Industry Newsletter: Autumn 2024 Edition
LeavePlus
Insights
Your biannual newsletter offering insights into Victoria's construction industry long service leave scheme.
Welcome to our first ever edition of LeavePlus Insights – giving industry stakeholders the inside track on all the news and developments in and around Victoria’s construction industry long service leave scheme.
This year promises to be one of the most significant in the history of our organisation. Along with major redevelopments to our office building at 478 Albert Street in East Melbourne, we are also undertaking a transformation project to future-proof how the business operates, providing us with new ways of working, a much-improved member experience, and ultimately compliance with our scheme for the benefit of all building and construction workers in Victoria.
With these exciting projects kicking into gear, 2024 is already shaping up to be a period of great change and transformation. We have also seen the welcome return of the National AusLeave conference, which has been a timely opportunity to reaffirm cross-scheme collaboration with our respective Australian scheme partners as we build towards a more connected future.
We are excited to share our half-yearly results from the July – December 2023 period, and we can’t wait to bring you even more stories of what’s happening at LeavePlus and how we are continuing to connect with our members in the construction industry.
Craig Bell
Chief Executive Officer – LeavePlus
Explore our story
Who is LeavePlus?
Since 1976, we have been proudly supporting members of the construction industry to take their well-earned break by providing portable long service leave.
Member Services
Highlights Jul-Dec 2023
Around 70,000 of our almost 280,000 worker members are eligible to claim a long service leave benefit from LeavePlus. Between July and December, we typically see two distinct peak periods of activity from our members. These peaks coincide with the start of the new financial year and the run up to the Christmas break and summer holidays, with a high volume of member interactions and applications to claim a long service benefit. Throughout these peak periods, our service to our members continues to be driven by our core value ‘Here For Members’, striving to put members at the centre of everything we do.
11,979 LSL benefits paid
Our busiest periods of the year saw a record number of members apply to claim a long service leave benefit.
35,645 calls taken
The July-December 2023 period saw a high volume of phone calls handled by our member response team, with an average of over 6,000 per month.
9,502 inbound enquiries
In addition to phone calls, we also receive a significant number of inbound emails and ‘contact us’ enquiries from the LeavePlus member portal.
Legal & Compliance
Highlights Jul-Dec 2023
The Legal & Compliance department plays a key role in ensuring that all LeavePlus members comply with the Act and the rules of the Scheme. The department ensures that employers comply with their obligations to register with the scheme, submit return information, and pay long service leave charges to fund the long service leave benefits for their workers.
Between July and December, 45 employers had court dates assigned, 18 of which had their cases heard, with the remaining 27 employers ultimately complying before their assigned court date. In addition to legal proceedings, the department also had great success with recovering contributions, registering employer members, and resolving service investigation cases in the second half of 2023.
$2.2M contributions recovered
Internal recoveries from the Arrears team have been bolstered by enhanced contact and recovery strategies, resulting in increased conversion for non-compliant employers.
1,227 employers registered
The Registrations team launched several new campaigns aimed at employers who have recently entered the industry in order to increase their awareness of their scheme obligations and drive compliance.
2,121 cases resolved
The Service Investigations team resolved a record number of cases where members were missing service from non-compliant employers in their LeavePlus service record.
Finance & Investment
Highlights Jul-Dec 2023
Funding ratio (assets to liabilities) as at 31 December 2023
%
6-month return to the Fund for Jul- Dec 2023
%
Funds under management as at 31 December 2023
$
B
Asset Classes
Portfolio structure comprises 80% growth assets and 20% defensive assets
Equities 4.96%
The best performing asset of the Jul-Dec 2023 period was Equities, with a return of 4.96%
$119M
Paid to members in long service leave benefit claims in the Jul-Dec 2023 period
$136M
Contributed to the Fund in Jul-Dec 2023 by employers and working sub-contractor members
The Board of Directors agreed on a new investment in the Palisade Diversified Infrastructure Fund (PDIF), a pooled investment fund with a focus on Australian unlisted core infrastructure. Core infrastructure assets are the most essential services to society (e.g. airports, utilities, hospitals).
