“It says ‘Aboriginal people are encouraged to apply’ right there at the top… so why don’t they?”
I hear this from senior managers—well-meaning people keen to employ more Aboriginal staff—all too often. They’re often disappointed that this line fails to have the impact they’d envisaged, and are left at a loss.
Too often employers simply don’t understand why this is ineffective. It seems to them a clear signal that Aboriginal people would be welcome in their workplace, right?
I believe that most employers want to employ more Aboriginal staff—they understand why it’s important, but they don’t have the expertise to make it work. They look at what other organisations in their sector and beyond are doing and copy them, thinking that such a common practice must surely be effective.
If including this line in job adverts is such an ineffective strategy, why do so many employers use it? And where did it come from in the first place?
Aboriginal employment: A recent history
The line ‘Aboriginal people are encouraged to apply’ was first used in public sector job advertisements in the mid-1980s, after the publication of the Miller Report. This report was the product of a committee established to examine all governmental Aboriginal employment and training programs, to determine if they met the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples or if a more effective labour market strategy could be established.
The line was meant to signal to Aboriginal people that the public service was a space where Aboriginal people could build a career and achieve employment success. This was deemed necessary due to the history of exclusion of Aboriginal people from workplaces. This exclusion took many forms, including:
Aboriginal people being allowed to work only when no one else wanted to work but being laid off as soon as a non-Aboriginal person wanted the job. This often happened for physically demanding work in tough conditions.
An Aboriginal person could work within the public service if they did not talk about their Aboriginality. They often had to answer questions about their heritage or darker skin with explanations that did not include Aboriginality, like saying they were of Spanish or Maori descent, in order to protect themselves, their jobs and their families.
People using stereotypes and other forms of discrimination to unfairly cull Aboriginal applicants from selection, professional development or promotion opportunities.
Just 35 years ago—in many of our lifetimes—Australian workplaces demonstrated such open hostility to Aboriginal people.
Go back two decades further, to before the referendum of 1967, and you’d see endless policies and practices that limited Aboriginal people’s employment options and protections. You may have heard of ‘stolen wages’ in both NSW and Queensland (and probably further afield), where Aboriginal people were told their pay was being invested or withheld for some reason, neither of which were true. The stolen wage scandal is a story for another day.
The 1967 referendum question was around amending the constitution to enable Aboriginal people to be counted as part of the Australian population. Before that time, we were not counted at all.
It’s a difficult fact for many to wrap their head around just five decades later. And while the referendum vote was overwhelming—over 90% of Australians voted ‘for’—this show of support for Aboriginal people and communities didn’t translate into an open-armed welcome from broader society, just as it didn’t translate to spontaneous Aboriginal trust in that society.
The scars of the past
A metaphor: Imagine you had wanted to date someone for a while, but they had shown absolutely no interest in you. In fact, they had gone out of their way to ignore you, leaving the room when you entered, and even making disparaging comments about you, your friends and your family.
Then one day they walk up to you and say “Hey, I’d like to date you now.”
How would you react, I wonder? Would you think that all your Christmases had come at once, or would you perhaps be a little wary of their motives?
I’d suggest that any self-respecting person would fob them off. I know I would. I’d spurn their advances, then I’d watch how they react.
It’s perfectly acceptable for people to have a change of heart. In fact, I encourage it. But I’d want to see if this change of heart was genuine or fleeting. I’d want to make sure it wasn’t a trap or a joke. I’d want to see if this person could behave in a way that is consistent with this purported switch.
I’d be looking for a genuine and consistent message. I’d be looking to see if I could trust the suddenly interested person. And they’d have a lot of work to do if they genuinely wanted to demonstrate their interest. They suddenly see my value? My value has always been here. Always.
If they move on after one or two rebuffs, were they really that serious? If they are patient and understanding of my caution, then they have a chance.
This is the situation many employers find themselves in today. Aboriginal people are encouraged to apply. Are they? Or are you just saying that?
