How well are you doing with Aboriginal employment? I mean, really. How well?

How do you know? How can you tell how other employers are doing for that matter? Is it the pretty brochures they have? Is it the dollar figure expenditure? Income? Publicity? Number of Aboriginal staff? How do you know how well you’re really doing?

I've heard employers claim to be experts in Aboriginal employment. I've seen red, black and yellow brochures. I've seen press releases and NAIDOC activities. All kinds of activities being quoted and mentioned and liked. That's not how I measure success with Aboriginal employment, but it seems like others do.

All of the above are activities, not results.  These activities may have a return for the employer, and may be contributing to success with Aboriginal employment, but they are not indicators of success. All these activities could exist in organisations who are doing poorly, as much as they could be present in organisations that are kicking goals with Aboriginal employment. So, what are the signs that an employer knows what they're doing? How can you tell how well you're doing with Aboriginal employment?

The good news is there is a simple way to know not just if you are doing well, but how well. It can be measured. Just three fundamental measurements will show you not just how well you’re doing, but where you need to improve to get real results. Without knowing these three numbers anything you do to improve Aboriginal employment is busy-ness, not business. Activities, and not results.

Activities make people feel good about acting to change, participating, or doing something, anything that could help. But if you really want to make Indigenous employment work, then the activities you choose must lead to better outcomes or why bother? Wishing and hoping for something to change doesn't work, we need activity, but we need activity that leads to results.

Measure outcome not activity

There’s a time and place to measure activity but that is after you have these three basic measurements in place. You can measure activity quantitatively and qualitatively to determine the efficacy of each activity in moving the three basic measurements, but the activity is not the change, not the success, we want. It's just a way to (hopefully) achieve it.

Measuring activity as success would be like grading a student based on the hours spent studying and not how well they understand the subject. Both the hours and methods of study may be a way to improve their grades but study hours aren’t the outcome we’re interested in. The grade itself is an assessment (or a series of assessments) of the knowledge and understanding of the subject matter. When we know the grade the student achieved (the result), we can then increase the hours spent and improve the methods of study, and then we watch to see if the grade improves. This is how we need to approach assessing Aboriginal employment, but instead of a grading system delivered by a teacher, we set up our own systems for measuring our baseline, and then monitor our progress over time.

What Are These 3 Basic Measures?

Here's the three basic measures you need to know before you even start with Aboriginal employment activities, or as soon as you can get them in place.

1. Number of current staff who are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people (snapshot)

2. Number of applications from Aboriginal people (over a period of time)

3.  Length of service (snapshot) or turnover of Aboriginal staff (over a period of time)

You might think number one is a no-brainer, and it is, but how you measure each of these things is every bit as important as whether you measure them. I’ve been involved with organisations over the years who have data on the number of Aboriginal staff, but on closer inspection the system to collect or maintain that data is flawed. Sometimes culturally flawed, sometimes technically flawed, sometimes both. Clients ask me how they can gather data on whether people are Aboriginal or not, and how they can collect these personal details sensitively without it affecting, or giving the impression that it affects their employment, in particular the selection process. There are ways of doing this, with a bit of care and guidance. It's crucial you get it right. As with most data sets; rubbish in, rubbish out. So, give it plenty of thought or get specialist advice.

A Closer Look at The measurements

1. Number of current staff who are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people (snapshot)

The number of staff when compared to total staff numbers will give you a proportion or percentage. This proportion can then be compared to the relative proportion of Aboriginal people in your geographic area. There may be other relevant populations for comparison, often higher than the general population. For example, if your primary client group is youth, then you may want to use a higher percentage in recognition of the younger age profile of Aboriginal communities.  If you're just starting out, geographic area is the first priority for achieving in Aboriginal employment. For example, here on the beautiful Central Coast of NSW, 3% of our local population are Aboriginal people.  So, you would expect that if a local employer was doing well with Aboriginal employment then their staff percentage would be approaching 3%, or higher. However, if it was much lower, the employer would be mistaken to say they were outstanding at Aboriginal employment.

