Diversity initiatives to meet the challenges of global skills shortages reflect smart business, panellists at an Ai Group webinar said last week.
Removing the obstacles and biases that sideline many workers is no longer just a social justice endeavour, it’s a business necessity, they added.
“It's clear the world over that businesses are still hurting from major labour and skill shortages,” said webinar host Megan Lilly, Executive Director of the Ai Group Centre for Education and Training.
“Solutions are not easy. The availability of more skilled migrants can assist in the short term while short courses or micro credentials can reskill and upskill existing employees quickly.
“However, many skilled occupations that require education and training require a long lead time to develop those skills, and even if the numbers into those courses are promising, it will take a long time to boost that pipeline and get the benefit over the years ahead.
“So, other strategies need to be deployed and rolled out to successfully meet the challenges of tackling these skills shortages.”
Inspiring students, especially girls, to become interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects in primary school rather than high school is critical.
“Many challenges relating to skills shortages are linked to STEM, so we need to ‘get to’ young people a lot sooner,” panellist Nick Arcaro, Head of Diversity, Laing O’Rourke, said.
Andy Stirling, Organisational Development Business Partner, BlueScope Steel, agrees.
“STEM career opportunities are growing at a rapid pace, not only in Australia, but globally. However, the pipeline of participants in that field isn't keeping up, so getting to schools at an earlier stage, particularly for females, is key.”
“When Laing O’Rourke looked at skills shortages in roles such as engineers and technical leads, we wanted to ensure we weren't limiting the view to the here and now,” Mr Arcaro said.
“That would limit the potential to miss what the shortages are or what they could be in the future. About four years ago, we focused our business on two spaces to drive diversity: equity and inclusion, with a focus on gender diversity and Indigenous affairs.
“Taking the lens of gender diversity, we projected what we could see currently to the future and also the growth and space in which we wanted to be as an innovative play within the construction sector.
“Not only did that highlight a number of skills shortages, it also showed we weren’t as diverse in our thinking as we could be. This led to opportunities for us to look elsewhere.”
As part of its bid to boost diversity and inclusion, Laing O’Rourke has looked at its work patterns.
“If we keep the ways of working that have existed for the past 30 or 40 years, we're limiting opportunities for people,” Mr Arcaro said.
“The traditional hours in construction — shifts of between 10 and 13 hours, six days a week with a 24-hour turnaround on some operations — are not sustainable.
“They are also not sustainable from a mental health and wellbeing perspective.”
“The biggest opportunities within BlueScope exist in our entry-level roles such as operations technicians, crane drivers and forklift drivers,” Mr Stirling said.
“In terms of the recruitment process, we traditionally looked for people with steel industry experience or who had qualifications such as high-risk work licences or forklift tickets.
“But, when we critically reviewed what we needed from those roles, we realised much of the safety training could be acquired in the onboarding process.
“So, removing that unconscious bias barrier was a big shift for us. We changed our focus from recruiting for experience to looking at attitude and willingness to learn.”
It prompted BlueScope to look at its job ads.
“Instead of advertising for an operator or operations technician, we changed the role to ‘team member’,” Mr Stirling said.
“We removed gendered language and looked at different ways of sourcing candidates, such as placing ads for team members in non-traditional places where females might be looking, rather than the usual channels such as advertising in manufacturing.”
Removing such barriers helped BlueScope tap into different parts of the community and provide greater opportunities.
“Just by tweaking an ad, we managed to remove barriers that might deter some people from applying to work with us — without losing our focus on safety,” Mr Stirling said.
BlueScope also engaged external help to provide unconscious bias training with its managers to improve processes.
Businesses need to identify how to forge links with diverse groups and understand what works when engaging with different communities for job opportunities, Ms Lilly said.
The Digital Jobs program in Victoria is having much success in achieving this.
The program aims to help Victorian businesses of all sizes gain better access to tech talent while helping participants – mostly mid-career workers — transition into jobs in the digital economy.
Participants complete 12 weeks of industry-backed training in an area of high-demand digital skills such as:
They also receive career coaching and technical mentoring while the Victorian Government provides a $5000 wage subsidy for host businesses.
“We've had a fantastic response from industry,” said fellow panellist Elise Coughlin, Director, Talent Initiatives, Industry and Innovation, Victorian Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions.
“We've had 800 businesses — from large companies to SMEs — register as hosts. A lot of start-ups have also come through the program, and they're using it as one of their main sources of talent, given the mid-career participants not only have new digital skills, but they've also got transferable skills from their past experiences.”
The Digital Jobs program has attracted interest from a diverse range of Victorians — older workers, women, migrants, neurodiverse Victorians and unemployed people.
More than 26,000 people have applied over the past 18 months while 3300 people have completed the program and 750 are currently in training.
