Last week of Holden: How Holden preparing itself, and its workers, for the future

FRIDAY marks the end of a proud era of automotive history when Holden closes the doors on its Elizabeth factory for the final time. LUKE GRIFFITHS visited the plant to see how it was preparing itself and its workers for the future.

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ADORNING the walls of Holden’s transition centre at the company’s Elizabeth headquarters is the photo of only one footballer.

Surprisingly, it’s not a Crows or Power player. Nor is it anyone from Central District – the SANFL club that the car maker has long supported.

It’s three-time Brisbane Lions premiership captain Michael Voss striking a jubilant pose during the latter moments of his team’s drought-breaking 2001 grand final victory against Essendon.

It’s an unlikely choice, but an understandable one.

Some months ago, Voss spoke to affected workers about how he handled the transition from being one of the most successful modern day players to senior coach to being sacked by the club he spent his entire career at to moving to a new state to take on an assistant’s role at Port Adelaide Football Club.

“Since the closure announcement was made four years ago, we’ve done our absolute best to educate our people as best and as widely as possible,” Holden’s HR director Jamie Getgood explains.

“It’s about opening their eyes and broadening their horizons.”

Voss hasn’t been the only famous face to visit the centre, which will remain open to Holden workers and those in its supply chain for at least 12 months after operations cease at Elizabeth on October 20.

Finance guru Paul Clitheroe gave a session on managing money, with a focus on managing lump sum – redundancy – payments.

Gallery: All the colour from the Holden Dream Cruise parade

But beneath these cameo appearances lays the foundation of what Mr Getgood describes as “world best practice” in managing a workforce no longer needed.

Just metres from the Voss image is a whiteboard full of names and businesses – Anglicare, Treasury Wines, BHP, Aussie Home Loans, Rossi Boots. The list goes on.

Quality team leader at GM Holden, Martin Stejskal, on the final checking line inside the company’s Elizabeth plant.

Around 800 workers have already left since Holden announced in 2013 that it would shut — 71 per cent of those have “successfully transitioned” to other jobs, according to figures provided by the company.

Mr Getgood says the pride people get from adding their name on the whiteboard is a privilege to watch.

“This centre has been designed to do three main things,” he says.

“First, help people understand themselves – they’ve got an awesome skillset they can take into any industry.

“Then understand the environment they’re in and understand the career options they have.

“We know the Playford Council has a 15.5 per cent unemployment rate, we know the suburb of Elizabeth has a 32 per cent unemployment rate.

“If our people don’t understand that, they may think that getting a job is going to be easy.

“Sometimes it’s about looking outside the box. The fantastic thing is they’ve had four years to reinvent themselves – people are using this transition centre to reinvent themselves.

“And then, finally, it’s about being job-ready. What we didn’t want to do, and what most companies do, is make someone redundant, shake their hand and say thank you, and then give them an envelope with a phone number – if they’re lucky – to chase up a template resume.”

Asked to identify the story that stands out most, Mr Getgood – who this week was named as the 2017 manager of the year at the National Australian Leadership Excellence Awards in Sydney – talks about Adris Salih, who spent almost three decades at Holden before taking a redundancy in May 2015.

“He re-skilled to be an aged care worker and within 12 months was promoted to supervisor. Now he’s using his auto skills to help make Anglicare leaner,” he says, while simultaneously looking for his name on the whiteboard.

“He wanted to work with people, did some volunteering, got a placement, got a job and now is making a difference using his transferable skills.”

Thirty-four-year-old team leader Martin Stejskal, who moved to Australia as a child from the then Czechoslovakia, is another to have secured employment. Having spent his entire working life at Holden, he’s lined up a job with IT company DXC Technology.

He’ll finish at Holden on the Friday and start in his new role on the Monday.

GM Holden HR Manager Jamie Getgood.

“I’m so excited. It’s something I’ve always wanted to get into, but that’s not taking anything away from my time at Holden,” he says. “The skills I have learnt here have made me what I am today.”

The head of Flinders University’s Australian Industrial Transformation Institute, Professor John Spoehr, says Holden has managed its exit from South Australia considerably better than Mitsubishi did almost a decade ago.

He told a recent forum Holden had learned “ a lot since the Mitsubishi closure” and the company had “done this a lot better in all sorts of ways”.

Around half of Mitsubishi’s Adelaide workforce of 1700 didn’t get jobs and of those that did, many were in lower paid, casual positions. Just shy of 950 Holden workers – with an average age in the mid-40s – will clock off at Holden for the final time on October 20.

Mr Getgood admits there are tough times ahead for some affected workers – both direct and indirect – but he chooses instead to focus on the positive outcomes already achieved.

“We’re getting calls from all over the world, we’ve got universities, major companies calling us – our transition centre is now seen as world best practice,” he says

“The morale here is as good as it’s ever been. People have smile on their faces. I know that’s often a surprise for people when they walk through the plant – there’s an expectation that people will be down in the dumps, but it’s actually quite the opposite.”