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Not just any job … the right job in a sustainable community

By Sheridan Dudley - posted Friday, 26 August 2005


There is no doubt that government employment policy has undergone some dramatic changes during the last ten years, leading to considerable improvements for unemployed people. However, it needs to further adapt in order to successfully serve those job seekers who are the most disadvantaged. The system will need to reward more than just the economic outcome of getting a job: it will also need to respond to community expectations by incorporating social and environmental outcomes into its policies and programs.

Looking back: where have we come from?

In 1998 a fundamental shift in government employment policy took place when the government contracted out employment services to private companies and community-based organisations, creating a competitive market place for their delivery.

Since the introduction of Job Network, employment policy, programs and service delivery have continued to change with each of the three subsequent employment services contracts, with the aim of providing better services to unemployed people generally, and with an ever increasing focus on providing quality services to those job seekers who are classified as particularly disadvantaged.

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Within the first two Employment Services Contracts ESC1 and ESC2, the focus was on getting people in the door and placing them in a job, without the due concern and effort necessary to place people in sustainable employment. The payment structure in these first two contracts allowed providers to remain financially viable without achieving decent outcomes for their clients. During the time of these first contracts many clients were assessed, by Job Network providers, as being too difficult to place in a job and therefore these people received little or no support or assistance. After 12 months, these clients would simply drop off the providers’ case loads, meaning those clients who were the most disadvantaged were receiving the least help.

The government began to recognise the impact of its policies on both the sustainability of employment outcomes and the impact on the disadvantaged job seekers. Within the third Employment Services Contract (ESC3), the payment system was overhauled, so the most significant financial rewards are now received when an outcome is reached. (An interim outcome is paid to the Job Network provider when the job seeker has maintained their employment for 13 weeks and a final outcome paid after the client has maintained their employment for 26 weeks.)

The concept of a provider for “unemployed life” was also introduced. Consequently providers are now required to service the needs of their disadvantaged clients far better, as job seekers now remain active on the case load until they are finally employed.

These policy and payment shifts have had the desired effect of encouraging providers to ensure that the job is the right job for the job seeker and to focus the most effort on the most highly disadvantaged.

Current model - welfare to work reforms

With the introduction of the government’s new “welfare to work” reforms in the May 2005 Budget and the development of the parameters for employment services tenders later this year, all roads increasingly lead to the goal of employment. While many of the changes proposed are positive, the current system still needs further refinement in order to accommodate the special needs of the most highly disadvantaged job seekers.

The “Active Participation Model” (APM), which is the centrepiece of the “welfare to work” model, represents a continuum of servicing, so that job seekers are now engaged in a process with one Job Network provider. Through this process most job seekers attain employment at some stage, leaving the most highly disadvantaged clients on the case load.

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However, the APM is premised on the assumption job seekers follow the model and remain engaged with the system. However, we know that many job seekers are not able to follow this linear pattern, and the reality for many people is that they move in and out of the system. This is particularly true for those people with a mental illness, who, due to the episodic nature of their illnesses, we often see moving from work, then back to a benefit and then out of the system all together.

For many people, attaining social outcomes such as finishing a course, attending an interview, even attending appointments at their Job Network provider, are all huge achievements and deserve to be recognised in some way - particularly as they represent significant steps towards eventually achieving a sustainable job.

The government has also made some significant structural changes to the distribution of programs across departments. Originally, employment programs were spread across several different federal government departments. This silo-based system created significant impediments for clients, mainly due to a lack of connectedness between programs. In short, the machinery of government arrangements were hindering rather than supporting the implementation of the government’s policy agenda.

The majority of employment-related programs are now with the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR), making it easier for clients to move between programs more easily. However, this change also means there will be an increasing focus on the costs involved, possibly at the expense of social and personal outcomes for clients. This is of concern as many clients who are currently in programs, such as the Personal Support Program, require a great deal of support to deal with personal issues before they are ready to join an employment program.

What we want to suggest is that programs and service delivery need to be more flexible, and the policy parameters of performance indicators and attendant payment regimes need to be able to acknowledge and reward a range of outcomes apart from purely economic ones, if they are to help the most highly disadvantaged job seekers.

