An entrepreneur sees an opportunity and grasps it...
The mining boom is radically changing regional labour markets. In turn,
cashed-up employees are driving a surge in regional property markets.
Everyday we hear more and more stories about how the mining boom is
transforming regional areas. Perhaps we haven't seen anything like it in
Australia since the gold-rush.
Indeed, reports of astronomical salaries suggest that quite a few people
are striking it rich. And yet mining companies are still complaining about
chronic labour shortages.
In the Bowen Basin for example. there are an estimated 1500 open positions.
BHP's joint venture coal mines have 750 vacant jobs in central Queensland
while Rio Tinto has 530 vacancies at its global operations. The Queensland
Resources Council found that there were 4924 current internet job
advertisements for the mining industry in Queensland with 1300 posted in
just one week!
This has sparked a pay war between companies and between states, with
recruiters now offering big incentives to get the right people for the job.
According to recruiters Robert Walters, project managers in mining can
now earn more than $500,000 a year, while a mine deputy can get $200,000.
Labourers are getting $100,000 and dozer drivers are earning
$50 an hour.
"I've seen sign-on bonuses for 50 per cent of a salary," Robert Walters' head of
mining and engineering Adam Harris said.
He said some executives were getting their home loans repaid, others had
their children's school fees covered and huge bonuses were being paid to stay
beyond three or four years.
The surge in cashed-up workers is of course driving a boom in resource properties.
Add to the mix growing frustration locals have with a fly-in, fly-out workforce.
Some complain that these transient workers, many of whom fly home for the
weekend, drain council resources without contributing anything in return.
In fact, Isaac Shire Council, in the heart of the Bowen Basin, has gone so far
as to call for a cap on non-residential workers.
"Our population is only 21,500 and there are 9000 itinerant workers and they
are using all our facilities," Isaac Mayor Cedric Marshal said. "The boom is going at
100 miles an hour. I think we need to take a serious look at it."
If caps are implemented, this will only drive property prices further.
There is gold in them there hills...
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
What is an entrepreneur?
A great description of an entrepreneur by Bill Zeng is
"Great entrepreneurs usually have something in common: great intellect and intuition as well as the capacity for original thought and the ability to inspire. They are the ones that tend to see direction from chaos and uncertainty that others don’t see."
I concur, most definitely an entrepreneur has a fertile mind that finds a way through or around adversity and difficult situations or obstacles leading to a new answer or creative solution.
Its also most important to be aware that an outcome will most probably be something totally unique and unexpected as the thinking that lead to the original problem can't find a solution, only a new way of thinking will provide the solution.
Who was it that said "creativity is the mother of invention"?
"Great entrepreneurs usually have something in common: great intellect and intuition as well as the capacity for original thought and the ability to inspire. They are the ones that tend to see direction from chaos and uncertainty that others don’t see."
I concur, most definitely an entrepreneur has a fertile mind that finds a way through or around adversity and difficult situations or obstacles leading to a new answer or creative solution.
Its also most important to be aware that an outcome will most probably be something totally unique and unexpected as the thinking that lead to the original problem can't find a solution, only a new way of thinking will provide the solution.
Who was it that said "creativity is the mother of invention"?
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Women Board members
Over the past year, 26pc of all non-executive director appointments in Britain's biggest 100 companies were female. In contrast, just 9pc of executive posts went to women, a report by Norman Broadbent found.
In the FTSE 250, those figures are 24pc and 7pc respectively.
Neil Holmes, of the search firm, said: "We are finding that women are appearing on shortlists, but the supply on the executive side is still lower than it should be and this requires companies to invest in long term cultural changes.
"This must be about quality derived from retention and experience, and not about tokenism."
The study also warned FTSE 100 companies will fail to meet Lord Davies' targets for getting more women on boards by 2015, just a year after they were introduced.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
~New Year~
The tide has turned, the time is NOW
a new life awaits, so take a bow
step into a new life
Enjoy!!
Monday, December 26, 2011
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Successful networking
Which types of networking are most successful? A recent survey of 12,000 business people around the world confirmed some of my hunches but produced some surprising results, as well.
As part of research for a book, my co-authors and I asked people what types of organizations they belong to and whether networking played a role in their success. We cross-tabulated the results to determine how effective different types of networking are.
As we had expected, people who get the most results from networking efforts seem to participate in face-to-face casual-contact networks like chambers of commerce, referral networks, and to a lesser extent, professional associations.
We were surprised, however, that only 27 percent of the respondents said online networking has played a role in their success. Networking through women's business organizations and through service clubs fared even worse, with only 17.7 percent and 17.2 percent of respondents, respectively, giving them credit for playing a part in their success.
Even though they didn't do well in this survey, I'm quite an advocate of online networks, women's business organizations and service clubs. I did some thinking about why these groups received such low-success ratings.
I'm inclined to believe women's organizations and service clubs didn't do well because they have other important purposes that take precedence over networking. Women's business groups often provide a place where members both support and educate each other, while service clubs focus primarily on providing service to the community. People, therefore, may not experience as much tangible success in networking efforts in these groups.
