When the attitude and turnover rate of casual staff became a problem, a Victorian winery decided to invest in training.
|
Entrepreneur: Matthew Browne, Director
Company: Scotchmans Hill Group Pty Ltd
Business type: Wine processing and marketing
Founded: 1982
Turnover: $5M - $10M
Head office: Bellarine, Victoria
Contact details: +61 3 5251 3176
The Scotchmans Hill Story
Scotchmans Hill winery started out small in 1982. That was when Melbourne stockbroker David Browne planted eight acres of vines on a mixed farm he had bought in 1976. It is now one of Australia’s largest family owned vineyards and wineries.
By 1992, plantings had increased to 50 acres, but finding and keeping staff had become a problem. David Browne’s son, Matthew, now director, says: “We were getting a lot of turnover of casual staff in the vineyard. We wanted a more consistent base of skilled versus unskilled [workers] so that when we did need casual labor, we had a core group of leading hands whom we could have confidence in. Your average vineyard worker is from a background in which they may not have had opportunities. Many left school early.”
|
Key learning points:
- Job training - Have a well-planned educational advancement program that links learning to financial incentives and job promotion.
- Training outcomes - Promotes greater levels of staff involvement in the business; improves staff expertise, morale, and staff-management relationships; and increases staff commitment to the employer.
- Training financial return - Reduces turnover, lifts whole-company performance, and makes a company eligible for government benefits.
|
|
Browne found a solution in the Australian Traineeship program which offers Federal Government assistance to employers who invest in their staff’s education. Browne says: “We were so excited about the whole concept that we made it a provision for putting someone on permanently that they take up further education. We are now putting people into an environment [in which] they can work and learn at the same time."
"We are seeing people from very diverse backgrounds achieving certificates and diplomas in viticulture-accredited trade qualifications. I think it’s fantastic because we’ve got people ranging from permanents - who have gone on just recently at the first level - to people who are now in the fourth level, which is actually dovetailed into a degree. We have even linked it directly to pay increases so that whenever they pass a level, which can take anything from 6-18 months, they get a $2,500 pay rise.”
Scotchmans Hill now invests $30,000-40,000 a year in staff education with 15-20 people on the traineeship program. Browne says: “I don’t think we would be able to do that if the inherent benefits of traineeships - the workcover and payroll tax benefits for example - weren’t there.”
From the viewpoint of both management and staff the results have more than justified the investment. Browne says: “The first couple of years are a bit of a slog and [staff] think their employer is being a bit hard, but come the third to fourth levels, we are seeing some massive benefits both from our staff-relationship point of view and from the fact that we now have a very large vineyard-monitoring network of skilled and semi-skilled, enthusiastic people who can be our eyes and ears and alert management to potential problems. At the end of the day, that’s dollars and cents.”
Being able to identify oily spot or particular fungal diseases helps staff feel better about themselves because they have a skill - and their increasing knowledge makes them hungry for more. “Generally speaking,” says Browne, “the whole company lifts in those areas because we’ve got a better base of knowledge to work from.”
Does Browne fear that, having been trained, staff might leave? “They don’t leave. And if they are leaving, either you’ve got the wrong person or the environment is not right. I’m not saying our environment is always perfect, but we have a very low turnover of permanent staff.”