When Invest Wollongong's Mark Grimson travelled to Sydney on Wednesday and Thursday to promote the city at a major contact centre and shared services conference he took with him a secret weapon.
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Mr Grimson shared the stage with NEC Australia Wollongong general manager Martin Braithwaite who spoke about the benefits of living and working in Wollongong where he enjoys a six minute commute and can start the day taking in its natural beauty.
They presented the findings of a new report about Wollongong being an ideal location for contact centre and shared services offices to a room full of industry leaders.
More than 6000 people already work in the sector and Mr Grimson spoke of how Wollongong is a legitimate, alternative to metro CBD locations for business they spoke of a 70 per cent increase in new A-grade office stock such as the new IMB Bank headquarters in Burrelli St.
They spoke of Wollongong's large talent pool, low staff turnover, strategic location close to Sydney and work life balance.
But it was a video of Mr Braithwaite starting his day kayaking at Wollongong Harbour that sold many at the National Shared Services Outsourcing Week Sydney Conference on the advantages and benefits of locating an office in the city.
Mr Grimson said the new four page report revealed how there is a large pool of highly skilled workers in and around Wollongong which has more than 500,000 working adults living within a one hour commute. The city also has a large multi-lingual population.
It reveals how the ease of commute and short travel times are a major influence on employee engagement at work and intention to stay in a job - with Wollongong's shorter commute times this is one reason employee retention is higher.
And highlighted new research of contact centres in Australia showed employee attrition 50 per cent lower in regional centres like Wollongong.
Mr Grimson said the NSW Government's Jobs Plus Program to support companies wishing to relocate from interstate or overseas would also help with a tiered support package that may include payroll tax relief to eligible businesses.
He said some of those attending the conference were large Australian companies who had previously outsourced work overseas.
"The challenges in the past for promoting Wollongong was we have actually had a lack of office space, particularly A grade stock," he said.
"But now we have seen a substantial uplift in new stock that has actually been built or is coming out of the ground now, about 28,000sqm, and in addition to that another 25,000sqm has been approved. This new report is seeking to support that investment."
Mr Grimson said many of the large companies present at the conference are looking at cost effective regional areas for future expansion and it was a good time to show Wollongong stacks up as a viable option.
"The talent pool at the university was a a big part of the story for NEC choosing to come here," he said.
"And Invest Wollongong has done quite a lot of research with businesses in this sector in Wollongong that shows the staff turnover here in Wollongong is about half the industry average.
Mr Girmson said what Invest Wollongong is doing now is supporting the investment underway in the CBD in more commercial office space. And the quicker that fills the more investment that will drive.
He said more stock and more quantity will result in the city centre being seen nationally as a CBD with office space.
That is not presently the case so part of the Invest Wollongong mission is to change perception to corporate Australia.
Revealing how many cranes there are on the horizon is one way to do that.
As is being able to say 53,000sqm of new office space has actually been built, is presently being built or is in the pipeline.
"This is unprecedented," Mr Grimson said.
"For any city to revitalise itself you have to bring more workers into the city."
Mr Grimson said if Invest Wollongong is able to bring a few thousand additional employees into the heart of the CBD that will bring many other benefits.
He said the new IMB Bank headquarters recently contributed to that.
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