Related: An Expert Networker's Five Tips for Getting the Most from LinkedIn
The survey results for online networks made me think of a comment I hear quite often from business owners who want to market their products and services on social and business networking sites: "I've got a profile page and a thousand connections…now what?" Many entrepreneurs spend a lot of time and effort building their online social capital through LinkedIn "connections," Facebook "friends" and "likes," and Twitter "followers," but lack an actual plan for turning the growing number of contacts into customers.
Another issue for online networking: the exponential increase in marketing and social messages and the competition for people's attention. In the course of a typical day, we might be chatting on Google Talk, looking at friends' photos on Facebook, watching a celebrity's Twitter feed, learning about a connection's promotion on LinkedIn, reading a blog for business or pleasure, and doing an Internet search. We are inundated and easily distracted by these entreaties: Read this! Buy this! Try this! Connect with me! Like my business!
I certainly don't think entrepreneurs should stop finding ways to improve their success in the online networking arena. But the results are the results, and -- still a surprise to me -- they're not very good.
As part of research for a book, my co-authors and I asked people what types of organizations they belong to and whether networking played a role in their success. We cross-tabulated the results to determine how effective different types of networking are.
As we had expected, people who get the most results from networking efforts seem to participate in face-to-face casual-contact networks like chambers of commerce, referral networks, and to a lesser extent, professional associations.
We were surprised, however, that only 27 percent of the respondents said online networking has played a role in their success. Networking through women's business organizations and through service clubs fared even worse, with only 17.7 percent and 17.2 percent of respondents, respectively, giving them credit for playing a part in their success.
Even though they didn't do well in this survey, I'm quite an advocate of online networks, women's business organizations and service clubs. I did some thinking about why these groups received such low-success ratings.
I'm inclined to believe women's organizations and service clubs didn't do well because they have other important purposes that take precedence over networking. Women's business groups often provide a place where members both support and educate each other, while service clubs focus primarily on providing service to the community. People, therefore, may not experience as much tangible success in networking efforts in these groups.
Related: An Expert Networker's Five Tips for Getting the Most from LinkedIn
The survey results for online networks made me think of a comment I hear quite often from business owners who want to market their products and services on social and business networking sites: "I've got a profile page and a thousand connections…now what?" Many entrepreneurs spend a lot of time and effort building their online social capital through LinkedIn "connections," Facebook "friends" and "likes," and Twitter "followers," but lack an actual plan for turning the growing number of contacts into customers.
Another issue for online networking: the exponential increase in marketing and social messages and the competition for people's attention. In the course of a typical day, we might be chatting on Google Talk, looking at friends' photos on Facebook, watching a celebrity's Twitter feed, learning about a connection's promotion on LinkedIn, reading a blog for business or pleasure, and doing an Internet search. We are inundated and easily distracted by these entreaties: Read this! Buy this! Try this! Connect with me! Like my business!
I certainly don't think entrepreneurs should stop finding ways to improve their success in the online networking arena. But the results are the results, and -- still a surprise to me -- they're not very good.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Quota system for women on boards in Britain
Lord Davies's dismissal of a quota system to allow more women to sit on top UK boards is a lost opportunity
Lord Davies's report Women on Boards will do little to rectify the dearth of senior women in the UK's top companies. His rejection of imposed quotas in favour of voluntary targets of at least 25 per cent female representation on FTSE-100 boards by 2015 lets companies off the hook. The recommendation that the "comply or explain" principle be enshrined in a revised corporate governance code allows firms to carry on as they have always done, and excuse their lack of progress with a traditional argument about "lack of suitable or available female talent".
Female talent abounds—it's just that it is often not directly under the noses of boards. I've argued here before that the real losers are not the women who don't make it to the board but companies themselves, not to mention their shareholders. Most women consciously step off the corporate career ladder, unwilling to make the sacrifices to the rest of their lives that a senior job in a top company requires. But unbalanced boards have consequences for corporate success, and Davies sets out the business case, with a body of supporting evidence, persuasively in his report.
For example, research shows that companies with more board-level women enjoy a 42 per cent higher return on sales, a 66 per cent higher return on invested capital and a 53 per cent higher return on equity than their rivals. Also, gender-balanced boards are better able to understand their equally gender-balanced customers and stakeholders, as well as bringing different perspectives, ideas and challenges that cut through group-think.
What's more, it makes no sense to have half the available competencies-those embodied in women-sitting outside the door, particularly in a climate where good people are hard to find and keep.
The wonder is that more boards don't understand the business case. Maybe they do, but dominated by men as they are their fear of being overrun by women outweighs their ambition for corporate success. The possibility that Britain's boardrooms are the last bastions of male chauvinism is a depressing thought.
Even more dispiriting is the fact that gender bias is so hardwired in companies-whose structures were designed by and for men-that women themselves are prejudiced against their own sex, albeit unconsciously. The new targets "must not result in helicoptering women into top roles", said Penny de Valk, chief executive of the Institute of Leadership & Management. Men are helicoptered into top jobs all the time, ostensibly as saviours but with mixed results. So why should women be denied the same chance?
