HROnboard has helped Cardinia Shire Council become the first Australian Council to implement Activity Based Working.
Cardinia Shire Council’s workplace changes have already received the Sir Rupert Hamer Record Management Award, Excellence in eGovernment award, the Innovation Fellowship award, and the Scope communication access accreditation award.
“At Council, we call Activity Based Working a “smarter way of working,” says Lucinda Taylor, Cardinia Shire Council’s HR Advisor. “All staff, including our new starters are encouraged and supported to adopt this work style and behave in a way that supports Council’s aspirations of being more connected and cohesive, mobile, dynamic and engaged as well as strive for operational excellence.”
For HR, the two big priorities were:
Source: Cardinia Shire Tourism
o Improving the onboarding experience for our new employees
o Implement business improvements that would support this way of working and reducing the amount of paper used in the office.
HROnboard, our paperless employee onboarding solution built and developed in Australia, has helped reduce Cardinia Shire Council paper dependence by 70%, and gives new hires the best possible introduction to the organisation.
What instigated the change?
Organisational change has become the norm for Cardinia Shire Council. Having recently moved to a new office, the timing seemed perfect to revamp their people management processes.
The new office in Officer has centralised the indoor staff of Cardinia Shire Council for the first time in 17 years. The Cardinia Team saw the new location as an opportunity to not only move their environment, but also revolutionise the way they work.
Activity Based Working is the new standard in the office. Employees are no longer confined to a single desk for all their work. The new council building contains workplaces designed for different degrees activities.
Workspaces cater for projects that require quiet, intense concentration, to open spaces designed for extensive collaboration. Cardinia Shire Council aimed to create a workspace that suits the changing needs of its employees, acknowledging there are more productive spaces to work than a traditional desk.
Peter Forbes, CEO of HROnboard, said of the initiative taken by Cardinia Shire Council, “It’s great to see local government improving back office efficiencies while providing a modern, welcoming face to the council through the online portal that new hires engage with to accept their job offers.”
The future of Cardinia shire council
“The best thing about HROnboard is the time it saves us,” says Lucinda.
“We have so much going on, so HROnboard enables us to be more efficient, to focus on welcoming our new employees to the organisation and developing capability across the organisation rather than hunting around for paperwork.”
The slew of awards Cardinia Shire Council have won are just the start of the transformation for the organisation.
From here, the Cardinia team are looking for more opportunities to facilitate collaboration through technology. HROnboard is the first technology driven change in the HR department, but it’s unlikely to be the last.
The HR transformation has already seen a noticeable increase in productivity and a reduction in employee turnover.
The CEO of Cardinia Shire Council, Garry McQuillan, sees activity based working as the future of work, and the whole team are committed to the change. The savings generated by the switch to Activity Based Working can now be passed onto residents and ratepayers, and we’re happy to be a part of it!
Most importantly, all of the council’s new hires will get an awesome welcome into the new workplace with HROnboard – congratulations to the Cardinia Shire Council team!
