This week Treasurer Wayne Swan delivered the 2013/14 Federal Budget in Canberra, and as always, here’s our annual post-budget review with Senior Tax Adviser Simon Ellis!
2013/14 Federal Budget: Video blog
Published May 16, 2013 2013-14 Budget , Business Update , Living Away From Home Allowance , NFP Sector , Novated Leases , Super , Tax Review Leave a CommentTo BYOD or not to – that is the question!
Published April 10, 2013 iPads , Packaging Tips , Tablet Computers Leave a CommentTags: BYOD, iPads, IT, Tablets
Scott Plunkett, Smartsalary IT Manager here – posting about the big BYOD debate.
Err, so what does BYOD stand for?
Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) is a policy whereby employees can use their own phones, tablets, laptops and so on to do their job, rather than using company supplied equipment.
Depending on what role you have in the organisation, you’re probably thinking this is either a fantastic idea or pure insanity!
Regardless of where you stand, organisations across Australia have been increasingly asking whether it’s a policy worth implementing – and the debate isn’t letting up any time soon.
At Smartsalary we say a resounding YES – BYOD is the way forward!
The nitty gritty
By year’s end, 1.2 billion new iPhones, iPads, Androids, Windows 8 and BlackBerry devices will be purchased globally (Gartner).
The “No thanks” camp (no BYOD) shivers at the thought of the complications BYOD introduces. Chief amongst them are:
- Data security
- OH&S issues
- Compliance issues
- Device ownership
- Network bandwidth
On the flip side, the “Why didn’t we think of this sooner!” camp can only see the benefits:
- Employees are using devices they’re comfortable with and are therefore highly productive,
- Employees can connect their devices anywhere, anytime
- It enables more flexible work practises and helps employees achieve greater work/life balance,
- It reduces IT expenditure because companies don’t have to buy hardware
Within 6 months of Smartsalary enabling BYOD so that team members could connect their own devices, the take-up rate was unprecedented – we had an average of 1 device for every employee connected daily, with numbers continuing to grow.
For me, the time for debate is finished!
If companies wish to retain their top performing employees, they will only do so by adopting an innovative user-centric approach to what devices people can use to perform at their best. All the arguments against BYOD have clear and simple solutions through either technology or company policies.
Don’t wait any longer – invest in BYOD and reap the rewards.
A Good Return For Smartsalary
Published April 2, 2013 NFP Sector 1 CommentTags: charity, fundraising, Good Return, NFP sector, not for profit, poverty, Staff breakfast
At Smartsalary, we pride ourselves on helping our charity partners whenever possible. A lot of our valued clients work in the not-for-profit sector and we’re only too aware of the great work they do.
One of the ways we assist is by raising awareness – and money – through staff breakfasts. Not only do we help a great cause but also improve staff engagement.
For our March breakfast we partnered with Good Return. They were established by World Education Australia in 2009 with the core belief that no one deserves to live in poverty.
Good Return connects Australian philanthropists with the working poor in the Asia Pacific region, allowing them to make one-to-one microfinance loans. This money is used to start or expand existing businesses.
We share the charity’s ethos that the key to lifting people out of poverty is giving them the tools and education to create lasting financial opportunities for themselves.
Good Return’s representatives gave an enlightening presentation at our staff breakfast, explaining their work and how easy it is for everyone to get involved before running a job swap auction.
As well as educating staff about a good cause and sharing a healthy meal, the breakfast also provided a morning of good company and an opportunity for team building.
The gathering was part of Smartsalary’s month-long partnership with Good Return in support of International Women’s Day.
Their goal for the month is to fully fund the loans of 300 women, which will help more than 1500 people in poor communities. Our customers were also given the opportunity to make pre-tax donations.
I’m pleased to announce that the breakfast raised a total of $2500, including $500 from our generous customers.
To learn more about Good Return click here.
