Small business decides: Hunting for George’s co-founder on why hiring and training incentives are better than tax cuts

SmartCompany is speaking to small business owners and members of the small business community about the issues that are most important to them in the lead up to the 2016 federal election. 

Lucy Glade-Wright is the co-founder of online retailer Hunting for George. Glade-Wright founded the business with her sister, Jo Harris, back in 2010. Hunting for George is now on track to turn over $1 million and has five employees. 

The business is located in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Richmond, which falls under the electorate held by Adam Bandt from the Greens. 

“Tax cuts, in general, need to be taken with a grain of salt.

Tax cuts come and go. But you’ve always got to focus on your business.

Many people probably don’t go into business knowing much about tax cuts anyway.

As a small and growing business, anything that can help us bring on additional employees is of the greatest benefit.

It all comes down to employment, whether that be incentives to train staff or something else.

We don’t have the resources to train someone up from scratch. That’s the tricky thing.

We often look for skilled employees where we can build on their existing training.

Internships for small business are not always the right fit. But it give us more resources, and we will [take up the opportunity].

Small business needs employees who can hit the ground running.”

For the 2016 federal election, SmartCompany is canvassing small businesses across the country to find out the issues most important to them. If you would like to get involved, email: news@smartcompany.com.au.