remainder of agenda would be around general discussion and/or case studies.

·  To publish the Forum Minutes on the AM Institute HR Forum LinkedIn Group site.

·  Be more proactive on the LinkedIn site; continuing the discussion around topics covered in the Roundtable Forums and posting discussion points or blogs that can generate interest and involvement from others who may not be able to attend the HR Roundtable Forums but would derive a benefit from engaging in the discussion.

·  To look at harnessing technology (through AM Institute’s partnership with Telstra or via “Go to Meeting” to enable HR Professionals from outside the Sydney area to join in for part or all of the Discussion Forum

9.  Discussion on current practices in a number of topics nominated by ADCU (Ross Williamson)

·  Short-Term Incentive Schemes

·  Working from Home: policies, arrangements, processes for managing

·  Staff Benefits / Employee Value Proposition: what’s on offer, how they’re promoted, any policies or guidelines in place – any sample collateral to promote staff benefits would be appreciated

·  Uniforms / Corporate Wardrobes: providers currently in use, allocations provided (amount, when, etc), and how mutuals manage the process (including range replacement) – any case studies/lessons learnt with regards to range replacement would be greatly appreciated.

STI – a brief discussion was held where most participants confirmed they do not have a monetary incentive scheme in place at this time (but were either considering such a scheme or would like to consider one in the future). Most participants commented that they have reward programs in place (both monetary and non-monetary) to recognise staff who exceed expectations or demonstrate the organisation’s values. RW provided an example of Big Sky’s incentive program which is a financial bonus of up to 14% of base salary based on the achievement of individual KPIs as measured through the annual performance review process.

Working from Home – a brief discussion was held where most participants confirmed they do not have formal policies in place, TMB being the exception. Both ADCU and MCU provided examples of their experience with WFH (and the potential challenges/pitfalls). All participants confirmed that they handle WFH requests as a flexible working arrangement in line with the Fair Work Act.

Staff Benefits – a brief discussion was held and no organisation suggested they were offering benefits above the ‘industry norm’. TMB spoke about their Education Support program and the challenges faced by having a KPI of x% participation and a stagnant budget that’s not responsive to increasing education costs.

Uniforms – a brief discussion was held and the suggested vendors included Total Image and NNT. Feedback regarding these vendors was mixed. TMB spoke about their rebranding experience and suggested that ordering interim polo shirts is a good way of transitioning from one range to the next without mixing garments or branding.

10.  Managing and evaluating the ROI of sponsorships (Ross Williamson)

Participants were open to this and committed to sharing RW’s request with their Marketing staff (who would then contact RW directly to confirm interest).

11.  Planning for the next Forum

The pre Forum Planning Committee has expanded to five members (Rebekah White, Louise Ryan, Vanessa Tomic, Joanna Vella & Snezana Novakovic).

There was some discussion around preferred areas for the professional development sessions to focus with the consensus being for two out of the following three areas being of greatest interest:-

·  Best practice in workplace diversity relevant to the customer owned banking sector.

·  Leadership in this most challenging of business environments.

·  How to build a culture that can firstly cope with and secondly excel within a constant changing and dynamic business environment.

Ken will consult with the Committee in the run up to the next Forum in July and expects to be in a position to hand over these responsibilities to the new General Manager during June. The next HR Roundtable Discussion Forum has been scheduled for 9:30am to 4:00pm on Monday 20th July at My Credit Union - Units 9 & 10 Homebush Business Village, 11-21 Underwood Road, HomebushNSW 2140. Please note that should numbers exceed the capacity at My Credit Union there will be a change of venue to Teachers Mutual Bank also in Homebush.

Participants are reminded to encourage their peers to join the HR Roundtable Discussion Forum and to actively participate in discussions within the AM Institute HR Forum LinkedIn Group site.