Importance of salary packaging to the NFP sector
Published March 18, 2013 NFP Sector Leave a CommentTags: Non profits, Salary Packaging
Last week, Pro bono Australia released a study on the remuneration and demographic details of the workforce in the Not-For-Profit sector. The Not-For-Profit sector employs 1 in every 15 working Australians – the group comprises experienced, hard working and well-educated workforce, a large percentage of whom are female (see graphic below). Salary packaging plays an important part in these people’s lives by increasing their effective take home pay.
Click on the graphic to go the summary of the study released by Pro bono Australia.
The salary packaging concessions available to the Not-For-Profit sector have come under scrutiny recently, take a look at our customer blog to see why these concessions are so important to the NFP industry.
Smartsalary Client Breakfast . . . Check Out the Short Video!
Published March 8, 2013 Community Update Leave a CommentTags: client breakfast, Dave Adler, Deven Billimoria, Houda Lebbos, Michael Ellies, novated lease, Salary Packaging, Simon Ellis, Smartsalary
Every year, we host a series of client breakfasts across capital cities in Australia. It’s a great opportunity for us to share our story with all of our clients, both longstanding and new ones. We host these breakfasts at the end of the year so it is an opportune time to recap on the year past, shed some light on the year ahead, and thank our valued clients for their continued support.
Our clients span a broad range of industries, so it’s also a good opportunity for them to meet each other and share their own wonderful stories.
We’ve condensed our presentation to a few minutes below . . . hope you enjoy it!
For your reference, our 2012 breakfast presentation stars the following fabulous team members!
- Houda, Lebbos, our Chief HR Officer, speaking about our innovation initiatives
- Simon Ellis, our Senior Tax Advisor, updating us on the rising popularity of novated leasing
- Michael Ellies, our Chief Operating Officer, touching on recent and future service enhancements
- Dave Adler, our Chief Commercial Officer, highlighting our initial foray into social media
Hi, this is Dave Adler (Chief Commercial Officer) borrowing Deven’s blog to share some very good news, which we are certainly very excited about.
We are delighted to welcome St. Vincent’s Health Australia (SVHA) to the Smartsalary family. SVHA employs over 14,000 people, with over 7,000 employees salary packaging.
Through a competitive (and rigorous!) tender process we were selected as the exclusive provider on the basis of our track record for service excellence.
The implementation will be carried out in 2 phases:
- In April 2013, 3000 employees from St Vincent’s Health and Aged Care, St Vincent’s Private Hospital Melbourne and SVHA Group Office will transition over to Smartsalary.
- In December 2014 a further 4000 employees from St Vincent’s Public Hospital Melbourne will transition to Smartsalary.
Once both implementations are complete, SVHA will be one of our top 5 outsourced clients.
Including the SVHA win, Smartsalary now has over a decade of experience in transitioning some of Australia’s most prominent organisations from either in-house arrangements or from some of the largest salary packaging companies in the industry.
*Note: SVHA Public & Private Hospitals Sydney are not part of the scheduled implementations.
Salesforce + Smartsalary = LIKE
Published January 24, 2013 Business Update Leave a CommentTags: Autogenie, Chatter, Commbank, CRM, Google, Proquest, Sales Cloud, Salesforce, Service Cloud, Smartsalary
You may remember I posted a few months ago about how we’re using Salesforce Chatter at Smartsalary as an internal facebook for employees. Working with Proquest, a partner of Salesforce, we implemented Chatter alongside the Sales Cloud CRM and Service Cloud customer service platforms across the business. The Salesforce applications all link together in one system – meaning that every point of contact we have with our clients and employees is logged in one place and we have instant access to real-time information.
Salesforce.com is an innovative, global company, and the leader in cloud computing, and Smartsalary was one of the first companies in Australia to use their technology, alongside industry leaders CommBank and Google. Leveraging the Salesforce technology, we have recently launched Autogenie, an online car buying service available to the retail market. Take a look at this video about how we’ve transformed the business with the cloud and salesforce.com:
