Recruitment firms are being enlisted not just to find skilled candidates, but to make sure a wider range of people are considered for leadership roles.

Karen Greenbaum knows what it takes to hunt down top talent. For three decades she has been recruiting, advising and managing leaders, in a career that has taken her to the highest echelons of global consulting firm Mercer, top 100 law firm Nixon Peabody and boutique executive search company Pierce Consulting Partners.

But it was recruiting for the head of the Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants (AESC) that was her toughest assignment - this time she was the one in the hot seat. Before taking the top job at the AESC last year, she was not only shoulder tapped by an executive recruitment firm, but also faced a selection panel made up of leading recruiters.

"It was all search, all the time," she says. It's what you'd expect from the trade organisation that represents the firms that help corporate clients find top-flight talent for executive and boardroom roles.

The Chicago-based Greenbaum says there is a common misconception that by employing an executive search specialist you're getting access to someone with a Rolodex of likely candidates at their fingertips. "That is not at all what we do," she says.

It's about assessing talent, understanding the business environment of the organisation, making sure it will be a good fit for the candidate and helping bring that person successfully into the organisation, she says. "We really do search and it's very specific for the client, for the assignment." Signing on top talent will become increasingly competitive this year, says Greenbaum.

The AESC's annual Executive Job Outlook survey, set for release next week, shows 72 per cent of executives around the world are optimistic about job market opportunities. This is a "huge jump" from 51 per cent last year and 36 per cent in 2013, she says. Greenbaum says as growing economies create more opportunities for those at the top, the war for talent will become a reality for many firms.

"People are also looking around the world to fill top positions, not just locally," she says. New Zealand's quality of life is an advantage in this respect, Greenbaum says, making it an attractive market for local executives and those looking for opportunities in another market. Greenbaum is in New Zealand speaking with government officials and organisations working on board diversity.

Please find full NZ Herald article here.

At the following link, you can find the accounting standards and other pronouncements to be applied by Not-For-Profit public benefit entities (NFPs) in New Zealand for preparing general purpose financial reports for periods beginning on or after 1 April 2015. The Accounting Standards and other pronouncements for periods beginning on or before 31 March 2015 are on a different page found here.

Please find full information about the New Standards here.

Sourced from IRD information hub on non-profit organisations.

Find out about your responsibilities for volunteer, paid or contracted staff members. You can also find out about honoraria.

• Honoraria and taxing payments to volunteers
  

Find out about reimbursing volunteers for expenses, including the reimbursement of petrol. You can also find out about tax rates for honoraria payments.

• Becoming an employer
  

You’ll need to register with us as an employer if you employ staff. Find out more about how to decide whether your staff are employees or self-employed contractors.

• Employing staff
  

Find out about what you need to do when staff members start/stop working for you. You can also find out about employing your spouse or foreign workers.

• Your payroll responsibilities to employees or contractors
  

If you’re an employer, you’ll need to deduct PAYE from payments made to employees or contractors. This includes tax on schedular payments from payments made to staff or contractors. Find out how to make deductions for student loan repayments, child support, KiwiSaver, or any benefits, bonuses or other allowances that you pay.

• If you're issuing payroll giving donation receipts
  

Find out about what your payroll giving receipts should look like and how they should be issued.

An Employment Court decision could mean a big pay day for 35,000 New Zealand workers. In Wellington’s Employment Court last week, the Service and Food Workers Union won a case against the Ministry of Health and Capital & Coast District Health Board over the pay of one of its employees.

Jane Lowe was being paid a “subsidy” of $75 for a 24 hour shift – ultimately leaving her with just over $3 pay per hour. The judge’s ruling means that Lowe is now eligible to receive the minimum wage plus holiday pay.

John Ryall, the union’s secretary, said the case is exemplary for 35,000 other home care relief workers who are typically paid in “subsidies”. He added that the court had asked the union to come back in a month to discuss how the change in pay should be implemented.

