Murray Now

PROGRESSION co-owners Angela Hussey and Jane Harris are local to the Murray region and, together with their team, are passionate about assisting and developing businesses in regional and rural areas of Australia.

PROGRESSION HR & Training established itself in 2008 in order to bring professional Human Resources knowledge and skills to businesses that otherwise would not be able to access quality services. Successful businesses have long recognized that effective people management and strong leadership skills can be more important to increasing business performance than many other strategies, including marketing and financial management.

PROGRESSION has an office in Deniliquin, and a team that is always on the move servicing clients throughout the Murray region. PROGRESSION’s HR and training experts have extensive local, CBD and international experience across a range of business disciplines. “We bring a pragmatic, realistic approach to HR strategy and development, and draw on both business qualifications and experience to deliver quality outcomes to our clients”, explains Angela.

“With all our services, HR or Leadership training, we begin by meeting with the business to discuss individual needs and from there we provide choices and options for how we can assist. A lot of businesses in rural and regional areas have not had these services offered to them before and they are welcoming the opportunity to be able to work with someone face to face.”

Concept Information and Computing Solutions contacted PROGRESSION last year. Jarrod, the owner of a small but growing business employing 10 staff, was facing common employee related problems such as high turnover, employee burnout and low productivity.

“I knew that my people were my business, I just didn’t know how to get to the bottom of the problem or how to fix it” Jarrod said. “Since working with Progression we have been able to build our HR resources, obtain valuable insights into our staff and learn what we can do to support our staff’s growth. We have not experienced staff turnover since July 2009 and our employees are more focused and committed to achieving for the business not just themselves.”

In addition to the HR services that are being used by businesses such as Concept, PROGRESSION also offer a variety of leadership training programs. Intereach is a leading community based organisation in Southern NSW who recently engaged PROGRESSION to assist in the development of their team leaders and executive managers. Kathy Hall, General Manager of Organisational Services, said “As we grow and extend our services, we rely heavily on the capability of our team leaders. Managing people well is a skill set that we wanted to develop within our business. We wanted a program that was specifically designed for our people and our organization. Progression understood our objectives and developed a transformational leadership program based around our core values. The program has resulted in our managers understanding and being able to apply the essential elements of leading and managing their teams.”

Employees are a critical component of any business; Managed well they can help it grow and prosper, neglected or managed poorly, they can undermine its success. The investment in effective HR practices and functions and professional advice is as essential to the success of a business as having the right equipment, materials, products and processes.

The Progression team is all about building leadership capability and HR skills in regional business, as Angela said, “we are helping business to grow and improve their bottom line.” If you need help with your people management processes or developing leadership capability in your business, contact PROGRESSION today on (03) 5881 5427, email Angela Hussey or visit their website www.progressiononline.com.au