Reaping the Benefits
The Australian workforce is facing a major labour skills shortage, with a shortfall of 195,000 workers predicted from 2009 onwards. Our ageing population means many existing workers are approaching retirement age. To secure our workforce for the future, organisations need to take a more open-minded approach to identifying and hiring talent.
Benbro Electronics, an engineering based electronic equipment design and manufacturing company, recognises and actively promotes the benefits of including people with disability in their workforce. Director Steve Bennett attributes much of the business's success to their employment policies:
"Our father had a disability after being injured during military service. When he came out of service, he had difficulty finding a civilian job due to his disability. So when we started our own business, we decided to give people with disability a go. Our adage is there's only one question that's important and that's "Can they do the job?". Currently 35% of our employees have some type of disability.
"People sometimes think that employees with disability are doing menial tasks, but they forget there are people with disability that have run countries – like Roosevelt and Churchill.
"We have employees with various disabilities in a range of highly skilled roles, like electrical engineers, as well as in less skilled roles. As a result of our policies we have a loyal and committed workforce with high morale and productivity".