SPOTLIGHT ON JACK ORR
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Your name, your club and your position.
Jack Orr, Maroochydore Surf Life Saving Supporters Association, General Manager
2. What is your biggest or has been your biggest challenge with the club and your role?
Without a doubt, my age has been the biggest hurdle so far in the role.
To provide some context, I started working at Maroochy Surf Club when I was 17 and just starting university. To begin with, it was only ever going to be a part-time job whilst I completed my studies (Bachelor of Legal and Justice Studies, now progressing into a Masters of Professional Account). Eight years later, undergraduate-studies completed, and they still can’t get rid of me!
Roughly speaking, 10 months ago I took on the position of General Manager at age 24. The hurdles here were obvious, largely focusing around pre-conceived ideas relating to the ‘appropriate age’ for someone in the role.
These hurdles were however, generally speaking, short-lived. The people you deal with on a regular basis adjust quickly and I suppose the old adage comes into play; ‘results speak for themselves’.
3. What have been some of your achievements or highlights since being at the club?
All in all, it has been a relatively busy 10 months for us here at Maroochy Surf.
One of the largest projects for us was the selection, design, testing and implementation of a new all-encompassing HR system; a process we managed to cram into only 3-months. Converting from the old paper-timesheets, excel rosters, manual payroll and untold numbers of filing cabinets containing personnel information to a fully digital system was ‘challenging’ to put it mildly.
Over the past 10 months we’ve also managed to break a number of in-house records, complete a refurbishment of our Ubet area, convert our dining system away from bistro-style to table-service, make significant layout changes to our gaming room, overhaul our in-house promotions, expand our courtesy bus radius (as well as buy a new bus), fully replace our CCTV, re-introduce guaranteed trading hours, change our dress standards to a more casual standing, re-fit several areas of the Surf Life Saving club-house, select/implement a change in accounting software and provide a higher level of financial security to our employees by facilitating the transition from casual to part-time/full-time engagements for many.
4. Is there a piece of advice or something compelling you have learnt that you can pass on to our readers and up and coming managers.
To be honest, I feel it’s a little too early in my career for me to start handing out advice.
However, I should mention that one of the most impressive things I have noticed regarding our industry during my short time in this position is the level of support offered by industry peers.
If I were to offer any advice to other ‘new managers’, it would be to take the time to attend industry and networking events; the knowledge and support you can gain from your peers in this industry is astounding.
5. Outside of the club and your role there. Do you have any hobbies or passions.. tell us a bit about you?
Outside of work I’m a pretty typical bloke. I love my NRL and the ‘occasional’ Saturday arvo down at the local pub.
