Paper No 28
‘If you want to do this job, you do it the same as them’: Recognition of the skills
and knowledge of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and culturally diverse
workers in the Australian rail industry
Abstract
This paper enquires into recognition of the skills, knowledge and experience of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) and culturally and linguistically diverse
(CALD) employees in the Australian rail industry. Through a CRC funded research
project on Skills Recognition, over fifty semi-structured interviews were held with
employers and employees, and policy documents collected from rail organisations
across Australia. The paper analyses employee and employer attitudes to equity and
diversity in Skills Recognition and examines some ways in which current workforce
development strategies enable and obstruct equitable Skills Recognition. Ironically,
the study found that a number of employers did not see equity as an issue in their
organisation because they employed few or no ATSI and CALD workers. Recruitment,
training and human resource development strategies used by rail organisations that
were more successful in overcoming inequity in Skills Recognition are outlined.
Introduction
This Masters study on Equity and Skills Recognition has emerged from a larger
project on Skills Recognition in the Australian Rail Industry, funded by the CRC for
Rail Innovation. A review of the literature and an earlier scoping study highlighted
the important social justice dimension of recognising the capabilities of equity
groups, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) peoples. As Billett
(2005, p.943) has observed, it is often the ‘low paid and least valued’ employees who
are most in need of having their skills recognised. For various reasons, however, the
actual uptake of Skills Recognition among these equity groups is relatively low
(Bowman et al. 2003; Wheelahan et al. 2003). The potential of Skills Recognition as a
mechanism for social justice has yet to be fully realised (Cameron & Miller 2008).
‘Skills Recognition’ is understood here to not only cover recognition of prior learning
(RPL) and recognition of current competencies (RCC) but also to include how
employee skills, knowledge and experience are judged and assessed across
workforce development.
Methods and analysis
As part of a large scale project to develop a Skills Recognition framework for the rail
industry, this equity-focused research has involved talking with various actors,
including assessors and trainers, learning and development officers, industry skills
experts and employees in different rail roles and companies. In total over fifty semistructured individual and small group interviews were conducted across
multinational, national and state-based, public and private, large, medium and small
rail companies and registered training organisations. Protocols of informed consent
and confidentiality were agreed prior to interviewing and most interviews were
audio-taped and transcribed. A project steering committee comprised of
representatives from participating rail companies assisted with selecting
interviewees and arranging interviews. While the initial informants interviewed for
the wider project included a range of men and women, to our knowledge few were
from non-English speaking background and none were Aboriginal or Torres Strait
Islander. In order to better inform equity and diversity concerns, two equity and
diversity officers, the Aboriginal manager of an Indigenous contracting company, and
a network of ATSI rail employees were later consulted and further consultation is
planned.
The methodology included thematic analysis of interviews and discussions and
textual analysis of policy and strategy documents. Interview transcripts, notes and
discussions were analysed to explore emerging themes. This was combined with a
critical textual analysis of relevant company strategy and policy documents to locate
gaps and consolidate findings.
Jonsen and Jen (2009) reflect on how, when viewing qualitative studies, ‘we often
end up asking the question; how did the researcher arrive at these concepts? (as
opposed to a different set of concepts)’ (p.124). As Ahmed et al (2006, p.23) have
said, ‘it is challenging to research processes that may be on the surface hidden’. This
study has attempted to locate aspects of Skills Recognition and equity that are, in
part, concealed. Beyond gathering data on how Skills Recognition, equity and
diversity are promoted by the rail industry, the aim is to learn what is not said about
Skills Recognition processes and what is not written into policy and strategy
documents, to ‘go beyond how organisations ‘imagine’ themselves as being diverse
to see the effects of this self-imagining.’ (Ahmed, 2006, p.23). The analysis is
informed by the theoretical frameworks of decolonising inquiry (Denzin, Lincoln &
Smith, 2008; Smith, 1999; Nakata, 2007) and grounded on histories of ATSI
employees in rail (Maynard, 2001; Taksa & Groutsis, 2010; Moran, 2004; Ah Chee,
2000). This grounding provides the foundations for identifying less recognised
aspects of equity and Skills Recognition. As early findings have revealed particular
concerns around undervaluing of the skills, knowledge and experiences of ATSI
peoples, equity issues for ATSI employees are the main focus of this paper.
The paper analyses employee and employer attitudes to equity and diversity in Skills
Recognition and examines some ways in which current workforce development
strategies enable and obstruct equitable recognition of the skills, knowledge and
experience of ATSI and CALD employees.
