Extensive experience working overseas and time in the mining industry has given Candice Stanley the tools to pre-empt the current skills shortage and the challenges faced by companies in finding and retaining staff.
Extensive experience working overseas and time in the mining industry has given Candice Stanley the tools to pre-empt the current skills shortage and the challenges faced by companies in finding and retaining staff.
Ms Stanley established Risana Enterprises in 2001 after years of research into demographic and economic trends, both internationally and in Australia.
Identifying a gap in the market, Ms Stanley developed comprehensive support packages for companies wanting to attract skilled workers from overseas, overseas workers wanting to find employment in Australia, and companies wishing to send their employees overseas to develop their off-shore capabilities.
Risana’s personalised transitional support services not only assist incoming workers with visa and logistical relocation requirements, but also in settling and integrating workers from culturally diverse regions, and aiding assimilation.
There are also programs for the host company, providing recruitment support and facilitating ongoing retention and productivity outcomes.
“We deliver customised packages and services to WA business or government who want to bring in personnel to enhance their offer in a highly competitive labour market,” Ms Stanley told WA Business News.
Incoming workers are provided with a brief before arrival, containing up-to-date information on WA and Perth, as well as a host of support services in their local area, including multicultural, health, legal and professional services.
Destination briefing packages are also offered to companies wishing to expand offshore, particularly in culturally diverse locations, providing strategic information, identifying possible security and cultural integration risks and any obligations the company is under to engage the local community.
“Retention starts at pre-engagement. We engage with clients from pre-departure, and the more prepared they are, the more productive they will be,” Ms Stanley said.
But developing and establishing a personal and highly effective business model, particularly in an area which has only just recently come to the fore, can present its own challenges.
Ms Stanley said a major challenge for the business was protecting the intellectual property of the business model and processes.
“Eighteen months ago, protecting our IP became an issue of significance,” Ms Stanley said. “Because we were innovative and unique in the market, we were keen to protect our significant investment.”
On a number of occasions, prospective host organisations were in breach of Risana’s IP, Ms Stanley claimed, allegedly taking information garnered from initial consultations with Risana and independently offering similar programs with similar business processes.
After engaging the services of an IP lawyer, Ms Stanley implemented changes to her business methods.
These included registering all logos and trademarks, overhauling information dissemination pro-cesses and implementing a return policy, whereby companies were allocated a specified time limit as to how long they can be in possession of Risana program materials.
Risana was also diligent in personally visiting prospective companies to present its services, and then returning at a later date to collect materials.
Risana is now more assertive with prospective companies about where its information is or is not to go, and Risana representatives engage directly with decision makers where possible to limit inter-office distribution. Ms Stanley said that, since implementing these new measures, breaches of Risana’s IP by companies and government organisations had fallen.
She is also confident that Risana’s IP protection strategies will prepare the company for its current ‘footprints into China’ initiative, aimed at attracting Chinese students to Australian universities.
