Poolwerx’s $200m pool king John O’Brien on the hunt for 100 more employees

A Brisbane entrepreneur is on the hunt for more than 100 store managers, retail staff, pool technicians and back office workers for his expanding pool maintenance empire.

We hear John O’Brien over at Poolwerx is also on the recruitment drive in the lead up to summer with more than 100 roles on offer.

The Brisbane-based pool maintenance chain has been on a tear during lockdown as people become more focused on their homes.

The company, which has seen revenue climb 10 per cent above forecast so far this year, needs store managers, retail staff, pool technicians and back office workers.

Home improvements have become a key focus for many Australian families, which has resulted in a massive boom for the home services industry with many choosing to invest in renovations and home comforts throughout the pandemic.

Australians have spent a record billion dollars a month on renovations with the Swimming Pool and Spa Association of Australia (SPASA) reporting the demand for new pools has jumped 30 per cent year on year.

That’s good news for O’Brien, a former soft drink sales executive, who started Poolwerx from a single shop in Jindalee on Australia Day in 1992.

Poolwerx is now a $200m empire.

“Pool construction is now back to 1970s levels with 40,000 a year being built throughout Australia,” says O’Brien, whose mum gave him $20 after he left high school and told him to make his fortune.

“We have never sold so many pool robots and heating systems. The Australian backyard was almost dead but people are cocooning and the backyard has become a focus for the family.”

CEO and founder of Poolwerx, John O’Brien.

VERY FRUITFUL

Queensland fruit king Gavin Scurr is a busy man at the moment.

The boss of Wamuran-based Pinata Farms is overseeing the start of the mango and berry seasons at the family’s various properties throughout the Northern Territory, Queensland and Tasmania as well as coping with shortages of labourers due to border closures.

Founded by Gavin’s father Geoff Scurr in Wamuran, in the 1960s, Pinata Farms is now run by Gavin with his brother and the next generation of the Scurr family.

Scurr tells City Beat that about 70 pickers from Vanuatu have been brought in to help with the mango and pineapple harvest in the north before shifting to berry farms near Stanthorpe. He says finding quarantine facilities for the workers has been a challenge but the farms are better set up than last year when Pinata lost a lot of fruit due to worker shortages.

A long-term solution to labour shortages is on the horizon with the Federal Government soon to introduce a special agricultural visa allowing workers from about eight nations to come to Australia for up to three years. Lack of workers has not been the only challenge for Pinata this year with delays in shipping fertiliser from overseas increasing costs for the company.

Scurr says it has been a good year for strawberries helped by good rainfall in the Stanthorpe area. “We did not have a crop in Stanthorpe at all for a couple of years prior to that due to lack of water,” he tells your diarist.

The mango crop has been affected by patchy flowering due to the absence of a cold snap in the north, but there should be plenty of fruit in the lead up to Christmas.

Pi–ata Farms Managing Director Gavin Scurr on his farm at Wamuran. Photo Lachie Millard

ROBOTS NEED APPLY

Scurr says he eventually sees robots replacing humans as pickers, but it will probably not be for a long time. “Australia is one of the few countries that has a problem sourcing labour for fruit picking so there has not been a push for automation elsewhere,” he says. “It will really take a company like John Deere to invest in developing the machinery.”

He says the delicacy of fruit meant replicating the highly complex moves of a human hand will take time and advancements in artificial intelligence.