Greetings from Gayleen

– March 2022

Working From Home, The Other Side and Employment Trend

By Gayleen Toll

I know we are all really sick of talking about it, but Covid 19 is rampant again with the peak not expected until mid-April. Many businesses are affected including ours. Education and health have been hit particularly hard with this wave, mostly as a result of forced isolations. The positive news is that our society is primarily vaccinated and that combined with the strain being weakened over time has resulted in less severe symptoms for most of us, who will inevitably get Covid. I had until Saturday, dodged the Covid bullet.

So, I’m working from home this week, symptoms not too bad. What is bad is, working fulltime from home, I hate it. I know it very popular for some, but I miss the day to day, face to face interaction with real people, Zoom and Teams just are not the same; nowhere near as much fun for bouncing ideas or as productive is my experience.  I miss having a bunch of phone lines; my mobile is running off the hook and I can’t answer all the calls efficiently that come in. My laptop is fine, but I miss my two big screens to do my work effectively between programs, and a little whinge while I’m on a role, my chair sucks. I will get a new chair when I get out.

I realise of course how lucky we have been in regional Queensland throughout this whole pandemic, this is the first time I have been forced to stay home and work from home for more than an odd day. I also really feel for the ‘ones left behind’, the teams left in the office who are running everything with reduced staffing resources. It’s up to them to take all the customer calls, drive the administration, balance time for breaks and meetings, the whole scenario is stressful and adds pressures to everyone. It’s a bit like everyone has gone on leave in the busiest possible time of the year and its left to a few to carry the brunt of the workload. Let’s forget mentoring and training and development, who’s there for that and those there don’t have the time?  I wonder how Victorians did it. I guess if you do it for long enough you can work around most of the issues, but certainly not the key ones, of people and colleague contact and personal/professional development. We are after all; social animals and we learn best by being shown and soaking in all of the random professional banter that occurs in a normal day between colleagues. This includes new fresh ideas and experienced advice, equally as valuable to enhance any workspace.

I hope the budget is positive news for you, I’m saving on petrol at the moment. Unemployment is forecast to fall below 4% in the coming financial year. We are seeing the results of low unemployment already with many clients calling out for staff across broad industries and professions. This won’t be changing, my advice is to be a great employer with a great culture, look after your team by creating a positive environment and if you need to employ staff make your hiring process as seamless as possible, speed up your diligence and make your decisions as quickly as you can or you will lose the candidates.

If you need some help to find either a great new career move or an exceptional new team member, we have an excellent source of both candidates and clients that we have built over our 24 years of operations by developing strong and meaningful relationships. We can help you make the best employment decisions.

RIP Shane, he was responsible for me getting to love cricket.