By Cara Waters

AS ANZ Bank announced job cuts in Australia it was hosting open days in Manila to attract workers to take over many of the positions.

The five-day recruitment open house, in addition to more than 70 mid-level banking jobs advertised on its Philippines website, reveals that ANZ is heavily engaged in moving Australian jobs overseas.

The jobs range from analysts and ”collections associates” (debt collectors) to a health and wellbeing consultant.

The advertisement for the open house, which finished yesterday, says collections associates will call ANZ customers in Australia and will need to work Australian business hours.

Candidates for the roles are required to have excellent English, two years of college education and at least a year’s experience in the “business process outsourcing industry” – preferably in collections or finance.

Applicants will “need to understand and adapt to cultural differences to ensure great customer experience is maintained”, according to the advertisement.

ANZ has announced cuts of 1000 jobs to its Australian workforce, 492 roles initially and 508 in the pipeline.

“Obviously there would be a difference between what someone in a back-office role gets paid in Australia and what they would be paid for the same role in Manila,” said ANZ spokesman Stephen Ries.

Mr. Ries defended ANZ’s overseas recruitment drive when it is cutting jobs in Australia.

“We are a regional bank, we have a substantial presence in Asia so it makes sense that we advertise overseas,” he said.

“The majority of the roles cut are being made redundant so they are not being replaced but a small number of roles are going to our regional hubs.

“We have had a hub in Bangalore for over 20 years and we also have one in Manila.”

Mr. Ries said the “small number” of roles going offshore amounted to 100 of the 492 initial job cuts announced.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/anz-recruiting-in-philippines-as-local-jobs-axed-20120218-1tg3l.html#ixzz1mo5n9kGi

By Martin Conboy, President – Australian BPO Association (ABPOA)

Australia will have most of the big engineering infrastructure projects in the global oil and gas industry during the next ten years. This represents up to 75 per cent of all projects, and that is really going to stretch our capacity to attract the volume of people required.

Media reports suggest that there is a shortage of over 20,000 professional engineers, and that number will only grow as a result of the rampant demand from the Australian mining and resources boom.

Engineering companies in the oil and gas, mining, consultancy and infrastructure are the firms that most need to attract and retain skilled workers.

Even the fact that Australia’s universities are producing more mining engineering graduates each year, it is still only half of what the industry needs. First year salaries are $100,000 plus allowances and the employment rate is 100 per cent.

Because of the labour shortage, some mining companies are increasing automation and are having the processes monitored from other locations. It should not be long before some clever outsourcing companies spot this opportunity.

A whole new outsourcing market has sprung up with recruitment companies actively targeting skilled migrants in the UK, Ireland, South Africa and India, and some engineering companies are outsourcing or offshoring project management, design and fabrication projects to New Zealand in order to connect with skilled labour.

In a classic case of BPO 1.0, New Zealand has a good supply of engineering skills and lower labour costs amplified by the strong Australian dollar and flexible work packages. Apart from addressing the work that needs to be done, it also translates into 30 per cent savings on labour.

As a mechanism to fill the recruitment pipeline, savvy recruitment companies are using Philippine-based resume harvesters to target potential recruits efficiently and cost effectively.

Engineering companies moving to this type of back office delivery model and implementing proven, effective processes via progressive forward thinking, recruitment companies can expect business benefits beyond cost reduction. Recruitment-related business process outsourcing could help recruitment performance, lower operating costs, and increase the size of the available pool of talent.

With ultra competitive strategies required to identify talent quickly, using skilled and inexpensive Asian-based resume harvesters is an eloquent solution. This model can also help create competitive advantage for engineering companies by predicting and fulfilling labour force needs and aligning talent plans.

Not only can this reduce recruitment lead times and costs, but it can also ensure a broader reach and consistent service experience regardless of geography, as it provides a process outline for candidate identification and recruitment administration, which can then be used across all geographies.

By Andrew Tsanadis

Paragem Dealer Services has reported growth in the uptake of their risk management, compliance support and practice management systems, with two current clients increasing the services they use.

With 20 small dealers currently using Paragem’s customised practice management system (Model Office), Affinity Wealth Services has engaged the company to improve its back office capabilities, Paragem stated.

Paragem managing director Ian Knox said Model Office provided planning practices with the process improvements which lowered compliance and back office costs.

The growing demand for Paragem’s services reflected planners’ desire to streamline their businesses, while the current climate of legislative reform also made it an ideal time to restructure software, Knox said.

Affinity managing partner Keith Jones said the partnership with Paragem complemented Affinity’s independent and professional advice offering.

“We wanted to make sure our strong advice and investment service offering was supported by reliable operational systems, and it was important that those systems enabled us to focus on the part of the business that is most important, providing advice and managing risk for clients,” Jones said.

Carnbrea & Co Limited have also turned to Paragem to assist with its risk management and compliance needs, particularly in regards to governance and process improvement.

“We’re looking forward to growing our business with the support of Paragem and the experience it brings dealing with complex and compliant advice models,” said Carnbrea chief executive officer Robert Lyon.

Outsourcing part of the compliance programme but linking it to internal requirements has enabled Carnbrea to access independent, high quality support and establish the necessary level of governance it demands, Knox said.

Source: Money Management