Mick Mag is the CFO of Aurora Expeditions, which specialises in polar tourism. Its ship, the Greg Mortimer, takes up to 140 passengers each voyage, and spends six months of the year at the north and then the south pole. The company is building its workforce both here and abroad.
Mick Mag is the CFO of Aurora Expeditions.Credit:Aurora Expeditions
“We were able to restart operations in January this year after 21 months in lockdown. There are still COVID protocols, but we’re back operating,” Mag says.
Despite the COVID hiatus in its operations, Aurora Expeditions is expanding its operations here and internationally.
“We’re an Australian-owned company and our head office is in Sydney, where we have 40 staff. We also have 15 staff stationed in different locations around the world,” he says.
On-the-ground sales staff are based in Canada, the UK and the US, with plans to start operations in other new markets.
“We will try to find candidates ourselves in these countries through word of mouth or advertising,” says Mag.
“Once we’ve found a great candidate, we engage Globalization Partners to deal directly with the candidate to onboard them onto their payroll and employer of record systems. It means we don’t have to worry about their visa status or background.”
Ferguson says, thanks to the many incentives the federal government has in place, Australia could position itself as a global talent hub.
Times zones, not geography
However, he says, businesses must also play their part.
“There are ways and means by which Australian companies can be forward looking and invest in their own employees to upskill and reskill, as well as tap into younger workers and gig workers,” says Ferguson.
“The corollary is, Australian businesses should also be looking abroad for talent. Remove the border and the construct in your mind that the talent has to be here. When you do that, the way you go about finding talent changes.”
“This is not something that just happens. You have to plan and identify the jobs that must be done here and jobs that quite frankly could be done elsewhere. Then, it becomes more of a time zone issue than a geography issue.”
This is important, given that Australia’s relatively small population means its talent pool is smaller than in other markets.
“Australia’s population is approximately the same size as Taiwan’s,” says Ferguson.
“It’s fantastic when an Australian business is successful in the domestic market. You could stop there and enjoy that. But you could take your goods and services, model and ingenuity and create additional revenue streams in other parts of the world by simply hiring talent somewhere else.
“This is a phenomenal opportunity for any business.”
Ferguson says it’s essential that businesses take the right approach to finding talent internationally.
“Markets that were traditional low-cost labour centres are now innovators and world leaders in the tasks that were once delegated overseas. Employing talent in new jurisdictions is certainly not about low-cost labour arbitrage.”
Overall, Ferguson says it’s a great time to be an employer in Australia.
“Look at this problem as an opportunity. Hiring great talent is all about balance. There’s no magic wand that will solve the problem, but if you plan, there are multiple strategies you can use to differentiate your business. The beauty is, this plays perfectly into the classic Australian narrative of ingenuity.”
