The national ASX-listed salary packaging organisation, which has a value of more than $1 billion, has had a successful track record in South Australia for more than 20 years and continues to grow its service offerings to more Australians.

Adelaide now hosts its largest Australian office outside of Sydney and is the base for several senior leadership roles including Chief Operating Officer, Sarah Haas. The office also hosts the company’s largest call centre, with more than 140 employees supporting customers working in the government and not-for-profit sectors.

Expansion plans include taking an extra floor at the Keswick office and recruiting more high-calibre local talent at a time when other businesses are rationalising floorspace.

“We chose South Australia to host our largest call centre because we know the workforce is highly-educated and highly-engaged, and we can attract great talent to provide an important service to the community,” says Ms Haas.

“At the moment we’re investing heavily in bricks and mortar in South Australia and we’re doubling our floor space to enable us to significantly expand our workforce.”

Smartgroup, which incorporates the salary packaging brands Smartsalary and AccessPay, provides salary packaging and employee benefits services for about 150 employers and 15,000 workers in South Australia.

Nationally, as a trusted partner for Australia’s largest employers across governments, health, not-for-profit and education, Smartgroup supports more than 200,000 public sector workers and more than 160,000 not-for-profit sector workers, enabling them to take home extra money in their pay packet every week.

“What salary packaging means is that for a nurse earning $70,000, for example, by packaging with us they would take home approximately an extra $4000 a year,” Ms Haas says.

“That makes a very large contribution to a year’s groceries for many families, or it could mean new football boots or sports uniforms for their kids.”

“Some of those employees living and working in remote and regional areas can also access additional salary packaging benefits because the Federal Government recognises the need to support and grow the regional workforce and provide extra benefits. It can increase the tax benefits by up to 50 per cent.”

The Smartgroup team prides itself on its customer centred and inclusive culture, with the organisation named by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency as one of only 104 Australian Employers of Choice for Gender Equality in 2022, placing Smartgroup in the top one per cent of the nation’s companies.

“The diversity and gender parity we have reflects the diversity of our clients, ensuring we have a better understanding of their different and unique needs. With a greater understanding of what their individual needs are, we can maximise the value employees receive,” she says.

“Our diverse workforce includes gender-balanced teams, a board that is on course to achieve gender parity this year, and employees from more than 70 cultures. But diversity is more than just having a gender balance, it’s about recognising the skills people bring from different linguistic backgrounds, across a wide range of ages, disabilities and abilities, along with inclusivity.”

“Growth and innovation are very much part of our DNA at Smartgroup. We’re working with the incredibly smart people at Lot Fourteen and exploring ways to develop emerging technologies to make salary packaging even easier to understand and access, including next generation digital interfaces and other advanced systems.”