Page 115 - Australasian Paint & Panel magazine Nov-Dec 2021

BEST PRACTICE AWARDS
PAINT&PANEL NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2021 WWW.PAINTANDPANEL.COM.A
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BEST TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
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SMART REPAIR AUSTRALIA
IT’S NO COINCIDENCE THAT SMART REPAIR AUSTRALIA HAVE WON BOTH BEST WORKPLACE AND THIS TRAINING AWARD. THEY ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT INVESTING IN THEIR PEOPLE.
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MART REPAIR AUSTRALIA
started out as a hail repair company and have branched out into traditional
repairs and ADAS recalibration. The company has 43 employees includ- ing eight apprentices. It had invested over $65,000 in training the team this year at the time of writing this report, not includ- ing the training for the five ADAS techni- cians.That money has been spread across I-CAR (Gold Status achieved), the Austral- ian institute of management, Swinburne, Inspire Education, IMI, and some work with The Growth Faculty (leadership and team building) and Mind Tools (career de-
velopment) memberships.
Smart also takes full advantage of Ax-
alta’s passport training program. The company has worked hard to create a learning culture and promotes a lot of on- line and virtual classroom courses to staff, recent examples with the Australian Insti- tute of Management were: Effective com- munication; Addressing difficult behav- iours in the workplace; Business networking: Advanced communication. Next up is Time management and Manag- ing work priorities.
Smart also supports managers by of- fering to pay for their personal develop- ment, and so far one studying is their MBA, one completing a cert IV in WHS/ OHS and another doing a degree in ac- counting. The others are still to decide which path they want to go down and some prefer short courses rather than years of university. They are also allowed a certain amount of work time to study and keep up to date with assignments.
I-CAR Gold is just one of the many training initiatives at Smart Repair
Smart runs many Microsoft certified courses to help staff in all areas of Micro- soft Office and in getting the most out of the Microsoft Teams platform they say has been amazing for us as a business.
Managing director Greg Elliott says: “We also believe strongly in development plans for our workshop floor staff that want to advance their careers and run a range of upskilling and "spend a week in my shoes" to give those that want to ad- vance a look and a go at other roles in the business. This works very well for both parties and also encourages a mentor style approach from our management.
“We made a commitment to apprentices and had every employee and contractor sign a pledge agreeing to help support and assist our apprentices in all aspects of their training and personal lives. We have committed to see 20 apprentices qualified by the end of 2024 and have employed eight in the past four months. We pay them 20% above the award rates and with
the help of our great partners we supply them tool kits and PPE relevant to their trade which become theirs on completion of there apprenticeship at no cost.”
The ADAS sites allow staff the opportu- nity to rotate through the recalibration sites for half day visits to work alongside the re- calibration experts and learn about these systems and how their role in the repair af- fects these systems. We also supply them with case studies and short videos of live examples of where a repair plan has gone wrong and this leads to a failed calibration and the risks associated.
A very forward thinking company in terms of staff development and a very wor- thy winner of this award.
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