1. The problem of not seeing equity as a problem
This research exposes not only what is said, but what is not said regarding equity in
Skills Recognition. Many non-ATSI interviewees, regardless of the type of rail
company they came from or their role within that company, did not claim to have
equity concerns around Skills Recognition. Equity groups, including ATSI and CALD
employees, were considered to have ‘equal’ or ‘the same’ access to Skills
Recognition. When asked about risk and opportunities in Skills Recognition, what
makes a good assessor or what should be included in a Skills Recognition framework,
equity was rarely mentioned. Furthermore, some employers did not see equity
implications in Skills Recognition of ATSI applicants or employees because they
employed few or no ATSI workers. The possibility that low ATSI employment might
be related to insufficient recognition of ATSI capabilities was not usually
acknowledged. Those interviewees who did recognise that equity problems existed
tended to be from companies that were more successful in employing and engaging
ATSI employees, but even within given companies there were different perceptions
around equity.
2. Treating everyone ‘the same’
While some interviewees saw the value in specific recruitment, promotion and Skills
Recognition assessment strategies for equity groups, there was a widely-held
assumption among non-ATSI interviewees that ATSI and CALD workers should be
treated ‘the same’ and little acknowledgment of the need for equity initiatives.
When asked whether everyone had the same opportunity to undergo RPL, one
trainer from a national rolling stock manufacturer commented:
I’m giving the same information to everybody, so it’s got nothing to do … if you’re
employed by us, because we have these standards, practice and procedures that
we go through …You are going to come into our system and you are going to go
across these hurdles, and it doesn’t matter who you are.
The assumption that standard practice and procedures that were ‘the same for
everyone’ somehow ensured equity for all was heard from interviewees in various
roles. This suggested a lack of acknowledgement of how wider structural inequalities
can disadvantage equity groups which are less familiar with mainstream practices.
3. The under-representation of ATSI employees
Rail company reports suggest ATSI employee figures range from zero to more than
3%. In most rail companies, the representation of ATSI employees was comparatively
low when compared with ATSI representation in the general population. ATSI
peoples comprise an estimated 2.5% of the total Australian population (Australian
Bureau of Statistics, 2007). As ATSI Australians have a proportionally higher
representation in regional and remote areas, the percentage of ATSI peoples may be
considerably higher in the regions where rail companies are currently operating.
Several of the interviewees we spoke with, from both private and public rail
companies, stated there were no or few ATSI employees in their companies.
Interview data and annual reports from select rail companies suggest that ATSI
employees are still concentrated in lower paid, ‘low grade’ positions. According to
interviewees, ATSI employees were more likely to be in infrastructure roles and
customer service roles. The following table indicates ATSI employment figures and
initiatives across select rail companies.
Table 1: ATSI employment figures and initiatives of select rail companies
Company type
ATSI
ATSI employment initiatives include:
Employees
A. Large state passenger rail service
2.1%
ATSI employee networks; Equity and diversity
officer;
Aboriginal
liaison
officers;
Preapprenticeship program; ATSI apprenticeships &
cadetships
B. Small state passenger rail service
0.4%
Currently no ATSI employment strategies; Plans to
develop aboriginal engagement strategy
2%
Reconciliation Action Plan; Aboriginal liaison
officers; Indigenous recruitment and retention
strategy; ATSI employee leave entitlements
C. Small-medium state passenger
rail service
D. Large passenger rail and
infrastructure company
1.97%
To develop Indigenous employment strategy,
To appoint strategic Indigenous advisor
E. Small international freight
company operating across states
0
Currently no targeted Indigenous employment
strategy; Recent consultation with Indigenous
advisory board
F. Large private rail infrastructure
company operating across states
3%
Reconciliation Action Plan; ATSI development
managers; cultural learning pathway for non-ATSI
employees; mentoring; ATSI engagement approach
Findings so far suggest that those companies committed to Indigenous engagement
strategies which support more equitable Skills Recognition for ATSI applicants and
employees have higher ATSI attraction and retention rates. Such strategies include:
programs preparing applicants for recruitment and related testing; ATSI support
networks; equity advisory boards with ATSI representation; and the employment of
ATSI development managers.
4. More skilled than ‘low skilled’: Valuing ATSI and CALD capabilities
It was apparent that for many companies, ATSI applicants faced barriers when they
applied for positions and some ATSI and CALD applicants struggled to demonstrate
their skills via standard recruitment and testing processes. When asked whether they
employ ATSI people, the training and assessment manager from one freight
company replied,
They just don’t pass, they just don’t get past the psychometric testing, they just don’t
make it unfortunately.
A number of current initiatives are acting to strengthen recognition of ATSI and CALD
capabilities. As an example, a recruitment and assessment manager from a state rail
service with an equity and diversity management plan in place explained how preemployment strategies were working to expand recognition of Indigenous capability:
We do specifically target the Indigenous community. We do a special apprenticeship
campaign … And we also do what we call a pre-apprenticeship campaign. We find that,
because we do job-related testing, we find that that particular community have a lot of
trouble getting through the testing, because they’re not used to a testing environment, so
we run what’s called a pre-apprenticeship campaign, and so we work with them to get
them comfortable using tests and practising tests and, you know, and being in that sort of
environment under that sort of time limit.
