Regional Jobs Summits

Niel Jacobsen and Russell Stewart, with Sally Taylor







By Niel Jacobsen
Industry Manager

AgriFood Skills Australia conducted two Regional Jobs Summits in 2009. The summits provided the catalyst that brought people and organisations together, that would not normally interact to discuss employment issues and explore skills formation opportunities on a whole of region rather industry sector scale. Not surprisingly the summits identified a number of common issues including:

  • An employer culture of handling people well, understanding their expectations and developing them resulting in the realisation that Employer of Choice is a real goal
  • Improving how jobs are promoted -the value proposition to prospective employees of career, lifestyle and opportunities for the family
  • Providing attractive and fulfilling jobs as one part of the solution for attracting and retaining people in rural and regional Australia
  • Need to anticipate future labour demands and the capacity to up-skill people as technology and businesses scale increased
  • Recognition that significant labour and skill shortages will again feature as the regions quickly recover from the global financial crisis
  • Recognition that there are two distinct job roles – continuing permanent work and seasonal/contract work
  • Need for predicative modelling with a timeline of seasonal skills demand

Incidentally, the majority of employers training needs for staff are not being met by the Vocational Education and Training (VET) system as it is geared to providing full qualifications, not skill sets as required by industry.

There was also a lack of awareness of the potential of the school-based VET system and how businesses could benefit from engaging more closely with schools – this would address some of the issues around attracting people to the local industry.

Narrabri

The North West Advisory Group was formed following the North West Regional Jobs Summit held in July 2009.

At the summit there was broad agreement that a locally driven approach through partnership of regional organisations could deliver longer-term productivity benefits for the region through increased employment and skills development opportunities.

The group’s overarching objective is the development of strategies and initiatives to attract and retain skilled workers and their families, ‘tree changers’ and business people to the region through the promotion of high-level job and career opportunities, linked to education and training support, lifestyle and regional growth.

The North West Advisory Group (NWAG) membership comprises a cross-section of regional and local industries and employers, employer groups, regional authorities and other interested stakeholders. The NWAG identified its four priorities to develop and implement strategies across four key focus areas:

  1. Professional development for business owners and managers especially in the areas of contemporary HR practice, skills utilisation, job design, recruitment strategies for permanent and seasonal workers.
  2. Retention of the existing workforce e.g. RPL, up-skilling and develop cross-industry skills sets that address labour needs in the region.
  3. Career opportunities for the region’s young people e.g. giving students an appreciation of jobs that are available through greater promotion of the AgriFood sectors to careers advisers and career expos, expand work experience places, a program focusing on young people in their gap year.
  4. Assess regional skills demand i.e. develop a skills demand calendar, across five industry sectors that will allow peak labour demands to be tracked and adapted for skills utilisation purposes.

Industry and Investment NSW (now incorporating the former Department of State and regional Development) provided co-funding with AgriFood to engage a locally based consultant to manage the project. Additional funding and in-kind support will be sought throughout the term of the project to cover the cost of project deliverables such as workshops, skills recognition and work experience programs for schools.

These will include applications for grants from Australia Government programs such as Farm Ready, research funding and support through Cotton Research and Development Corporation (to assess project outcomes, scoping studies), training provisions through the Productivity Places Program and NSW Strategic Skills Program.

Emerald

Some 80 representatives of industry, regional communities and the employment, education and government sectors participated in the Regional Jobs Summit at Emerald on 6th November 2009. There is strong competition for jobs in the region as the Central Highlands industries lead the recovery from the economic downturn. New approaches to ensuring a sustainable approach to attraction, skilling and retaining the workforce are required. The objectives of the Emerald Jobs Summit was to:

  1. To identify and address the regional challenges of attracting developing and retaining a skilled workforce.
  2. Examine outcomes of the Central Highlands Skills and Labour Shortages Survey which include feedback from local employers regarding recruitment, training and retention.
  3. To broaden representation on the existing Employers’ Group that will develop and implement a regional workforce development strategy.

The major outcome from the summit saw the establishment of a larger more representative Employers Group, a collaborative partnerships between local industries and employers, regional education, training and employment organisations and all levels of government. Similar to Narrabri, the group also identified five key areas to address – Attraction, Recruitment, Development, Utilisation and Retention.

Conclusion

AgriFood Skills Australia played a pivotal role in bringing together a broad representative base from a wide cross section of industries that otherwise would not have met. These stakeholders have recognised a need to address the challenges facing their region and are willing to invest their time and energy in developing strategies.

AgriFood has indicated a willingness to support these efforts but can’t do it without support from the state government agencies responsible for regional development.

The Emerald Jobs Summit highlighted a region with similar issues and challenges to Narrabri. Importantly, Mike Rafferty from the Workplace Research Centre at the University of Sydney identified that the challenge of finding workers and places to live in Emerald should be approached positively (and was certainly more favourable position to be in than the alternative of decline).

The realities of skills and professional development needs emerged again during the summits. From a policy perspective, this provides further evidence that the current narrowly focussed and trades-centric funding models do not meet the skilling needs of rural and regional Australia:

  • Its about skills sets not full qualifications in the first instance, and
  • Training programs that provide skill sets (incorporating employability skills) that are transferrable across industry are the preferred option.

The way forward may be summed up as to what is required to address the challenge – Leadership, Alliances and Incentives. 

It is up to the local community to provide the leadership, broker opportunities and develop innovative approaches that address these critical issues. Government’s important role is to support these important initiatives principally through policy changes that address the skills development need in rural and regional Australia.