Another woman I spoke to said quotas would create "a false environment", but would it really be any more false than the one that sees most (male) non-executive directors nodded into jobs through the old boys' network, without a formal interview?
Most of the 89 per cent of respondents to Davies's review who opposed quotas were women-afraid, it seems, that appointments under the quota system would devalue women's contribution. But isn't this slight possibility infinitely preferable to the current system, which prevents them making much of a contribution at all?
In truth, most of the arguments against quotas hold for targets too, so it's disappointing that Davies didn't bite the bullet. Despite their drawbacks, quotas would seem to be no more imperfect than the system that has prevailed for too long-and they could prove the platform for change that we so clearly need. According to the most recent Female FTSE report from Cranfield School of Management, women still made up only 12.5 per cent of the members of FTSE-100 boards and 7.8 per cent of FTSE-250 boards in 2010.
Four out of 10 Norwegian directors are now female since the introduction of quotas in 2008, and there hasn't been a major corporate collapse there. Other European countries are set to follow suit, and it seems inevitable that unless British companies set and meet the required targets it will be only a matter of time before mandatory quotas are imposed here, too.
But it will be a short-sighted company that attempts to simply paint over the damp wall of organisational structures, processes and cultures that repel, rather than attract, ambitious women, and lots of talented men, too. Real change will come from a combination of the "push" of quotas and the "pull" of more attractive working environments.
So the collective sigh of relief echoing around Britain's boardrooms needs to turn into the panting of exertion as boards wrestle with the rising damp and dry rot which, if left untreated, could bring the whole edifice crumbling around their ears.
Lord Davies's report Women on Boards will do little to rectify the dearth of senior women in the UK's top companies. His rejection of imposed quotas in favour of voluntary targets of at least 25 per cent female representation on FTSE-100 boards by 2015 lets companies off the hook. The recommendation that the "comply or explain" principle be enshrined in a revised corporate governance code allows firms to carry on as they have always done, and excuse their lack of progress with a traditional argument about "lack of suitable or available female talent".
Female talent abounds—it's just that it is often not directly under the noses of boards. I've argued here before that the real losers are not the women who don't make it to the board but companies themselves, not to mention their shareholders. Most women consciously step off the corporate career ladder, unwilling to make the sacrifices to the rest of their lives that a senior job in a top company requires. But unbalanced boards have consequences for corporate success, and Davies sets out the business case, with a body of supporting evidence, persuasively in his report.
For example, research shows that companies with more board-level women enjoy a 42 per cent higher return on sales, a 66 per cent higher return on invested capital and a 53 per cent higher return on equity than their rivals. Also, gender-balanced boards are better able to understand their equally gender-balanced customers and stakeholders, as well as bringing different perspectives, ideas and challenges that cut through group-think.
What's more, it makes no sense to have half the available competencies-those embodied in women-sitting outside the door, particularly in a climate where good people are hard to find and keep.
The wonder is that more boards don't understand the business case. Maybe they do, but dominated by men as they are their fear of being overrun by women outweighs their ambition for corporate success. The possibility that Britain's boardrooms are the last bastions of male chauvinism is a depressing thought.
Even more dispiriting is the fact that gender bias is so hardwired in companies-whose structures were designed by and for men-that women themselves are prejudiced against their own sex, albeit unconsciously. The new targets "must not result in helicoptering women into top roles", said Penny de Valk, chief executive of the Institute of Leadership & Management. Men are helicoptered into top jobs all the time, ostensibly as saviours but with mixed results. So why should women be denied the same chance?
Another woman I spoke to said quotas would create "a false environment", but would it really be any more false than the one that sees most (male) non-executive directors nodded into jobs through the old boys' network, without a formal interview?
Most of the 89 per cent of respondents to Davies's review who opposed quotas were women-afraid, it seems, that appointments under the quota system would devalue women's contribution. But isn't this slight possibility infinitely preferable to the current system, which prevents them making much of a contribution at all?
In truth, most of the arguments against quotas hold for targets too, so it's disappointing that Davies didn't bite the bullet. Despite their drawbacks, quotas would seem to be no more imperfect than the system that has prevailed for too long-and they could prove the platform for change that we so clearly need. According to the most recent Female FTSE report from Cranfield School of Management, women still made up only 12.5 per cent of the members of FTSE-100 boards and 7.8 per cent of FTSE-250 boards in 2010.
Four out of 10 Norwegian directors are now female since the introduction of quotas in 2008, and there hasn't been a major corporate collapse there. Other European countries are set to follow suit, and it seems inevitable that unless British companies set and meet the required targets it will be only a matter of time before mandatory quotas are imposed here, too.
But it will be a short-sighted company that attempts to simply paint over the damp wall of organisational structures, processes and cultures that repel, rather than attract, ambitious women, and lots of talented men, too. Real change will come from a combination of the "push" of quotas and the "pull" of more attractive working environments.
So the collective sigh of relief echoing around Britain's boardrooms needs to turn into the panting of exertion as boards wrestle with the rising damp and dry rot which, if left untreated, could bring the whole edifice crumbling around their ears.
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