It’s a pipeline employers are clamouring for, given just 30 per cent of tech jobs are filled by women.
“We've worked with a wide range of companies, and diversity in the tech workforce is a major issue for many,” Ms Coughlin said.
“They’re really looking to expand the pool of talent they can access on that front, which is how our program can help — 58 per cent of participants are women and the same proportion speak English as a Second Language.
“Many migrants are incredibly capable people who have had careers in other countries. They are talented and skilled but find it difficult to get a first foot in the door in the Australian workforce.”
One such talented migrant is Bassem Kaawache, who told the webinar how he was a Palestinian refugee living in Lebanon when he landed a job with Ai Group as a tender/business analyst with the support of Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB), an NGO that connects skilled refugees with global employers in Australia, the US and Canada.
In collaboration with TBB, the Australian Government launched the Skilled Refugee Labour Agreement Pilot program in 2021.
The pilot removes many of the barriers that refugees and other forcibly displaced people face when trying to access employer-sponsored skilled migration pathways.
It also makes it easier for employers in Australia to hire from this often-overlooked talent pool of skilled professionals and tradespeople who have been displaced from their homes and are living in Lebanon, Jordan and other refugee- hosting countries.
It's important to provide ‘wraparound support’ when targeting diversity in recruitment processes, Ms Coughlin said.
“We’ve been overwhelmed by the number of people interested in the Digital Jobs program,” she added.
“Applicants are attracted to the program's wraparound support: it's not just training, coaching or technical mentoring, it’s also an opportunity for work placements and learning with businesses.”
Mr Stirling added: “Make sure you're thoughtful in terms of how you can incorporate inclusion into whatever initiative you're looking at. Think about how you can support your teams and leaders to make sure they are being as inclusive as possible, so employees can bring their ‘whole selves’ along.”
Laing O’Rourke, which has hubs in Australia, the UK and the United Arab Emirates, is seeing the benefits of ambitious targets to address diversity and inclusion.
“Collectively, we've said that by 2033 (2030 in Australia), we want to have gender parity — 50:50 between males and females,” Mr Arcaro said.
“We have a range of activities to identify the lack of diversity and inclusion across different cohorts of people within our organisations and what’s more, we’re already seeing the benefits as younger generations come through.
“This past year, we had our largest cohort of graduates and interns apply for our programs because they were aware of what we were doing. They saw the representation. They could see what was happening, they were feeling it.
“Don't underestimate the positive power of having the right representation and doing it in the right way.
“It can’t just be about stats and data and filling a quota. Younger generations are smart and can see through it if you're not authentic.
“Authenticity is key”.
BlueScope recently launched a First Nations framework which involves engaging with the community to improve the outcomes of Indigenous employees.
“In our most recent bulk recruitment campaign, we partnered with a local elder to look at our employment strategies to determine how we are perceived in the community, what our recruitment processes look like and how we could review any barriers,” Mr Stirling said.
“In terms of reaching First Nations candidates, it’s about partnering with respected people and organisations within their communities.
“Tweaking our recruitment processes to further support applicants made a big difference.
“We went out to these organisations and held information sessions to explain what the roles entail and what the organisational purposes is.
“We helped individuals with the application process — instead of sending them away to apply online, we had laptops for them to use.
“In our most recent recruitment campaign, we had a diverse mix of about 1100 candidates — which included 17 per cent of First Nations people —apply for roles.
"It was a great outcome.”
“Don't try to boil the ocean,” Mr Arcaro said.
“There are so many things we can do, and sometimes it can be confusing to know where to start.
“So, start small. Start where you know you can make positive change.
“When we take on too much, we might only achieve desired outcomes with a 30 per cent success rate. It’s best to pull it back, start small, do what you can, be authentic, vulnerable and honest about it —and do it well.”
Regular reviews supported by data will aid retention, Mr Stirling said.
“If you are experiencing turnover or dropouts, use your data to spot trends and develop strategies,” he said.
Ms Coughlin said the Digital Jobs program revealed just how much untapped talent existed within groups that aren't always able to access professional opportunities.
The ultimate goal shouldn't be about profitability, Mr Stirling said.
“It's about how we are engaging and being inclusive of a broad range of communities and individuals to support challenges that exist across the entire country.”
Save the date — Tuesday, May 2 — for the Ai Group CET’s next webinar, Connecting the dots: Exploring young Australians’ pathways from education and training into work.
Visit our website to subscribe to our newsletter and to join our Member Network.
Wendy Larter is Communications Manager at the Australian Industry Group. She has more than 20 years’ experience as a reporter, features writer, contributor and sub-editor for newspapers and magazines including The Courier-Mail in Brisbane and Metro, the News of the World, The Times and Elle in the UK.
