Page 22 - Australasian Paint & Panel Jan-Feb 2023

Recruitment
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PAINT&PANEL JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2023
IMPORTING TALENT
ASHLEY JARDINE HAS ALMOST UNWITTINGLY FOUND HIMSELF WITH A SECOND CAREER SOURCING TECHNICIANS FROM OVERSEAS FOR AN INDUSTRY THAT IS DESPERATE FOR MORE HANDS ON TOOLS.
J ARDINE IS NO STRANGER TO importing talent from abroad. He used to own two shops in Western Australia where the mining industry has long been a tal- ent drain for collision repairers. Like most collision shop owners who have
sold their businesses taking out the fishing rod full time just didn’t look appealing.
Early in 2022 Jardine was in the Phil- ippines when he spotted that his migra- tion agent was also there and shot him a message suggesting a catch up. “I was down south, so I jumped on a plane and flew up to Manila to meet him for the day and he took me to a facility where you can carry out trading testing. I thought – ac- tually this is what you should be doing – helping the repairers in Australia.”
When the universe gives you signals sometimes it isn’t subtle. “When we came back to Perth I actually had a re- pairer call me asking if I could find him some staff. And I said, oh you’re not go- ing to believe it but...
”So I decided to get some workers for him and within a week I had other repair- ers ringing me because the word got out. In a few months we had placed 53 workers into the industry including some very tal- ented estimators and managers.”
By the end of 2022 Jardine had sourced
In a few months we
had placed 53 workers into the industry including some very talented estimators and managers.”
around 35 technicians for the Car Craft group plus a few others. His next trip was for the Fix Auto network and some other repairers.
As well as an assistant in the Philip- pines Jardine has a headhunter in UAE, to source suitable candidates for pres- tige shops. In addition to the Philippines and the UAE, Sri Lanka and India are also markets where Jardine has sourced a suitable environment to test the skills and observe the attitude of candidates. English skills can be an issue from these markets – the advantage of markets such as the Phillipines and even Ghana
is that because English is taught in schools and if the candidate did the re- quired number of years they are exempt from the Australian English test (which Jardine reckons a fair few native techni- cians might fail).
TIME AND COSTS
Sourcing a technician from overseas doesn’t happen overnight and it isn’t free. However, if you treat those work- ers properly you can have loyal and thankful employees that don’t ask for eye-watering sums native workers are demanding now.
To start off the process you have to have an SBS (a small business sponsor- ship). If the business has several sites and they’re all related entities you only need one SBS for all of those sites. An SBS costs a touch over $2,000, it lasts for five years, and allows you to employ multiple workers.