Many rail companies, however, do not present such opportunities. Past the
recruitment stage, the capability of ATSI employees may be undervalued such that
they are placed in roles that do not make best use of their skills. A manager of an
Indigenous contracting company explained how a number of ATSI construction
trainees had gained work with a rail contracting company. The trainees were,
however, given monotonous tasks that required very little skill. These trainees,
initially very keen to work in roles that made use of their skills and which provided
opportunities for further skills development, were dissatisfied with this dull and
repetitive work.
According to Norris (2010, p.180), ‘No studies have actually examined the level and
nature of skills held by Indigenous people, but claims are consistently made that the
reason for Aboriginal lack of employment is their lack of skill’. Furthermore, when
ATSI applicants do gain employment, assumptions about lack of capability can lead
to ATSI employees being placed in roles that do not make best use of their skills and
which discourage retention.
Norris’ (2006, p.243) work on ATSI employment disadvantage points to a ‘continuing
lack of respect for Aboriginal culture, people, perspectives and skills … which then
becomes a reason for confining aboriginal people to low skill, low paid jobs on
reduced pay and conditions’. Norris (2010, p.180) suggests that behind this
concentration in low skilled positions is a belief that ATSI peoples ‘lack the requisite
skills to occupy a higher proportion of skilled positions in the workforce’ and an
avoidance of the likely explanation ‘that only low skilled jobs are generally available’.
A workplace trainer and assessor from one interstate freight company, when asked if
equity was an issue in training and assessment of ATSI and CALD workers, replied:
It certainly is, and that’s where the equity is not just there, we do have a lot of Indigenous
people … and they are not given a fair chance to get through the processes... They can do
the job by displaying it to you, yeah.
ATSI employees may face barriers in applying for internal positions and getting
through the processes that enable promotion to higher level positions. One
experienced ATSI customer service employee from a state passenger rail
organisation explained how the completion of excessive paperwork was a
requirement for applying for a more senior position. While she was confident in her
ability to take on a more senior role, she was discouraged by the application process.
Requirements for written forms of assessment and standards around what
constitutes acceptable evidence of skills and experience were noted as barriers to
ATSI and CALD applicants and employees gaining Skills Recognition. As Constable et
al. (2004, p.13) explain, candidates may name their capabilities in ‘culturally specific
ways that do not necessarily lend themselves to be used in job application
processes … Consequently, these skills, qualifications and experience remain
unrecognised and are lost to the labour market, and individuals are often forced to
work below their level of skills and expertise with the attending social and
psychological effects’.
A learning and development manager from a large national freight operator noted
that standard assessment practice in the rail industry could prevent some ATSI
employees from gaining Skills Recognition and suggested that rail learn from
industries that use more flexible non-paper based approaches:
the limited knowledge of how you can do this process even though numeracy and literacy
is a problem. An example I give is that if you once again look at other industries, people
don’t always have to answer questions in a written way. People don’t always have to read
a question, you can ask a person a question and that person can demonstrate quite
clearly that they have the knowledge, then you should recognise it.
Because recruitment, assessment and promotion procedures often treat all
applicants ‘the same’, some ATSI employees in rail struggle to access skilled
employment opportunities. Positions specifically targeting ATSI peoples tend to be in
entry level, low grade and low paid positions. ATSI engagement strategies may be
overlooked in leadership and management development within rail organisations.
Existing RPL research suggests that ATSI candidates do not access and benefit from
Skills Recognition programs to the same extent as non-ATSI candidates (Kemmis et
al., 2004). Early findings of this study suggest that this may also be the case in rail.
5. Working with the ‘Rail Language’
One learning and development coordinator from a state passenger rail service noted
that no particular issues had come up with ATSI or CALD employees at her company.
When asked whether the language used in Skills Recognition might be problematic
for some employees she replied, ‘It possibly could be but I’ve not come across it yet,
because we work on the rail language here’. Comments from other interviews have
however indicated that ‘the rail language’ is not without its equity issues.
A workforce development officer from a large national freight operator, when asked,
‘Is equity much of an issue in Skills Recognition?’ answered, ‘I don’t feel it is, but
that’s just my opinion’. When asked if the ATSI and CALD employees she worked
with faced any particular difficulties she responded:
There was a couple of migrants that didn’t understand the process, what we were
doing. … and trying to explain to them that we are trying to recognise the skills that they
had … and again with the Indigenous exactly the same thing. ‘I’ve been doing this job for
forty years, why should I have to answer these questions, aren’t I doing my job, don’t you
like what I’m doing?’ … we had to prove it to them, that everybody across the board,
including myself had to go through the RCC process, so we are not just picking on you or
you, everybody has got to do it. ‘But I don’t understand why’, and trying to explain to
them why, was a very difficult thing.