A case on behalf of the thousands of other workers the change might affect is yet to be filed, but there are plans to do so. Ryall said that the issue of back-pay for Lowe and the other workers will also be addressed. “Home care relief workers allow family carers a short break from looking after disabled or ill relatives by stepping into their role,” he said. “Without these workers the family care system would fall over.”

The back pay could be “quite large”, Ryall said. Judge Bruce Corkill said in the legal documents that the Ministry of Health and health board had argued against claims that Lowe was a home worker – the ERA had previously argued that she was not.

However, Corkill found that although Lowe referred to herself as a “friend” of her clients, “she did not provide these services only as a friend” and was indeed a homeworker. “[Lowe] provided a service to the Ministry and C&CDHB required to be undertaken so that their responsibilities could be met,” the judge ruled.

He said that all parties involved should resolve pay issues directly, but would be able to file for court help if this was unsuccessful. The Ministry of Health’s chief legal advisor Phil Knipe said that the Ministry was considering the judge’s decision and working with legal advisors regarding its next steps. A spokesman for the health board said that it was complying with Ministry of Health guidelines in relation to carer support.

Article sourced directly from: http://www.hrmonline.co.nz/news/courts-decision-could-affect-35000-kiwi-workers-197895.aspx

Speech by Anne Tolley MP

It is a great pleasure to be with you here today as we celebrate an important milestone in progressing the Government’s Children’s Action plan with the launch of two new guidelines for people working with children.

Safer Recruitment, Safer Children will help organisations choose safe people to work with children, and Safer Organisations, Safer Children will help organisations develop child protection policies.

Every child has the right to be free from abuse and neglect. The sad truth is some children don’t feel safe and are subject to abuse and/or neglect, sometimes by the very people are employed and trusted to keep them safe.

These guidelines will help the children’s workforce to keep vulnerable children safe and support all New Zealand children to thrive, achieve and belong.

One of this Government’s top priorities is to reduce child abuse through:

• better screening of children for vulnerability
  
• full assessments of the needs of vulnerable children,
  
• more support for frontline workers and communities
  
• better results for our vulnerable children and their families.
  

New Zealand charity, Daya Trust, brought together more than seventy Wellington business women and men last week to celebrate International Women’s Day, with support from ANZ Bank and Grant Thornton New Zealand.

Daya Trust Founder, Rochelle Stewart-Allen, said “International Women’s Day is a prime opportunity to celebrate how far women have come in New Zealand and overseas, but also to recognise how far women still have to go to overcome the inequalities they continue to face.”

Daya Trust believes that education is an empowerment tool for women and girls because it enables them to make choices and become changemakers in their lives. An education gives girls’ opportunities to improve their job prospects and significantly increases their earnings when they leave school by up to 25%. Access to education for girls’ means economic growth. Investing in girls’ education benefits everyone: their families, their communities, governments, businesses, and entire nations.

Over the last six years Daya Trust has worked in India and New Zealand building young women leaders and supporting its Indian charity partner in empowering women and girls through a sustainable development model for Mumbai slum-communities.

Across the world, International Women’s Day was celebrated at scale. Increasingly at International Women’s Day events, we hear stories of women who are making real changes to their communities at a grass roots level.

These women are true role models that women in Aotearoa can relate to. Real women making a real difference make a more powerful impact, and one such woman is social entrepreneur Ranjna Patel. Ranjna is Chair of the New Zealand Central Indian Association (NZCIA) Women’s Group, amongst many other professional and voluntary roles she holds.

At the Daya Trust event, she spoke about her own personal journey as a woman. She told the audience about the challenges she faced as a young third-generation Kiwi Indian woman who, as part of her culture, was married at eighteen. However Ranjna went on to build one of New Zealand’s largest primary health organisations, East Tamaki Healthcare – Nirvana Group in Auckland.

