Monash University and Blundstone Australia have created the intelligent Blundstone boot a hi-tech boot concept designed to address the specific needs of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals.

Monash’s Design Health Collab and SensiLab partnered with Blundstone Australia to incorporate the latest technology and design techniques to increase personal safety and comfort in demanding healthcare environments. The design has been shortlisted for the prestigious Designers Australia Awards 2022.

Healthcare workers were at the forefront of the project, with the design team regularly conducting workshops with doctors, nurses and other health specialists to ensure the boot addressed challenges specific to the industry, including comfort, durability and hygiene.

Dr Rowan Page, from Monash Health Design Collab, says the technology captures rich information about the day-to-day challenges faced by the wearer and uses machine-learning techniques to provide real-time feedback and task classification.

“We’ve integrated a sensor system that analyses multiple parts of the foot to provide real-time feedback via a smartphone app that detects abnormalities and highlights potential issues,” Dr Page said.

“The shoes classify different tasks undertaken throughout a work shift and can identify different postures, changes in walking gait and the lifting of heavy loads.

“The visualisation of this data can show areas of high pressure on the body across the workday and highlight potential problem areas.”

With further development, the technology could highlight safety concerns, such as injury risk and fatigue, and prevent accidents before they occur.

The team’s research highlighted comfort and hygiene are priorities for healthcare workers when selecting shoes for work. The boot’s upper – the material covering the foot – provides chemical and bacterial resistance to the wearer.

Blundstone Joint-CEO Adam Blake says people rely on Blundstone boots to protect them in all sorts of environments.

“We strive to be an innovator and collaborator that leverages the best science and technology, seeking to partner with leading expertise and knowledge,” he said.

“Partnering with Monash’s Design Health Lab and SensiLab has been a great opportunity for
Blundstone to dive deeply into understanding the needs of workers within the healthcare space”.

Sustainability and ethics are also at the forefront of the design. The concept boot uses synthetic and plant-based materials, a computer-knitted collar that eliminates material waste, an upper that provides chemical and bacterial resistance, and a sole made from a recyclable polyurethane.

learn more about the Intelligent Blundstone Boot.

Around one in four Australians (26 per cent) say COVID has impacted their plans for retirement, according to new data from leading profit-to-member superannuation fund Equip.

More than one in ten (11 per cent) say COVID-19 has stalled their plans for retirement, with those closest to retirement age being the least optimistic their working days are drawing to a close. 15 per cent of Australians aged 55 and over say they’re pushing their plans for retirement back, with almost half of these (46 per cent) by a hefty 4-5 years.

However, the study also found that 15 per cent intend to bring their retirement forward in the wake of the pandemic.

In a poll of more than 2,000 people, Equip found that when looking to the future, close to a third (30 per cent) of Australians said they do not feel they’ll be able to control when and how they begin winding down their working life (for example, going part-time).

With financial insecurity front of mind post-pandemic and against a backdrop of rising inflation, 22 per cent reported a drop in their annual income in the past two years, while a quarter (25 per cent) said they have less disposable income now than they did in 2020. This jumps to one in three (33 per cent) for those aged 55 and over.

“Purse strings have been tightened due to the rising cost of living and the fallout from COVID. It’s not surprising that this pressure is causing some retirement plans to be revised,” said Scott Cameron, CEO of Equip.

The same study also found that many Australians are overestimating the amount they need to accrue to retire. According to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia’s Retirement Standard, to have a ‘comfortable’ retirement, single people will need $545,000 in retirement savings, and couples will need $640,000.

Yet Equip’s study found more than a third (36 per cent) of people estimate that an individual minimum of $750,000 is required for a comfortable retired life.

“Retirement is one of the most important stages in a person’s life. We all have different ambitions for our retirement, but for most of us, it’s a time to enjoy the simple pleasures in life. Quality time with family, travel and pursuing hobbies that full-time work doesn’t usually allow for.

“Many Australians are grossly misjudging how much they need in their reserve to retire, which is likely causing additional – and perhaps unnecessary stress.

“The more you financially plan for your retirement, the better off you’ll be. A financial planner can help you make sure your super is on track to deliver the best retirement possible for you and your family.

 “Small steps now, such as making voluntary contributions into your super if you have disposable income, can have a huge payoff down the line,” said Mr Cameron.

Retirement Case study: Wayne, 64, Strathalbyn (SA)

“My goal was to retire at 63, and thanks to my financial planner, I have”

An auto electrician in the mining industry, Wayne officially retired in March 2022.

“It’s not easy work,” says Wayne. “Some days you’re up at 4am and you don’t get home till after dinner time. As I’ve been getting older, it wasn’t viable for me to keep going. Some people have it in them, but I was ready to take a step back once I hit my early 60s.”