2. Number of applications from Aboriginal people (over a period of time)

Knowing how many applicants are Aboriginal people would tell us if your organisation, as an employer, is attractive to Aboriginal people. It answers the simple question of "Do Aboriginal people want to work here?" How many times do you hear people say “we don’t get any Aboriginal people applying to work here.” Firstly, how do you know if you’re not measuring it? Secondly, if you are not getting ANY applications from Aboriginal people, even for entry level roles and administration roles and community facing roles (even CSIRO has those jobs so your industry is irrelevant), then I’d be confident in saying that you are not an attractive workplace for our mob.  And if you can't get us to apply, you'll never get on staff.

Maybe 20 or 30 years ago you could've said that there just aren’t qualified or experienced Aboriginal people out there, but it’s just not true anymore. While there’s still plenty of work to do to give more Aboriginal people a chance and appropriate support to get qualified and experienced in many industries, those who have already done so do exist (I’d like to think I’m one of them). The more likely truth is that we already work for someone else who IS doing well (or at least better) with Aboriginal employment, or we simply don’t want to work for you. The reason may be as simple as your employer brand not having a presence in our lives and communities, or worst-case scenario that we have heard stories from others in our community about working or interacting with your organisation that makes us think twice about applying - the Koori grapevine at its best. All of this to say, the number of Aboriginal applicants is a leading indicator of the number of Aboriginal staff and you can ignore at your own peril. Certainly, if you are not attracting Aboriginal applicants, you cannot recruit more Aboriginal staff, and cannot claim to be successful at Aboriginal employment.

3.  Length of service (snapshot) or turnover of Aboriginal staff (over a period of time)

Then you have a measure of retention, either as average (or median) length of service or turnover. Your human resources team will already have a preferred metric, so make reporting easier and use the same one. Again, compare your chosen retention measure for your Aboriginal staff to that of all staff.  What do you see? What does it tell you?

If you're just starting out with Aboriginal employment, or have been frustrated with your efforts so far, it's more than likely there will be a gap. If the turnover of Aboriginal staff is significantly higher than that of all staff, your next question is why? Why are Aboriginal people leaving your organisation? What makes us leave? And would you accept this disparity for any other cohort? Women for example.

And who knows what you might find? One of my recent clients, after implementing these basic measurements, discovered they had one Aboriginal staff member who had been with them for over 10 years. They realised this was a positive indication that they were already getting something right in the workplace. They were able to use this staff member's experience within their workplace as a valuable source of information for assessing the cultural safety of the workplace environment as well as a voice for attracting other Aboriginal people.

Length of service, will of course take time to improve if you have no or low numbers of Aboriginal staff to begin with, and it might even get worse before it gets better, so set realistic targets and give yourself time to improve this one. Set a goal to close that gap over time, but don't allow high turnover in the short term. High turnover is a sure sign there's something very wrong. If this measure shows a gap in the retention of your Aboriginal staff, this indicates that you have much to do in the workplace before you can claim to be successful with Aboriginal employment.

So, there you have it. Three measures that will prove or disprove employer’s claims of success with Aboriginal employment. For those looking to improve your performance with Aboriginal employment you now have three measurements that need to be taken and reviewed to measure your progress. 

Analyse Then Set Goals for Success

Once established these basic measures can be used for all kinds of analysis. That’s the really fun part (nerd alert!). The interaction and comparisons of these numbers can guide your activities and investment to move a particular measure. Do you need more applications? Maybe you need employer brand awareness in our communities. Struggling with high turnover? Examine what supports mechanisms you have in place. Do you need more development opportunities and pathways for existing staff? Lots of applications from Aboriginal people but no new staff? A complete review of your selection process may be in order. As I said, fun!

All ABout that Baseline

Of course, before you can have all that fun you need baseline data and a system to capture it, now and into the future. You’ll need your measurement processes in place as soon as you can. You can easily have systems and processes in place to measure these effectively within 3 months or sooner. Then analyse, set goals, and review your progress every year, or half year, or quarter. Use these numbers to guide your investment in your activity. And always remember that activity isn’t the end game; Aboriginal employment outcomes is what we're after.

Do you have these measurements in place? What numbers do you have? Which of these measures do you know right now? What are you struggling with most right now? How well are you doing with Aboriginal employment? Leave your comments below. I'd love to hear to hear how you're going with Aboriginal employment.

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