Our ongoing challenge is attracting and retaining key skills to our regional location in Australia and the competing remuneration packages offered from well-resourced companies seeking the same skills. The challenge is more acute for positions in the remote locations within Tasmania and for highly skilled engineering positions across Australia. During the last half of the year the situation eased as a result of the global financial environment - there was a rise in the number of people applying for our vacancies.

The challenge remains over the long-term and we promote greater work/life balance, career opportunity and the value of the employment conditions we can offer our people.

We improved the arrangements for our graduates and apprentices through centralised and coordinated programs. We focus more on professional development and training courses, and include a mentoring program.

Our turnover rate decreased last year, down from 15.8 per cent to 10.6 per cent. Our target is 10 per cent. See the turnover figures in figure 13, figure 14 and table 10. The rate for 2008/09 included 31 employees who transferred to Transend Networks, which purchased the telcommunications group. Excluding these, the result was 7.1 per cent. See the termination figures in figure 15 and table 11.

Employee engagement

The annual employee feedback survey is conducted in May/June and is designed to assess whether we are supporting
our employees in a way that leads to commitment, retention and discretionary effort.

Our employee engagement score, shown in figure 16, rose for the third consecutive year. The score of 64 per cent comes from the rate of a favourable response to all of the eight indicators assessed.

This indicates that our employees are more engaged than 90 per cent of Australian organisations included in our survey provider’s benchmark.

We attribute this rise to the discussions of our business strategy across the organisation. Our CEO spoke personally with all groups across the business and the strategy development process included more employees and broader discussion within teams.

While our overall score improved, the survey found greater variations across the business in the different indicators. To address this, we will examine each business area and address the concerns indicated on a team-by-team basis.

Ken Smith Ken Smith became an apprentice mechanical fitter at the age of 50 thanks to the Generation Technician (GenTech) framework. The framework introduced in 2008 has been developed to provide a career pathway for Hydro Tasmania’s field-based staff. Formerly a mechanical assistant at Liapootah, Ken wanted to learn new skills and take on new responsibilities. “I think it is great that older people like myself with ambitions in life can be always changing and aiming at new goals.”

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