Wayne lives with his partner and has recently bought a plot of land in Strathalbyn, where they’re building a home together to live out their retirement. “What with me retiring, and our two sons moving away from home, we decided we were ready to make a move. We’re in a caravan for the rest of the year while it all comes together, but we’re excited to be building our dream home.”

Wayne officially retired at age 63. “I was retrenched from a role at 58, but that felt too early to consider retirement. I knew I had a few more years in me. 63 felt like the right time for me to call it a day.”

Wayne credits close collaboration and communication between his financial planner at Equip and his personal accountant in his mid-50s for making his retirement a reality.

“Our accountant was able to give our financial planner at Equip a breakdown of all our assets. Once he had visibility on what I owned, and how much was in my super, he created a bespoke retirement plan for me. It depends on what you want to do in your retired years, but for me and my family, we didn’t need a million dollars in the bank. We were able to configure everything we needed to comfortably live on, and set out a date from there.”

“One of the key things he did for me was adjust the risk in my portfolio. As I get older, I want to take less risk with my investments and my financial planner helped adjust the risk in my portfolio. I wouldn’t have known where to begin in making that decision. It’s best to rely on the experts to make that call for you.”

Wayne also credits salary sacrifice contributions he made during his working years for helping him achieve a healthy reserve on retirement. “I only started paying attention to salary sacrifice in my 50s. I immediately saw how much it helped my super balance grow – my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner. I’m trying to get my sons, who are in their 20s, to start making salary sacrifices now.”

Wayne is confident that health permitting, he’ll be able to achieve everything he wants to in his retirement. “My account-based pension will obviously decrease as I begin to tap into it, but the projections for my managed fund look very promising.”

Alongside building their new property, Wayne has travel on his to-do list for retirement. “Me and my family have always been keen travelers. We’ve lived all across Australia throughout the years, and I’d like to go back and visit old memories and friends. I also have a son in Victoria who I’d like to visit more often.”

While he may have hung up his professional boots, Wayne is keen to keep active in his community through volunteering. “We’ve moved to a new part of the state and can’t wait to get stuck into our new neighbourhood. It’s important to me to use this downtime to give back and help others find their way.”

“We have a commitment to equip our members with knowledge and tools today to prepare them for whatever tomorrow brings, whatever stage of life they are at. Equip offers personalised advice tailored to each of our members, to ensure they get the best outcome for their super,” Mr Cameron concluded.

The head of a leading travel management company forecasts that hybrid working arrangements and the need for employers to retain staff – while presenting ongoing challenges for businesses – are leading to the emergence and growth of new business travel trends.

Tom Walley is Global Managing Director of Corporate Traveller, Flight Centre Travel Group’s flagship SME travel provider. He says: “Most of our business customers in financial services, consulting, medical, and tech have hybrid working arrangements in place, yet we’re seeing a significant uptick in business travel this year – the perfect example being international flight bookings increasing by 988 per cent and domestically by 20 per cent between 01 February and 31 May 2022, and this just goes to show that face-to-face communication is still highly valued.

“Before the shift to remote work, business trips would be mostly site visits, conferences, FIFO work, sales meetings or growth-related stakeholder meetings. They would average around 1.1 days for domestic trips and 3.4 days for international trips. Now we’re seeing new travel trends pick up, reflecting the new environment of hybrid work and the embracement of an employee-first culture.”

Corporate Traveller is seeing trends that include working holidays whereby executives work remotely in one or more holiday locations for several weeks or months – even taking their families with them; bleisure, where holidays are tacked onto work trips; and executives travelling more frequently to multiple cities.

Tom says: “At Corporate Traveller, we’re seeing an increase in our employees extending domestic and international work trips to include holidays, including with their family members. Our travel advisors are also organising trips where our business customer covers the cost of just part of the trip, pointing to a bleisure arrangement.

“Another interesting trend is more frequent trips to more cities for some employees, indicating that, while people are maintaining the work-from-home arrangement, they’re meeting with stakeholders in multiple locations more regularly.

Tom says the current environment of talent shortages combined with the successful adaptation of work-from-home arrangements in many industries is driving much of these trends. “I think employers are using travel to retain people, and now it can be combined with work.

“Travel remains a sought-after perk for many Australian workers and the possibility of combining leisure with work will be invaluable to them and improve their work-life balance.”

Tom says there are benefits for businesses with such hybrid working arrangements. “For employers, there’s less risk of that employee taking large chunks of annual leave for an overseas trip. Working holidays enable employees to get their travel fix and remain online and do away with the need for a contractor to replace them while they’re away.

“If an employee is based in a market of interest for the business, a working holiday arrangement can help the business explore new markets more easily or set up supplier arrangements.”

These kinds of trips are also economically viable: employees foot the bill for their trip, while businesses would cover the cost only of the work portion of a bleisure arrangement.

Tom’s observations reflect other travel data. Airbnb, for example, has observed a tripling in bookings of 28 days or more from the US for remote-based work.