Ranjna shared statistics on women in leadership positions locally and globally and talked about the key barriers she believes women face worldwide: lack of access to education, violence, and stigmatised cultural norms.

Ranjna believes targeting perpetrators of violence against women plays a key role in solutions to end it. She is currently involved in launching New Zealand’s first early intervention accommodation for South Asian men who have been issued protection orders. This provides a place where professionals can work one-on-one with the men to tackle the core issues. The first house has been officially launched in March with its fundamental goal to prevent future offending and further violence against women.

Sourced directly from: http://dayatrust.com/new-zealand-charity-highlights-role-of-women-for-international-womens-day

The Rural Doctors Association of Victoria has welcomed news the Federal Government has dumped its plans for a $5 GP co-payment. Health Minister Susan Ley yesterday announced that the scheme had been shelved because it did not have broad support from the public and the Parliament.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott declared yesterday the co-payment was "dead, buried and cremated". The association's Dr Sue Harrison said the co-payment could have stopped some people from seeing the doctor. "Many rural patients already pay some co-payments when they see a GP but I guess for those who are the most vulnerable, we'd be concerned that would perhaps put them at risk of not accessing services when they most need them," she said.

Dr Harrison is calling on the Government to make prevention a priority as it seeks to reform the health system. "We know that people in rural sectors suffer worse health outcomes, so looking at prevention to prevent those worse health outcomes and also looking to provide services that help people maintain good health wherever they live in Australia," she said.

A central Victorian doctor who lobbied against the GP co-payment plan has expressed relief that the policy has been dropped. Louisa Hope was among a group of Castlemaine GPs to speak out against it. She said the policy was unpopular with patients.

"I think initially when it came out there was a drop in numbers and I think people were concerned about coming to the doctors," she said. "It's surprising, a lack of understanding and a lot of patients worried they're going to be charged extra for seeing us and other patients have expressed support for the co-payment but probably most people have expressed concern."

Tom Garcia, CEO of the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees and AuSAE Member, spoke on the AM program last week about the repercussions of making the superannuation system more flexible. He warned the Government that changing the system could have an impact of the way super funds invest in the broader community.

Please find full interview transcript below. Please find the full interview recording here.

Naomi Woodley reported this story on Monday, March 9, 2015

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: One month on from the failed motion for a leadership spill, the Prime Minister says the Government is "absolutely and relentlessly" focused on the questions that matter to the community.

The Government is using last week's release of the Intergenerational Report to try to spark debate about future economic settings.

As part of that the Treasurer Joe Hockey says they're prepared to look at ways to make the superannuation system more flexible.

But one major superannuation group says that could impede the Government's plans to encourage more private sector investment in large infrastructure projects.

From Canberra, Naomi Woodley reports.

NAOMI WOODLEY: The Prime Minister Tony Abbott spent the evening at a community forum in Geraldton in Western Australia, promising his Government was focused on the future.

But he still feels the need to refer to one event in the recent past - the failed motion for a leadership spill.

TONY ABBOTT: I want to assure you that that excitement has been absolutely put behind us, and in the few weeks since that excitement we have been absolutely, relentlessly focused on the sorts of things which are front and centre for the people of Australia.

NAOMI WOODLEY: The Treasurer too is promising a major round of consultation or town hall conversations about Australia's future, off the back of last week's Intergenerational Report.

The Government is holding to its promise that it won't make changes to superannuation in this term of Government.

But in recent days Joe Hockey has repeatedly referred to their willingness to have a debate about more flexibility in the super system.

JOE HOCKEY: If a young Australian is going to live to 100, they are going to have many careers. Naturally enough, they are not going to be retiring at 65. So with many careers and a longer time in the workforce, which is their choice, then we may need to look at how we can make superannuation more flexible to cope with the ins and outs from a working life.

NAOMI WOODLEY: And that includes raising the question of whether first homebuyers should be able to use some of their super to buy property.

