John Flinn

Hystandard Handling Equipment has recruited five new staff this year, on the back of a strong order book. Sydney's largest independent dealer's January orders have equaled those from January to mid-March in 2015.

Managing director John Flinn tells Forkliftaction News that his company's staff is "without question" its greatest asset.

"Combined with our hard assets, they are the business. They drive the business, they nurture the business and they care for the business and our customers."

He explains that besides recruiting three service staff and two salespeople this year, Hystandard has employed three apprentices, bringing its total number of apprentices being trained to eight.

"We always invest heavily in coaching and training so that we can promote from within. For instance, we have put one employee with no finance experience though accounting courses over the last five years, and she will become our new financial controller when our long-time financial controller retires at the end of June."

The vacancy which arises when the new financial controller leaves her current role will be filled internally. There are plans to recruit another junior whom Flinn says will have the same opportunities. "That level of long-term planning is critical to ensure stability."

On the subject of staff retention, Flinn says it is always an issue in the forklift industry. He believes few companies are willing to do the hard yards today by recruiting young talent to train, "so they are always on the lookout to poach staff from those who do".

To show staff that they are valued, Hystandard has a profit-sharing scheme where all employees get an equal share of a percentage of the year's profits.

"We also have a Christmas bonus, and we work to ensure that everyone knows that they are valued as an employee and that they have job security," Flinn says.

"We have made a point of providing industry-leading job security by never making redundancies in a downturn to try and retain profits. Not many companies have that level of commitment to their staff," he adds.