“The demand for such offerings is certainly present globally. In the US, workers are planning twice as many bleisure trips this year, with more than half adding three or more days to their leisure trips to include remote working.”

While some experts predict a complete recovery of the global business travel sector by 2024, Tom says that if businesses embrace these new trends as employee incentives, the recovery could occur earlier.

Being based at home is also motivating executives to travel more frequently to different locations to connect with other stakeholders. “Executives have been able to work remotely and travel to different cities when they’re required to be in-office, allowing them to connect with, and learn from, teams beyond their own city office.”

This reflects recent research by Deloitte in the US, in which one in four companies forecasted that working from home will lead to more travel to company headquarters. Office-dominant companies are twice as likely to reach 2019 travel spending levels by end 2023.

The research also found employees who plan to do some work while travelling planned twice as many trips and longer trips. Google is also allowing employees to ‘work from anywhere for up to four weeks a year.

These trends bring economic benefits for the country: frequent travel to different cities will help increase spending across hospitality and accommodation, industries that are still recovering from the impacts of the pandemic.“Hybrid working has largely been successful for employees, with many reporting an increase in productivity. If it brings benefits to the business, I encourage more SMEs to consider embracing new ways of incorporating travel into their employee retention strategies.”

A new study by SAP SE has found 84 percent of SMB in Australia are confident in their growth over the next 12 months despite workforce volatility, including the Great Resignation, having directly impacted the digital transformation plans of 89 percent of SMBs.

These insights have been revealed in new SMB research study released today, Transformational Talent: The impact of the Great Resignation on Digital Transformation in APJ’s SMBs’, which explores the impact of the Great Resignation on Australia’s SMBs and their growth plans.

Optimism abounds as SMBs move from resilience to focus on growth

Having managed significant challenges over the past two years, SMBs in Australia are looking beyond a focus on resilience.

Two-thirds (66%) of Australian SMBs say their organisation is highly or fully resilient in weathering the pandemic’s impact. Not one respondent said they are not resilient at all. That confidence has resulted in a feeling of optimism about their growth prospects.

That mindset can only be a positive thing for Australia, according to Sofiane Ainine, SMB Segment Lead, SAP Australia.

“Our small and medium-sized businesses are a bellwether for the wider economy, as the nation’s biggest employer. I firmly believe that when SMBs thrive, economies grow, and Australia prospers”, said Ainine. “By harnessing this optimism and putting it together with great innovation, a commitment to talent, and a strong partner ecosystem we can chart a course to the next decade of SMB success in Australia.”

The impact of the Great Resignation on SME digital transformation in Australia

Despite this optimism, businesses now face another challenge – the ‘Great Resignation’. Coined in 2021, the phrase refers to a worldwide trend of millions of employees across the world leaving their jobs.

SAP’s research found the Great Resignation is real and impacting SMBs in Australia today. Almost half (48%) of respondents agreed that more employees are resigning now compared to just 12 months ago, while 57 percent of SMBs said they are not finding it easy to cope with the impact of the Great Resignation. This is critical, given 94 percent of SMBs say digital transformation is very important to their organisation’s survival over the next year.

The talent crunch is impacting organisations’ ability to digitally transform their businesses. In fact, lack of skilled talent trails only understanding of available digital solutions as challenges to achieving successful transformation for Australian SMBs, ahead of traditional obstacles like cyber security or lack of budgets.

“This study reveals how the Great Resignation can be seen as an existential threat to many organisations,” said Mr Ainine. “Digital transformation is a fundamental way SMBs not only build resilience but how they create agile, innovative paths to growth. But without the right people, any transformation will struggle. Investment in talent must match investment in innovation to ensure SMBs in Australia both survive – and thrive.”

Investing in talent and training to mitigate the Great Resignation

SMBs in Australia are investing in their workforce to mitigate the effects of the Great Resignation and to bolster their organisations’ ability to deliver digital transformation.

Survey respondents said they were focusing on introducing flexible working arrangements (45%) and improving financial incentives (39%) to boost talent retention over the next 12 months. Yet, beyond those strategies, SMBs are also focusing on training. Over a third (36%) of SMEs said they would provide upskilling opportunities to retain key talent in the next 12 months.

The focus on training can’t come too soon. Over half (55%) of SMBs say upskilling to support digital transformation is urgent, leading to 82 percent of Australian SMBs who will focus on digital training throughout this year.

“The Great Resignation has often been misconstrued as employees leaving to pursue their purpose. That’s not the whole story,” said Mr Ainine. “Talent requires the right remuneration, flexibility, and a clearly communicated progression journey. Prioritising upskilling and career progression, and supporting it with access to the right technology and partners is proven to be a win-win for employees and for SMBs here in Australia.”

The full report of Transformational Talent study is available for download here.

