Goodbye CanTeen
Trip Start
Apr 17, 2011
1
47
87
Trip End
May 10, 2012
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Thursday, August 11, 2011
From a professional point of view it was a good foundation to learn and pick up issues in Australia and how they are dealt with. I realised they have additional functions in HR that they overlook which are governed by legislation such as OH&S which is Occupational Heatlh and Saftey and also Workers Compensation aka Workers Comp. In the UK both are usually overlooked especially by HR departments as they are left to deal with another department but it was good for me personally to get an overview on these areas and also work on recruitment as it had been a while since I focused on a recruitment role.
Recruitment in itself was a eye opener as the range of CV's were quite interesting and amusing I have to say. It seems most people want to write their life history with a few CV's for higher roles in the company going back to the 80's and some further back than I've been born...now surely those in a higher profession should know not to bullshit...I don't care if you worked at Coles/Woolworths in 1995, just give me the facts and PLEASE don't put your picture on the CV. It will usually go against you unless you look like Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie!
To prepare this entry I had been collecting a few examples of what I had discoverd
- One CV had somebody where they worked in Subway and called their job a 'Sandwich Artist'
- A guy wanting some information for a job had his email start with 'gdayben@...'
- Guy applying fro recreational camps role says - I would prefer to work with boys to avoid any ‘complications’
- One man had a 10 page resume, 4 page cover letter and included results from a psychometric test as part of his application
I also did remuneration review work and assisted in the performance management system of which I hope not to be doing salary reviews again any time soon. It confirmed I hated doing them before in the UK and its still the case now!
Ok thats the boring bit done now for what I loved there - First thing had to be the move to the new office as a) closer to home b) fantabulous view of Hyde Park anyone in Sydney could have. Although the few weeks up to the move were a different story.
I love how the tradition here is not to buy cakes if its your own bday but the company you work for buy you a cake and you have afternoon teas. In fact here you get morning and afternoon teas which we definitely need back home. For one bday here in my early days at work a gorillagram came in as a surprise and lets just say he was one hell of a surprise!
The main thing however was the people it was so nice to work with people who had a genuine care and dedication in what they were doing and the cause for their hard work. There are some people who were above and beyond their capabilities and I am glad to say I worked with a great team and a very supporting manager and will miss the guys at CanTeen and I could not have asked for a better job in my journey over here in Oz and the leaving party sangria was not bad either however the next morning was a little :)
If interested at all this is their website where you can see what work does actually go on in the
greater field www.canteen.org.au