The current state of Aboriginal employment
Employers have only recently discovered the value in Aboriginal people that has always been there. Having finally recognised this value, now is the time to demonstrate to Aboriginal people that their change of heart is genuine.
It’s simple in theory, less so in practice. It will take time. It will take consistent messaging. It will take patience.
Stating “there are so many opportunities for Aboriginal people now, just go after them!” fails to recognise the years upon years, the generations upon generations of no or little opportunity for Aboriginal people. If you grew up hearing the stories of your father, your grandmother, your aunty and your great uncle, it’d be understandable if you were a little wary of any employer who promised opportunity where in the past there was only embarrassment.
This does not build relationships. This does not build trust. There is no line you can put in a job advertisement that will make up for years of exclusion. Only concerted effort over the medium to long term can do that.
Beginning with those mid-80s government job openings, the phrase ‘Aboriginal people are encouraged to apply’ gradually seeped into common usage. Hiring managers and HR teams saw it as the clearest possible way to state that employers wanted to do better with Aboriginal employment. It seemed to be the agreed upon language; everyone was using it, after all.
I’m reminded of the old story of the young man who breaks a lamb leg in half before putting it into the roasting pan. He has no idea why, it’s just the way his family has always done it. Little does he know that this ‘tradition’ began years ago when a long forgotten relative didn’t have a roasting pan big enough to fit the whole leg, so broke it to fit the pan. It was a good idea at the time, but its relevance had long since faded. The young man continues to do it simply because that’s the way it’s always been done.
In an organisation with whom I worked many years ago, the marketing department referred to the words ‘Aboriginal people are encouraged to apply’ as a disclaimer—as though it was the price they had to pay in order to avoid some form of liability, rather than a legitimate strategy to address Aboriginal employment levels. This exposed their thinking that the goal was to avoid negative consequences, and was not at all linked to a goal of having more Aboriginal people employed. Sadly, they were right in their analysis of its effectiveness—at least in part—as this line doesn’t produce the results many employers want or expect.
I feel this cynical view is held in the minority of Australian workplaces, but it still exists in far too many. Most employers want to employ more Aboriginal people; they understand why it’s important, and they want to do better. They just don’t know how. They don’t know what works.
At the last public session of my Aboriginal Cultural Awareness for Workplaces before the pandemic, I spoke with an HR manager who told me they used the term ‘encouraged to apply’ in their job advertisements. “No!” she corrected herself, “we use ‘strongly encouraged to apply’”, as if that made all the difference. “What else do I have to do?” she asked me, not understanding why these words wouldn’t work.
The reason? It takes more than words. It takes action.
Building a welcoming workplace
So, what does work? Let’s start by considering the purpose behind the inclusion of the statement in job advertisements.
Originally ‘Aboriginal people are encouraged to apply’ was meant to signal to Aboriginal people that they could now look for work and be an Aboriginal person, a sentiment that is uncomfortably outdated. The question workplaces and human resources managers now need to be asking is “How do I signal that Aboriginal people will be welcome to apply and work here in another way? How can I send a strong message to Aboriginal people and communities that we don’t simply tolerate, but value and welcome them, their culture and their experiences?”
This is one of the central tenets of my program Respectful Workplaces. One of the main purposes of the program is to build a workplace that respects, welcomes and supports Aboriginal people—the core principle on which the success of any Aboriginal employment initiative hinges. Without this, your program is destined to fail.
If you make a claim about your workplace—that you’re an employer of choice for Aboriginal people, for example—you need to ensure it is true. A false promise is at best worthless, and at worst generates distrust that casts a shadow over your organisation for years. It must be remembered that trust is a rare commodity for Aboriginal people engaging with non-Aboriginal-specific services and organisations.
Earn trust. Invest in building a welcoming and inclusive workplace for all staff. Create an environment in which Aboriginal people can find success. If you gloss over these fundamentals, and simply say ‘Aboriginal people are encouraged to apply’, your words will continue to be seen as the hollow promise that they are.
Don’t encourage Aboriginal people to apply. Make them eager to.
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