About the SAP Transformational Talent study

SAP commissioned Dynata Research, an independent research services provider, to script and host an online quantitative survey of respondents in December 2021 to January 2022.

The research is based on a representative sample of small and medium business owners and decision-makers across the Asia Pacific and Japan. For the purposes of the research, we defined an SME as an organisation with between 11 and 250 employees based on OECD principles. The sample comprised 1,363 respondents across eight key countries – please see the full respondent breakdown by country below. Respondents were qualified to ensure they acted as either the key decision-maker or influencer in strategic organisational decisions and technology implementations. Countries included in the survey were Australia (n=105), New Zealand (n=101), Singapore (n=100), Thailand (n=207), Indonesia (n=210), Japan (n=207), India (n=212), and South Korea (n=221).

There’s no denying that ‘digital transformation’ has become somewhat of a buzzword over recent years, with COVID-19 accelerating the digitisation of business processes across the world to enable remote operations.

As we settle into the ‘new normal’, SMEs aren’t simply picking up the pieces and going back to “business as usual” – they’re going back to a different workplace.

However, many organisations are finding that the quick-fix digital transformation approach taken by some in recent years has left them with processes and systems that are not efficient and effective enough to deliver results in the long term.

Now is the time for SME leaders to consider how new technology solutions can be better integrated across their business and take proactive steps to get digitisation right.

Curse of the quick fix

In recent years SMEs needed to make rapid-fire decisions to keep their businesses afloat. Almost overnight, remote operations became critical to business survival, with new digital solutions rolled out in timescales previously thought impossible.

Although these technologies have undoubtedly delivered a range of business benefits, many SMEs opted for ‘off-the-shelf, quick-fix’ solutions that lack longevity and integration with the fundamental needs of individual businesses.

In fact, Iron Mountain research found that 57% of IT professionals believe their businesses will revert back to less-efficient, analogue means of accessing data post-pandemic.

In order to fast-track more-efficient best-practice digital workplace transformation, leaders must recognise that reverting to outdated methodologies, systems and processes is not an option. Instead, technology should be leveraged to remove roadblocks. By assessing what worked well and creating space for new processes, organisations will be better able to adapt, modernise, build resilience and thrive.

Doesn’t mean digitalise everything

With 73% of employees expecting some form of flexibility in the future of work, it’s neither desirable nor practical to consider a return to paper-based files, analogue processes and physical data access.

Ensuring data accessibility is a key component of digitisation efforts, helping to create ease for people working from home and streamline business processes.

Not only do paper documents in filing cabinets take up valuable space, but they are also difficult to share with team members working remotely. Often little is understood about the information stored and finding out can be both time-consuming and expensive.

However, adopting a ‘digitise everything’ paperless strategy is not always the right approach. Many business-critical documents still arrive in paper form that requires physical signatures, particularly for highly regulated industries such as healthcare, finance or legal. Beyond that, it can often be the case that employees prefer to work with hard-copy documents that are more effective for group presentations, notetaking and overall readability.

SMEs must lead with a tailored approach that best suits their business needs – the question is, where to start?

Getting transformation on track

Digitisation can be complex, and every organisation will have a different transformation journey. As SMEs look from response to long-term resilience recovery, six key steps can be taken into consideration to get digitisation right:

1. Set goals – Identify the reasoning behind why you want to digitise, and get all relevant stakeholders, partners and vendors on board before proceeding.
2. Don’t save everything – Conduct an in-depth audit to understand what data your organisation has on hand, and decide what needs saving and what doesn’t. There’s no use in wasting time and money digitising documents you’ll never need again.
3. Outline procedures – Clearly set out digitisation processes from the onset. For example, what happens to paperwork after it is digitised? How long can items be stored digitally? What is a safe process for disposing of physical and digital assets?
4. Plan for security needs – A cybersecurity blueprint must be developed concurrently with your business’s digital plan, to protect online data from hackers. For safeguarding extremely sensitive physical data, an off-site storage option can be valuable in ensuring an air gap security measure.
5. Know the law – With increasing regulation being introduced to protect consumer privacy, the days of being lax with data are over. Keeping information unsecured isn’t just a poor security choice, you’re also exposing your business to hefty penalties.
6. Implement training – Ensure employees are trained, tasks are delegated, and allow time for staff to get comfortable with new systems. This includes promoting an understanding of how digital solutions can help them do their jobs, not hinder them.

Although digitisation may have accelerated due to an unprecedented global event, it has forced us all to see the digital workplace in a new light, providing a roadmap for data to travel. As barriers to transformation come down, it is vital that SMEs lock in a robust digitisation plan that safeguards long-term recovery. With the right approach to the digitisation journey, leaders will find a post-COVID world that isn’t just normal, but better.

by Garry Valenzisi, Vice President and General Manager ANZ at Iron Mountain