Looking forwards: where to from here?

So where does government employment policy need to move in the future? Essentially, the policies in place at present are increasingly aimed at the achievement of employment outcomes. This is certainly an improvement over the previous more disjointed system: however I would argue that in the long-term it will not be sufficient. While it may fulfil the government’s policy goal of moving people off welfare benefits and into work, it will fall short of meeting community expectations.

Increasingly communities are concerned with issues of place, community involvement and benefit, social capital and social entrepreneurship. They are also increasingly aware of environmental sustainability, particularly in relation to resources such as water and energy, and to the preservation of natural habitat and the protection of green spaces and endangered flora and fauna.

Communities are expecting and indeed, demanding, that governments at all levels address these wider concerns through an increasingly holistic approach to all they do. The growing expectations of triple bottom line reporting and social and environmental impact assessments, in addition to more traditional financial and economic reporting and assessment, is evidence of this trend.

It is only a matter of time before they expect and insist on, employment programs that recognise and embed social and environmental outcomes in addition to the focus on employment.

Programs will need to provide sustainable economic outcomes for individual clients - a job; social outcomes - a meaningful job, improvement in self-esteem and motivation, health; and environmental outcomes - contributing to peoples’ sense of place, feeling of being part of a vibrant and environmentally sustainable community. In short, employment programs of the future will need to deliver more than just a job. They will need to deliver the right job in a sustainable community

So is it possible? Does any model exist? Happily it does in the Green Corps program.

Green Corps

The Green Corps program is funded by the Australian Government and gives young people the opportunity to participate in projects designed to preserve and restore Australia's natural environment and heritage. Participants gain improved career and employment prospects through accredited training, structured work activities and work experience.

Green Corps projects make a significant contribution to rural and regional areas, with about 85 per cent of projects based in those areas. It provides an opportunity for many young people (60 per cent of participants are early school leavers) to engage in an educational and training program which will provide them with new skills and a qualification. The high number of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander (11 per cent) participants demonstrates the program’s ability to be adaptive to the particular needs of different groups.

The Green Corps program in many ways exemplifies a model of service delivery that has a focus on helping disadvantaged people, while also having the ability to be flexible and innovative, especially when compared to Job Network services. The Green Corps program has a focus beyond economic outcomes, and is able to report on social, cultural and environmental outcomes.

Case study - the Mia Mia revegetation project

The Mia Mia Aboriginal Art Gallery, situated in Westerfold's Park in Templestowe is on Wurundjeri land. It is an indigenous art gallery that promotes Aboriginal artists as well as educating the community about the historical importance of the park and the customs of the traditional owners of the land. The Green Corps project was initiated by the gallery and delivered in partnership with JobCo.

The participants gained knowledge of the environmental, cultural, historical, indigenous and sociological significance of the gallery and the park, while also gaining practical skills. The project achieved environmental, social and cultural outcomes. Indigenous plants, shrubs and trees were planted and all non-indigenous plants were removed. A disability access walkway was designed and constructed in the theme of a “serpent dreaming”. This walkway will eventually encircle the land around the gallery encouraging and allowing all community members to enter. Additional outcomes of the project included the design and construction of signs to promote the cultural and sociological significance of the areas to visitors and community members.

This project provides an excellent example of what is achievable when a genuine community development approach is utilised - an approach which ensures the project provides positive and measurable outcomes for the young people participating as well as for the environment and the community as a whole.

Conclusion

Over the past ten years the employment policy landscape has changed significantly, with an increasing focus on employment outcomes. However, in the future it is likely communities will increasingly demand that employment programs also deliver social and environmental outcomes.

The Green Corps program provides one example of how this can be achieved. We believe that the features of the Green Corps program may be relevant to a number of other employment programs and the future of employment policy and service delivery should be looking towards such models to create employment programs that deliver the right jobs in sustainable communities.

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About the Author

Sheridan Dudley was appointed to the position of Chief Executive, Job Futures Ltd in 2005. Job Futures is a national network of community based not-for-profit organisations providing a range of employment, training and support services to those most disadvantaged in our communities across Australia.

Photo of Sheridan Dudley
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