An external trainer and assessor from an interstate rail service noted that he found it
difficult to fairly assess the competencies of ATSI and CALD employees:
Some of them had a hard time proving to me that they had (skills and experience), both
migrant and Indigenous … Could be cultural differences, maybe I missed some of their
subtle movements that I didn’t pick up, but yeah I did have a hard time trying to get it out
of some of them.
Our research identified a lack of confidence or expertise in engaging with ATSI and
CALD employees in some companies, suggesting that miscommunication could
obstruct effective Skills Recognition.
A learning quality and accreditation manager from a large state passenger rail and
infrastructure company observed that one risk with skills assessment in rail is that:
we might not have the people in-house that have that background knowledge and
understanding to recognise those skills in others or we might employ people to do that
who have that background knowledge, for instance an external provider. I would see that
as a risk, that there might be some misalignment between the worker’s skills they are
demonstrating and the perception of what those skills are.
An employee from one state rail company voiced concern that none of the people
involved in recruitment, assessment and training were Indigenous. This interviewee
felt that there was a need to appoint a suitably experienced ATSI employment and
engagement manager, but as there were so few ATSI employees the company was
not prepared to cover the cost.
6. The equity case for diversity: Skills Recognition in ATSI engagement strategies
Valuing equity in Skills Recognition also requires an approach to diversity that is not
restricted to the ‘business case’. According to Squires (2006, pp.14-15) valuing
diversity entails ‘awareness, education and positive recognition of the difference
among people’ with initiatives focusing on ‘the quality of the work experience’. This
contrasts with the ‘business case’ for diversity, which is ‘a strategic approach to
business that contributes to organizational goals such as profits and productivity’
and does not entail legal requirements. Squires observes that the business case for
diversity is ‘severed from the histories of wider structural and cultural inequalities …
it obscures the sources of the differences it seeks to exploit, focusing on the
characteristics of employees or applicants rather than the structures that create and
perpetuate these characteristics’ (Squires, 2006, p.27). Indeed, current models of
diversity management might emphasise sameness rather than value diversity:
(D)iversification of the workforce may create institutional tensions rather than increased
productivity, in which case the pragmatic business case for diversity loses its purchase.
Alternatively, diversity management may be employed selectively in relation to certain
social groups and not others if representatives of particular groups are perceived to offer
greater business advantages than others, in which case ‘diversity’ would undermine
rather than increase equality between groups. It may also entrench cultural stereotypes …
To the extent that it relies on such assumptions, diversity management paradoxically
affirms sameness. (Squires, 2006, pp.27-28).
Diversity can present opportunities for Skills Recognition in relation to how
companies work with notions of capability and performance. According to Squires
(2006), an approach that values diversity can allow for a more comprehensive
understanding of capability that is inclusive of equity groups. Rather than focusing
on ‘credentials’, which Squires (2006, p.24) suggests are ‘a weak predictor of
performance in many cases’, there is a need for a more open and expansive
conception of what skills, knowledge and experience are required of a capable
employee. According to the equity and diversity plan of one large private interstate
rail operations company, ‘Diversity of experience, background and gender enhances
the quality and robustness of decision-making’.
Early conclusions
Current Skills Recognition policies and practices present both opportunities and
barriers to recognising the capabilities of ATSI and CALD employees. Recognition is
constrained by assumptions including: that equity is not an important issue; that
everyone is treated the same; that if everyone is treated the same then no one is
disadvantaged; that ATSI applicants and employees are ‘low skilled’; and that
standards and regulations are fair for all. Some employers and assessors did not see
equity as an issue because they had so few ATSI and CALD employees. While rail
companies may set overall targets for employment percentage figures for equity
groups including ATSI, most rail companies do not have targets for ATSI employment
in better paid positions that require recognition of higher level skills.
According to Norris (2010, p.181), if we recognised the capabilities of ATSI
employees:
we would support the creation of jobs to service Indigenous communities throughout
Australia to a level commensurate with what the rest of us expect. We would ensure that
all these jobs were open to Aboriginal people, that already existing skills of indigenous
people were acknowledged and valued…
Beneath this is the recognition of ATSI land custodianship, which in turn leads to an
appreciation of how ATSI peoples have in fact made a very strong contribution to the
rail industry labour force. As Matson-Green and Harper (1995, p.65) remind us,
Aboriginal peoples: ‘historically, have contributed more to the labour force and the
economic development of their ‘country’ than any other group. Whether by choice
or force, Aboriginal nations have contributed their land, on which all economic
development ultimately depends’.
Acknowledgement
The author is grateful to the CRC for Rail Innovation (established and supported
under the Australian Government's Cooperative Research Centres program) for the
funding of this research through Project P4.111 A Skills Recognition Framework for
the Rail Industry.
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