Benefits bolster the bottom line
By Julia Talevski. | smh.com.au | 20 October
Joris Luijke and Sarah Nguyen from Human Resources at Atlassian. Photo: Marco Del Grande
Fancy taking a holiday before you start your new job? How about free gourmet food for breakfast, morning tea and lunch, or even spending 20 per cent of your time on your own projects in the office?
It may seem like it's impossible for many people but if you're going for a new role at Atlassian or Google, that's the standard.
On top of this, if you're an Atlassian employee and refer a mate for a position with the company, you could pocket $10,000 as a hiring bonus.
You can get paid for recommending a successful candidate even if you don't work there. Atlassian is a software company looking to recruit 32 software engineers in Sydney, ranging from Java developers to performance engineers.
The company is trying to attract the right talent through offering these types of incentives and has so far received more than 1200 applications.
The head of research talent at Atlassian, Joris Luijke, says the company is investing $4.5 million in new IT jobs in Sydney.
"Software developers are a bunch of extremely difficult people to find, especially in Australia," Luijke says. "It's a challenge to find new and innovative ways to attract a software developer's attention."
As part of the new recruitment campaign, when new employees join the company they are offered a one-week paid holiday before they start.
This idea, Luijke says, comes from his own hiring experience with the company, when co-founder Scott Farquhar told him to take a break before he started.
"When people start a new job, it's important they are fully relaxed and focused," Luijke says.
So far, the campaign has been working well for the company with eight of the 32 available positions filled. According to Luijke, Atlassian has a voluntary staff turnover rate of less than 2 per cent.
"The quality of referrals that people are handing to us are significantly higher than what recruiters have referred to us," Luijke says.
"We have a really solid interview process where we will filter out people that aren't suitable." With some of the available roles, Luijke says it normally takes up to 12 months to find the right person to fill it.
The most effective way for the company to spread its recruitment message is through social media like Twitter, Luijke adds.
Atlassian also stages "open house" sessions, where candidates can meet software developers and the company's founders.
"The open houses are a fantastic way to grab a beer and learn about the business without being interrogated," Luijke says.
At Google, employees get a range of benefits, from free food to massages to something called "20 per cent time", where staff can spend time on projects that aren't a part of the job description.
A spokeswoman for Google, Lucinda Barlow, says a lot of successful Google products have derived from 20 per cent time.
For example, Barlow cites the mapping of the Great Barrier Reef for Google Ocean and the tasks tool in Google Mail, which was developed in Australia.
Another is Google News, which sprung from the September 11 events when a Google employee wanted to find information on the attacks from lots of different news sources.
"It's the freedom to work on interesting projects that can potentially change the world," Barlow says. The director of specialist recruitment consultancy Olivier Group, Robert Olivier, says the holiday incentive is an exciting concept for the employee but it's a high-risk strategy for the company.
"It might attract people that would abuse it or you might attract someone who doesn't fit in anyway," Olivier says. "I do like what they're doing because it's great to see employers demonstrating their difference."
Tips to attract and retain new talent
*Social networking. Sites like Twitter and LinkedIn can be a good resource to help attract new employees. LinkedIn acts like an online resume, features networking capabilities and contains tools like personal recommendations.
*Offering various incentives such as staff discounts, education programs that enhance employee skills and referral programs for introducing new employees into the company.
*Introduce potential candidates to work colleagues and even the head of the company to help them engage a better perspective of the organisation.
First published by Smh.com.au on October 20 2009
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