Enable Social Enterprise Presents Key Evidence to Victorian Government on Inquiry into sustainable employment for disadvantaged jobseekers

On Tuesday, 19 November 2019, Enable Social Enterprise appeared before the Legislative Assembly Economy & Infrastructure Committee to present evidence on sustainable employment models for disadvantaged jobseekers.

As a key voice in the Social Enterprise sector, our contribution aimed to highlight how a deep understanding of the local industry and employment services and social enterprise eco-system in areas of high socio-economic disadvantaged such as suburbs in the Hume Local Government Area (LGA) serve to design employment pathways model to support disadvantaged jobseekers with local jobs.

Enable’s role in the hearing

On the back of winning the Premier’s Sustainability Awards in 2019, Enable were invited to share our insights from our innovative approach and non-government service provider funded employment pathways model seeking to resolve deep-seeded barriers to employment for disadvantaged.

Key points presented

1.      Understanding the local eco-system is paramount to finding gaps in the systems where innovation can step in.

Enable acknowledge the many Victorian and federally funded employment, training, community and social services currently in place to support disadvantaged jobseekers (many of whom also provided submissions to this inquiry).    It is this very eco-system that Enable’s Social Enterprise model is built upon.

We have a good understanding of the many programs on offer - and by mapping these many programs and stakeholders we were able to join the dots and identified two main gaps of which became our primary focus.  (1) what Employers want/are looking for (Technical/Employability skills) and (2) supported work experience opportunities for disadvantaged or those at risk thereof to support career goals and aspirations.

2.      “Collaborate, not duplicate” approach

In filling these gaps, Enable adopted a “Collaborate, not duplicate” approach and ethos for social, environmental and economic impact, in effect operating as a “industry host” for people of all abilities working with the many government funded services providers, as a supportive host that embraces different learning styles and abilities, to help improve prospects of getting a job. 

A collaborate, not duplicate approach also reduces local competition with government services provider funded players in the eco-system and sees Enable maintaining a highly commercialised approach – so to focus on Employability skill programs and pathways (jobs).

3.       The importance of Social Procurement to enable employment programs and pathways for disadvantaged communities.

We believe the recent momentum from the Victorian government’s social procurement strategy can be a major driver of commercial revenue for Enable, in particular, contracting services from Enable for accredited technology and asset decommissioning as a prime example.   The social procurement equation is simple – the more procurement with Enable, the more training, work experience, employment and opportunities to pathways to industry jobs for disadvantaged jobseekers we can provide.

4.      A replicable model for industry pathways (transitions from Enable to local industry employers)

 Enable (as a non-government funded entity) can also be offered up as an example of what is possible for FOR-PROFIT business, that is, our success provides evidence that highly commercialised entities can too adopt supportive work and learning strategies for people of all abilities whilst being efficient and effective – and importantly, still able to deliver service excellence for customers.

Which-ever way to look at it, industry based technical, employability skills and supported work experience sets the groundwork for pathways to industry jobs – opening the door for both individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds as well as the broader social return through decreased pressure on the welfare, health, justice and social/community and employment services.   In this respect, we feel Enable is quite worthy of the local, state and federal government attention and interest in our pathways model.

Managing Director, Julie McKay says “Enable’s employment program and pathways model was resulting from robust eco-system mapping of the local employment services and industries whilst adopting the UK Intermediary Labour Market concept from the 90s”. 

Read full transcipt from the Parliamentary hearing or PDF link below.

07_enable-social-enterprises.pdf

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