Introduction
First off the bat, we would like to send out a massive congratulations to Adam Terrill and Rebecca Wardle who have recently launched Cogency, a climate focused planning and engagement consultancy. With over 30 years’ experience in Planning in Renewable Energy and Property sectors, we are incredibly excited to see how their journey unfolds given the current demand for specialists such as themselves. To our friends out there in the Development and Consultancy space, I’d recommend checking them out!
The Energy industry is in full swing at the closing of FY22 and we are looking forward to yet another year of unparallel growth across residential, commercial, and utility-scale renewable projects. Most developers are in the early stages of investigating the feasibility of offshore wind while some are already in full swing. We have seen a number of new market entrants moving into Australia from Europe and Asia-Pacific, attempting to transfer their experience from offshore wind in Europe and UK whilst trying to come to grips with Australia’s “best business practices” and navigating key Australian stakeholder relationships.
It's no secret that the demand for skilled employees with relevant experience with Australian Energy Projects, along with all other industries, is at an all-time high. The candidate market has picked up on that and are now pushing for additional incentives.
Tips for Employee Retention
A couple of quick tips we have seen to retain existing employees as well attracting new ones include:
- Most candidates with bonus incentive schemes are usually paid out towards the end of July or August. Either wait this out or offer a one-time sign-on bonus that can be extracted from another cost centre within your business. This also works to keep annual salaries within budget which remains attractive to the candidates.
- If your company actively completes annual remuneration reviews, it is a step in the right direction. Rather than offering a competitive market salary straight off the bat, consider a lower salary with performance/remuneration reviews at 3 months, 6 months and 12 months. Currently, we are seeing a lot of candidates being paid well above their true value. This is a great way of keeping industry salaries from seeing further growth because as we all know, it is not sustainable in the long term.
- Manage the candidates’ expectations. We are seeing a lot of new employees’ fallout within the 3–6-month probationary period. Don’t bother selling the dream with unrealistic expectations if you cannot back it up day to day.
- Ensure your HR Team and/or Line Managers spend plenty of time mapping out the position description. A good position description is between 2-4 pages, depending on the seniority of the position. The more information you have, the better. Consider adding an organisation chart, line operating budget/capital expenditure, past/current/future projects, and a section written by the Line/Hiring Manager to make the Job Description more personable.
- Be sure to structure your interviews and keep communication at an all-time high, especially after the contracts have been signed.
- Move fast to secure talent.
Projections into the future
With the term “recession” looming, it will be interesting to see how Australia will be affected. Projects still need to go ahead but I believe we will see a decline in salaries and contractor rates moving into the New Year. Any company that has paid multiple arms and legs for sub-par candidates may start implementing some form of cost-benefit analysis and further result in potential redundancies to ensure operations remain lean.
The same goes for any projects that are put on hold due to a number of reasons such as grid connection issues with AEMO or a shortage and increase in costs of Battery & Solar raw materials. It will be interesting to see which new start-ups and overseas investors withdraw from the Australian market in the next 12 months due to these issues.
This new financial year, there are two large industry events coming up nationally:
- Energy Next & Australian Clean Energy Summit
(Location: Sydney from 19th & 20th July 2022) – Kicking off this week! - Australia Wind Energy Conference
(Location: Melbourne from 25th & 26th July 2022)
Titan Team Updates
Internally, I would like to give a warm welcome to our newest Titan Energy team member Dean Beuganey who will be supporting our clients with Project Delivery and Controls specialisations. He joins myself, Sophie Nicholls and Brendan Hor in the Brisbane office.
Due to our team mantra being ‘quality over quantity’, we have had to turn down countless recruitment requests to ensure we are not over promising and under delivering to our existing and valued clients. Dean’s strategic entrance allows us to open more of the candidate market whilst remaining strictly within our core specialisations.
If you would like to discuss the information featured or any other opportunities within the Energy/Renewable Energy space, then please reach out to Matt Hopping on (07) 3910 5507 or email requesting a call back.