JOE HOCKEY: We are prepared to look at a diverse range of proposals to help young Australians buy their first home

TOM GARCIA: We certainly need to have a conversation about super, we know we do, but I think talking about opening up for home loans or anything else is not the way to start.

NAOMI WOODLEY: Tom Garcia is the CEO of the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees, representing not for profit funds in the public sector, industry and corporate sectors.

TOM GARCIA: It's a matter of principle; the idea of the superannuation system is to provide someone for an income later in life when they finish working. If you start pulling money out at the beginning you lose all the effect of compounding, what else does it get opened up to? I don't think we should be fiddling with it at all. This is beginning to look like tinkering again.

NAOMI WOODLEY: And he warns the Government that it could have an impact on the way super funds invest in the broader economy.

TOM GARCIA: One of the great things that not for profit funds have been able to do is invest in illiquid assets, infrastructure, property, these types of things. They're the types of investments that pay a greater premium, they earn better returns. It's one of the reasons why not for profit funds have delivered such good returns for so long.

And this is part of what the Government's trying to do anyway with their asset recycling. To be able to then put a tap on it would reduce the ability for funds to invest in these types of things and actually invest back into the economy and back into Australia.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The CEO of the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees, Tom Garcia, ending Naomi Woodley's report.

The Association of Australian Convention Bureaux (AACB) has provided input to the 2015 review of the Export Market Development Grants (EMDG) scheme.

The EMDG scheme is a key Australian Government financial assistance program facilitated through Austrade that supports the export of a wide range of industry sectors and products, including inbound tourism and the export of intellectual property and know-how outside of Australia. The objectives of the review examine the effectiveness of the scheme and options for improved performance and funding scheme administration costs.

“Around the world, international business events are being used as strategic tools for attracting trade, investment and global talent,” said AACB executive director Andrew Hiebl (pictured). “The EMDG scheme recognises the business events industry and helps Australian convention bureaux continue to drive the high yielding and long term benefits accruing in the sector.”

The grant provides financial assistance to approved bodies within the scheme, including many Australian convention bureaux and regional tourism and economic development bodies, to attract business to Australia and encourage export opportunities for Australian businesses.

“International marketing is a fundamental role that convention bureaux play to attract new business events to their destinations,” Hiebl added. “Improvements in grant funding for international marketing activity directly benefits more than 1600 convention bureaux stakeholders across the country and the broader business events industry.”

Article sourced directly from: http://www.cimmagazine.com/cim-magazine-latest-news/aacb-input-to-bolster-business-event-case

Russell Kennedy Lawyers and Pitcher Partners present an inaugural benchmark report for the not-for-profit sector. The report draws together insights from over 100 survey respondents on topics such as governance, strategy, fundraising, risk management and the use of volunteer and professional resources.

The Survey highlights that many not-for-profit (NFP) organisations rely strongly on Government assistance. There is a need for these organisations to develop alternate means of financing and social enterprise. Organisations need to ensure that they can maintain solvency in the event of a change in policy or funding by setting aside monies for existing commitments, and a fund for short term operations, together with managing their cost base to be flexible enough to respond appropriately to changes in funding streams.

It is also necessary for NFPs to consider the management of various tax status benefits to ensure no compliance issues arise. Recent ACNC and ATO activity evidences a willingness to revoke tax benefits of NFP entities when non-compliance occurs, which is a risk that most NFPs cannot afford to expose themselves to.

It has also been identified that there is an opportunity for NFP organisations to move toward more sustainable funding models by adopting commercial funding streams, rather than relying on fundraising as an ancillary source of monies.

Most respondents indicated that there is value to be derived from external regulatory requirements. This supports findings last year that almost 80% of submissions to the Senate Economics Legislation committee inquiry into the possible repeal of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) do not support the government’s plans to repeal the ACNC Act and disband the ACNC. 

To download the full report please click here.

The complete data results can be accessed here.