COVID 19 has impacted everyone socially, economically, mentally, and physically. Especially when businesses started to close down, and people are losing their jobs. Things are pretty much different now, especially the unemployability rate. Australia experienced the highest unemployment rate up to 7.5 percent in July 2020, from 7.4 percent in June 2020. This is recorded as the highest jobless rate since November 1988, amid the severe impact of the COVID 19 outbreak happening in Australia. According to Trading Economics Australia, the number of unemployed civilians in Australia increased by 15,700 to 1,009,4000 people, and due to this, people look for part-time jobs grows from 18,400 to 278,800 while those who are looking for full-time work fell by 2,700 to 730,600.
There are many job openings in Australia requiring applicants to have Lean Six Sigma certification, specifically Green and Black Belt. seek.com.au is a job application website in Australia, job applicants can browse through this website and see how many jobs require Lean Six Sigma certification. Some companies may have used different terms such as Process Improvement, Business Improvement, and Continuous Improvement, but they all have the same meaning.
JobKeeper initiatives in Australia
JobKeeper is an initiative by the Australian government to give financial support to businesses that are affected by the COVID 19 outbreak in the country. How does it help businesses and the people of Australia? JobKeeper is a wage subsidy, which means it is paid to the employer to help cover the cost of wages that they have already paid to their employees. Before 28 September 2020, the amount of JobKeeper payment employer can receive is $1,500 per fortnight. However, from 28 September onwards, the amount of JobKeeper payment employer can receive generally based on how many hours the employee worked. This is including paid or unpaid leave and public holidays) following periods: the four weeks (28 days) of pay periods before 1 March 2020, or the four weeks (28 days) of pay periods before 1 July 2020. If the employee works 80 hours or more during the relevant period, the employer will receive a higher tier 1 rate, and if the employee worked less than 80 hours, the employer would receive a lower tier 2 rate.
Budget 2020 for new JobKeeper for young and jobless Australians. Around 450,000 Australian youth aged 16 to 35 will benefit from a new $4 billion wage subsidy scheme. The Government has unveiled a JobMaker Hiring Credit scheme to accelerate growth in employment during the country’s economic recovery. Following the recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics data, the youth unemployment rate is at 14.3 percent, which is 2 percent lower than in July. The Hiring Credit scheme will be available from October 7th and work just like JobKeeper; by giving employers cash for every eligible youth they hire and for an eligible employee, employers will receive for up to 12 months. The amount is as follows:
- $200 per week if they hire a young person aged 16 to 29; or
- $100 per week if they hire a young person aged 30 to 35.
Australian Youth will receive JobSeeker, Youth Allowance or a Parenting Payment at least one of the previous three months at the time of hiring. In order to claim the JobMaker Hiring Credit, employers have to report their employees’ payroll information to the Australian Taxation Office through Single Touch Payroll.
Benefits of Lean Six Sigma
So, do you need to be Lean Six Sigma certified in order to secure a job in the future? Do you know what are the benefits of Lean Six Sigma certification for you? Lean is a method to eliminate waste, whereas Six Sigma focuses more on reducing process variations or problems in a process. Lean Six Sigma is a methodology combined to give the best possible quality of finished goods and services to the customers without increasing the process cost.
The benefit of Lean Six Sigma for an individual is the ability to problem-solving. One of the most critical components in Lean Six Sigma is to solve complex problems, both in the organization and real-life scenarios. The fundamental of Lean Six Sigma is to eliminate waste and to reduce variation that can be the core problems in any business processes. Lean Six Sigma knowledge could help push you through the limits of your capability to solve the issues, detect any defects in processes or products and find better ways to create more value-adding through continuous improvement in processes. With all the knowledge you have, you will adapt to different approaches to solving future problems.
Suppose you are part of the top management; for instance, a leader or a stakeholder with Lean Six Sigma knowledge is critical in your workforce to achieve your organization’s vision and mission. Having Lean Six Sigma knowledge is more than just about tools and methods and the ability to solve problems, manage changes, drive productivity amongst colleagues, and achieve significant cost savings. Being meticulous and observant is a trait that you need as a leader to measure the process capability in business.
Lean Six Sigma is beneficial to an individual, but it does wonders for an organization that applies Lean Six Sigma to its businesses. Lean Six Sigma helps to boost the organization’s profit and to drive productivity by integrating processes. Streamlined processes can be used to eliminate waste and reduce business processes variations by integrating process mapping, value analysis, and time analysis to identify waste and bottleneck to eliminate, combine, and simplify processes. Developing the Lean Six Sigma methodology in services or products helps companies see extensive and increased long-term revenue. Frankly, Lean Six Sigma helps increasing revenue by enabling your organizations to do more with less resources.
Not only that, Lean Six Sigma establishes the effectiveness of employees. Lean Six Sigma develops a sense of ownership and accountability amongst the employees; thus, this helps increase their effectiveness at delivering results for process improvements in an organization. Lean Six Sigma training will equip the employee with enough resources to continuously combating faults and mistakes in the business process. Hence, this will help to decrease organizations’ costs in several ways. Lean Six Sigma helps to eliminate waste that could consume resources and ended up producing no value products.
These are the reasons why Lean Six Sigma knowledge is vital and still relevant until today. As someone who is still looking for jobs during this tough times you may want to consider having a Lean Six Sigma knowledge especially if you are looking for jobs in manufacturing or business improvement industry.
Losing your job is probably something that you never imagine happening in your life. With the uncertainty that we are facing right now due to COVID 19, there is nothing much that we can do now. But one thing for sure, we need to upgrade our skills and knowledge. Digital technology plays vital roles during this pandemic, where every company tries their very best to survive the business by going digital and online. Instructor-led training, online, virtual, and classroom training are the current trends as the country is still in lockdown condition.
Following the trend and to supply the market demands, Lean Sigma Experts Australia provides online/virtual/classroom training to those who would like to expand their knowledge in Lean Six Sigma. We provide various levels of Lean Six Sigma training such as Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt and Master Black Belt. Our consultants and trainers are Lean Six Sigma certified, and they have conducted training for many years to clients from different industries. For your information, Lean Sigma Experts Australia is an Accredited Training Organization, Curriculum Provider and Examination Center by IASCC and by Council for Six Sigma Certification. If you wish to enrol a Lean Six Sigma online/virtual/classroom training in Australia with certified trainers and in complimentary of training materials do check out our website and drop us your enquiry at https://leansigmaexperts.com.au/contact-us/ and if you need more information about us and our trainings.
We are looking forward to having you onboard and do not let this COVID 19 pandemic from stopping you in achieving your dreams and learn about Lean Six Sigma.
