If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
A few years ago I attended an AHRI conference where I listened to a speaker talk about Australian Social Policy and how there were over 600,000 children in Australia who lived in a household with no employed parent and on welfare. The speaker then went on to speak about the impact of this to the child and the Australian economy. This presentation affected me in a couple of ways.
The first was that I wanted to personally try to make a difference; even if it was a small one, to show a child that life can be better and that they can choose how they can live their life. When I came home from the conference I spoke to my family about what we could do to make a difference in at least one child's life. We set on the path of becoming respite foster carers and for the last two and a half years have cared for two children for three days every month. This for us is very rewarding as we have seen the changes in behaviour and growth of these two children.
The second was a comment from another person in the crowd when we were walking out of the room which was, "What did this have to do with HR?" You may be thinking the same thing. Let me give you my perspective on why this has everything to do with HR and the organisation you are working for.
Research on welfare dependency in families shows there is an increased probability that children from homes receiving welfare will also be dependent on welfare. That means that these children are likely to become unemployed or work in unskilled jobs. These are children that if they had the right type of influences during their schooling years may become one of your prospective employees.
I find that when it comes to recruitment and talking to managers they are focussed on the people they want now and not in the future years. With shortages in the labour market, arising from demographic shifts and from a lack of people with the skills required for available jobs, HR has to start influencing management that they should also be thinking and influencing their prospective employees coming into the Market in the next five to ten years and beyond.
My thought is that organisations should start influencing from the early years of school. This could be achieved by providing a framework for the current employees to volunteer to mentor, tutor, talk to children about the work they do and the choices they made and basically becoming part of the school community. Organisations could provide scholarships for children or they could partner with not-for-profit organisations such as The Beacon Foundation, Barnardos or The Smith Family. There can be positive outcomes for organisations engaging in Corporate Social Responsibility programs particularly in increasing the Employer Brand. There would also be positives for the community and the economy such as having children leave high school with the confidence to make decisions regarding their future; either in further education, training or employment.
If you are interested in further reading on this subject, you might find the following material useful:
- Beacon Foundation DVD on programs helping high school children
- FaCSIA Report - Australian Social Policy 2006
- ABS Australian Social Trends, 2005
- ABS Australian Social Trends, 2004
- Fault Lines Exposed: Advantage and Disadvantage Across Australia's Settlement System
