Post by Banjo on May 21, 2013 8:37:26 GMT 7
Time for targets in employment
Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes spoke to employers at the Australian Network on Disability 'Raising The Bar' conference last week about the vexed topic of targets.
We need to talk about targets. The T word.
Now if you're Ford or Holden making cars, you don't just tool up, run a few off the production line and see how they sell. You have a sales target.
If you're a big bank, or financial institution, you don't just hope you'll sell a lot of your mortgage products. You set targets.
And if you're a major company, looking to represent the diversity of our population in your workforce, you set targets: you include women, people who are culturally and linguistically diverse, and - yes - people with disability.
The participation rate in our workforce for people with disability is 30 percent lower than that for the general population. And if Australia could support just one-third of that gap into employment, PricewaterhouseCooper's economic analysis says that the National Disability Insurance Scheme would be making a profit in a decade.
I used to be an opponent of targets and quotas. I ran out all the arguments about tokenism, wanting to win my own job, and be employed only on my merits. Well, it's nice to be principled and philosophical but, to quote Homer Simpson, "it doesn't put cookies in the jar, or beer in the fridge".
The reality is, most of the other approaches to employing people with disability have not worked. And the consequences are that 45 percent of us live below the poverty line. Despite what you read about 'bludgers on the DSP' (disability support pension) regularly in the Daily Telegraph, we don't want to live on the DSP. We want to work, earn a wage, and pay taxes.
So, where should the targets start?
They should start with the Government. The Federal Government can't keep telling private employers to employ more people with disability if they're not doing it themselves. 'Do as I say, not do as I do', might work for kids under five, but it does not work for savvy Aussie employers. The Federal Government's record of employing people with disability is shameful; it dropped to 2.9 percent in the last reporting period. Some Departments are well above this, but that's the overall figure. So I strongly support calls for reporting employment levels, and for nuanced targeting in the Australian Public Service.
Next, I'm looking at private sector employers. Marks and Spencer, and others in the UK, are doing it. So why aren't you?
You need to be committed to targets and working out your strategies for meeting those targets. Again, they need to be nuanced, taking into account where you are now, and where you want to be. But you need to set targets. This is the challenge I have issued to numerous large private sector employers during the last two years, and I issue it again. I propose that you commit to 10 percent of your workforce being people with disability by the end of 2015.
This is the challenge I issued to Myer in a change.org petition recently. And my point hit home - so far 37,000 Australians have supported the petition.
I'm very pleased that Myer are meeting with the Australian Human Rights Commission, and that the employment of people with disability at Myer will be on the agenda. I look forward to sharing my thoughts with Myer on that occasion.
If Government and private sector employers commit to strategies which will better utilise this under-employed sector of our population, we will all benefit - both people with disability, and the whole Australian community.
Graeme Innes is Australia's Disability Discrimination Commissioner.
www.abc.net.au/rampup/articles/2013/05/20/3763069.htm
Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes spoke to employers at the Australian Network on Disability 'Raising The Bar' conference last week about the vexed topic of targets.
We need to talk about targets. The T word.
Now if you're Ford or Holden making cars, you don't just tool up, run a few off the production line and see how they sell. You have a sales target.
If you're a big bank, or financial institution, you don't just hope you'll sell a lot of your mortgage products. You set targets.
And if you're a major company, looking to represent the diversity of our population in your workforce, you set targets: you include women, people who are culturally and linguistically diverse, and - yes - people with disability.
The participation rate in our workforce for people with disability is 30 percent lower than that for the general population. And if Australia could support just one-third of that gap into employment, PricewaterhouseCooper's economic analysis says that the National Disability Insurance Scheme would be making a profit in a decade.
I used to be an opponent of targets and quotas. I ran out all the arguments about tokenism, wanting to win my own job, and be employed only on my merits. Well, it's nice to be principled and philosophical but, to quote Homer Simpson, "it doesn't put cookies in the jar, or beer in the fridge".
The reality is, most of the other approaches to employing people with disability have not worked. And the consequences are that 45 percent of us live below the poverty line. Despite what you read about 'bludgers on the DSP' (disability support pension) regularly in the Daily Telegraph, we don't want to live on the DSP. We want to work, earn a wage, and pay taxes.
So, where should the targets start?
They should start with the Government. The Federal Government can't keep telling private employers to employ more people with disability if they're not doing it themselves. 'Do as I say, not do as I do', might work for kids under five, but it does not work for savvy Aussie employers. The Federal Government's record of employing people with disability is shameful; it dropped to 2.9 percent in the last reporting period. Some Departments are well above this, but that's the overall figure. So I strongly support calls for reporting employment levels, and for nuanced targeting in the Australian Public Service.
Next, I'm looking at private sector employers. Marks and Spencer, and others in the UK, are doing it. So why aren't you?
You need to be committed to targets and working out your strategies for meeting those targets. Again, they need to be nuanced, taking into account where you are now, and where you want to be. But you need to set targets. This is the challenge I have issued to numerous large private sector employers during the last two years, and I issue it again. I propose that you commit to 10 percent of your workforce being people with disability by the end of 2015.
This is the challenge I issued to Myer in a change.org petition recently. And my point hit home - so far 37,000 Australians have supported the petition.
I'm very pleased that Myer are meeting with the Australian Human Rights Commission, and that the employment of people with disability at Myer will be on the agenda. I look forward to sharing my thoughts with Myer on that occasion.
If Government and private sector employers commit to strategies which will better utilise this under-employed sector of our population, we will all benefit - both people with disability, and the whole Australian community.
Graeme Innes is Australia's Disability Discrimination Commissioner.
www.abc.net.au/rampup/articles/2013/05/20/3763069.htm