Trio joins forces to lure staff
GOLD Coast and Brisbane entrepreneurs have teamed up to solve a key problem plaguing local business: finding qualified and suitable staff.
Carton Cloud’s Vincent Fletcher, Corne Lategan, of BizVideo, and TalentVine’s Justin Falk, say business needs to move beyond using sun, surf, and sand to attract recruits from capital cities such as Sydney and Melbourne.
BizVideo is a video production company, Carton Cloud develops cloud-based transport and logistics software, and Brisbane’s TalentVine markets a transparent and cost-effective hiring platform.
Mr Fletcher said lifestyle was a key way to attract new recruits, but business needed to showcase strong company culture, a lower cost of living, and other aspects of working on the Gold Coast.
“For us, it is a real challenge recruiting software developers. If a position is advertised here you might get 15 applicants, but in Sydney it would be 10 times that many,” he said.
“There are some really good software companies here, but they are relatively small, and that makes it difficult, too.”
Mr Falk said the Gold Coast needed a new approach to attracting workers.
“We need to rebrand the Gold Coast as a place to come because there are amazing companies that exist here or this is a place where you can have a technology company,” he said. “That is opposed to the current approach of saying, ‘come to work on the Gold Coast because you can surf in your lunch break’.”
Mr Falk said the old approach was not capturing the talent the Gold Coast required.
“If you’re a great coder, chances are you don’t want to surf on your lunch break. You’d be looking for advancing your career or buying a property, which is more affordable here.”
Mr Fletcher said the main reason developers wanted to join a company was the work involved, not the area’s lifestyle.
“If they are aware your company does great work, they will be more enticed towards coming here,” he said.
Mr Lategan was commissioned by Mr Fletcher to produce a video on his company, which features footage of a trip to Queenstown.
“Vince came to me with his problem of struggling to find developers,” he said.
“So what we did was create a story of Carton Cloud. The purpose was to show the lifestyle but also the culture of Carton Cloud, the employment opportunities, and what they would be working on.”
Mr Fletcher said the Queenstown trip involved flying over 14 staff, who spent half the day on recreational activities, and the other half focused on software design.
“This was to show the collaborative side of the business. We came back with more than a year’s worth of designs to work on. People came back pumped up and that came through on the video,” he said.
Mr Fletcher said his goal was to collaborate with other businesses, particularly startups and technology enterprises, to make it easier to attract quality staff.
“We are competing for the talent here, but by working together, we can build a much, much bigger pool,” he said.