As at December 2023, 36% of PDIF was made up of renewable energy assets (primarily wind and solar farms). Investing in PDIF presented the opportunity for LeavePlus to further diversify its portfolio by gaining exposure to core, income generating, mid-market infrastructure assets, with notable holdings in;
Sunshine Coast
Airport
Stockyard Hill
Wind Farm
Gold Coast Hospital
Car Parks
Business Transformation Project
LeavePlus has embarked upon a transformational project to modernise our services, technology, and ways of working to improve the way we deliver value to our members.
Over the course of the transformation project, we will be collaborating with employer and worker members in the industry to improve how we deliver our services and the experience when interacting with us. The project will be delivered across a series of stages, with the completion of each stage delivering incremental value to our members whilst simultaneously contributing to the completion of the overall transformation.
Foundational Focus
The first project stage takes aim at the foundational improvements such as policy implementation and setting up systems and technology platforms.
Elemental Elevation
The second stage has a more targeted focus on elevating the elements that impact members early in their journey such as joining the scheme in addition to profile and account management.
We are excited to bring you further updates as the transformation progresses through each delivery stage. The project has an anticipated duration of around two to three years to completion.
Our New Member Centre
Ground Floor Redevelopment
Work will commence in April 2024 to completely renovate the ground floor of our office building at 478 Albert Street East Melbourne and create our new member centre. The first stage of construction, which should take around 6 weeks, is to extend the ground floor facade of the building to meet the profile of the floors above, providing a uniform footprint and facade for the whole building. Where previously the ground floor and level 1 tenancies were recessed and exposed to Albert Street, the redeveloped ground floor will incorporate the whole of the previously exposed space, creating a large and open atrium area.
Stage two of the renovations is intended to begin in late May 2024. Over 12 weeks, the ground floor will be transformed into a welcoming and collaborative space, complete with member and lounge lounge and large open meeting areas, and even conference and function room spaces big enough to accommodate education sessions and seminars for our employer and worker members.
Futurespace have been entrusted with design development and have been working with LeavePlus to achieve the objectives of creating compelling experiences in spaces that foster collaboration and community, and ultimately bring people together.
Building Industry Picnic Day 2023
In December 2023 LeavePlus was proud to be a part of the John Cummins Building Industry Picnic Day. Staff from a range of teams and departments represented LeavePlus at sites in Gippsland, Geelong, and at Flemington Showgrounds in Melbourne.
It was our first attendance at a Picnic Day event since rebranding from CoINVEST to LeavePlus, with the team receiving complimentary feedback and helping out with member enquiries on site.
AusLeave National Conference
AusLeave National Conference
The National Conference of Portable Long Service Leave Authorities concluded its two-day event on 2 February 2024, marking the first such face-to-face conference since 2019.
The event, under the banner of AusLeave, was hosted by the Portable Long Service Authority (PLSA) at their brand new head office in the Galkangu Government Building in Bendigo, Victoria. PLSA administers portable long service leave in Victoria for contract cleaning, security, and community services.
The conference was attended by representatives from all nine state and territory-based authorities, including our very own Jenny Acton (Chair of the Board of Directors) and Craig Bell (Chief Executive Officer). The agenda had a specific focus on themes around effective administration and growth of schemes, future Information and Technology systems, and maturing compliance and enforcement approaches.
Authorities at the conference reasserted their commitment to collective efforts, emphasising the need to leverage skills, knowledge, and expertise to support the work of their respective jurisdictions. Chairs and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) reached a consensus to conduct future conference meetings twice a year – one in person and the other online. The Chair position and hosting will be rotated by a different Authority each calendar year.
LeavePlus administers the Victorian construction industry long service leave scheme for around 280,000 active worker members, with more than two-million workers covered by the various stated-based schemes throughout Australia.
LeavePlus acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land where we work and live, and we pay our respects to Elders past and present.
- 478 Albert St, East Melbourne
- 1300 264 683
- info@leaveplus.com.au
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