Strategies to make employment easier

Ben Thompson and Dave Tong launched Employment Hero in 2014 to solve the problem of “poorly managed employment” by offering a scalable cloud platform aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises.

Eight years later, Employment Hero supports over 90,000 SMEs worldwide, allowing them to save 80% of the time they spend on HR administrative duties. 

The company’s accomplishments have led to well-deserved recognition, most recently for winning in six different categories of HRD’s Australia and New Zealand Service Provider Awards 2022.

Alex Hattingh, Employment Hero’s chief people officer gives credit to Thompson for inspiring the organisation’s success. As a former employment lawyer, Thompson has observed the HR compliance needs of SMEs and responded to them by providing relevant software solutions – from attracting and recruiting talent to creating learning and development programs.  

“Employment Hero really aids those people to not just make employment easier, but make it compliant for them,” says Hattingh. “[A] solution such as Employment Hero helps to interpret what you need to pay people. It makes sure you have compliant employment contracts, policies, everything at the tip of your fingers, paperless and on an app or on your laptop for all of your employees – which is fantastic – including scheduling, rostering, payslips, and a lot of other features as well.”

Workplace engagement has always been a focus of Employment Hero, Hattingh adds. Reward and recognition, in the form of shout-outs and value awards, has been another important feature particularly during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

As a remote-first organisation, Employment Hero continues to support businesses in managing their hybrid and remote workplace models. The company has made new features accessible – such as coaching and ensuring asynchronous engagement within teams.

Hattingh expects remote work and social connections to remain a priority for organisations over the next 12 months, as backed by an Employment Hero survey which showed that over 50% of employees would quit their jobs if remote work and flexibility were not available to them. Another issue is the talent scarcity in Australia, which has prompted employers to search for qualified candidates in other places.

She underscores the importance of finding people who are aligned to a company’s purpose and values while having the soft skills and emotional intelligence needed to do the job.

“Hire people [even] if they don’t have that perfect fit,” Hattingh advises. “And also take a look internally, really look at internal mobility. How can you elevate someone and put them into an open role, give them the training they need and the space and the encouragement to grow into that role and then backfill them at the lower end of the role. It’s a very successful solution to the talent shortage we’re seeing.”

Watch the full interview here.