Diversity in the HACC workforce

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Diversity in the HACC workforce

• Katherine Wositzky
• Municipal Association of Victoria
• CEGS Project Consultant

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The Culturally Equitable Gateways Strategy (CEGS)

• funded through DHS involving councils,
  ethno-specific, multicultural agencies, MAV, ECCV
  
• Aim to improve access to and experience of HACC
  core services by CALD elderly
• Capacity building of cultural responsiveness of
  councils HACC services
• Promotion of HACC to CALD elderly

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Key learnings, key messages

• Ongoing journey of progressing improvement to
  service delivery
• Importance of acknowledging achievements
• Importance of promoting a culture of ongoing
  learning and development
• Need to keep progressing the new learnings,
  challenges/issues and move forward

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MAV Bilingual HACC Audit overview

• Audit undertaken of HACC workforce at June 05
• 79 councils invited to participate
• Audit recorded linguistic makeup of all of the
  HACC workforce
• Bilingual worker defined as a worker who spoke a
  LOTE and used or could use this LOTE in their
  work

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Audit Findings - overview

• Approx 80 return rate
• Significant difference between rural and
  metropolitan areas workforce as per the
  population distribution
• 25 of HACC workforce across metropolitan
  Melbourne spoke a LOTE
• Diverse HACC workforce recorded through all
  program areas (29 metro councils)
• 69 different LOTE spoken by HACC workforce across
  metropolitan Melbourne
• 4 of HACC workforce in rural Victoria (33
  councils) spoke a LOTE

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HACC staff by program area

• Staff/program area (29 metro councils) LOTE
• Assessment and Case management 31
• Direct Care 24
• PAG 40
• Food services 22
• Home Maintenance 22
• Other (Admin, Management) 30
• TOTAL 25

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Total HACC workforce LOTE staff
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Number of LOTE languages
9
(No Transcript)
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LOTE workforce English Proficiency
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The bilingual worker experience

• CALD workers report attractions as
• flexibility of work,
• variety in tasks,
• professional development opportunities,
• making a difference in the (and their) community
• Some difficulties reported include
• establishing professional boundaries setting when
  working with clients of same background,

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Matching
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Key challenges to recruiting bilingual workers
include

• Attracting workers into aged care in general
• Difficulties in recruiting some
  cultures/languages
• Many experience a small response from CALD to
  recruitment advertising/information sessions
• English proficiency barriers
• Bilingual staff sometimes do not wish to work
  with clients from their own community

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Steps in Effective Recruiting

• Defining (the job and the person)
• Attract ( a diverse pool of applicants)
• Assess applicants
• Select (new workers)
• and Appoint (on merit)
• (from Effective Change DHS HACC CCW HR Kit)

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Good practice examples

• Review recruitment policies- ensuring inclusive
  policy and practice values diversity, cultural
  and linguistic skills
• Understand and address barriers to the
  application/interview process
• Variety of advertising and promotion to attract
  diversity in applicants

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Summing up.

• Improvements to workforce planning and
  development include details of workforce
  diversity as core practice.
• A significant proportion of the HACC workforce
  speak a LOTE and the Audit provides baseline
  data. Further regular Audits would be beneficial.
• Need to link findings with other workforce
  developments/projects and progress the learnings.

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Further information

• CEGS information and reports from
• www.mav.asn.au/hs/ageing/cegs
• And
• Come and visit the MAV Diversity EXPO
• -a show and tell expo showcasing
• diversity ideas and good practice
• Thank you