Onboarding

My name is Tamara Blair Mayers and I'm the manager of the Aboriginal employment programs and Partnerships at the department of customer service I am proud yoriana and banjo longwoman Department of customer service we have service New South Wales Revenue New South Wales burst Essa marriages Fair trading there are a lot of customer service roles so we're we're literally servicing the customers of New South Wales a lot of the coast customers are Aboriginal so where we have customers in in areas where there's High numbers of Aboriginal people we need to ensure our Workforce reflects that so onboarding and induction for an Aboriginal person is key if you don't get that first impression right for our staff it's not going to work so we want to bring in and have an onboarding process where we have a cultural specific Aboriginal onboarding for an Aboriginal person and that doesn't matter if you're going into an identified or targeted role or a mainstream role it's we get that cultural onboarding right and then we also have the mainstream onboarding so that's the manager you meet your team you go through your role description talk about expectations but then we have the cultural support so we want to set Aboriginal people up with a buddy so that they know when they come in you know we've got 13 and a half thousand people in our agency and the importance of having an Aboriginal person sometimes in an area where they're not there are no other Aboriginal people and that could happen quite a bit we need to set them up for Success at the start so we'll set you up with a buddy we'll talk about all the support systems we have an Aboriginal employee Resource Group which they can be a part of we also have an Aboriginal peer support officer program and an Aboriginal buddy program so every Aboriginal person ideally in that onboarding space is provided all of that up front they're getting to some issues if they've got questions they can reach out to mob and say hey I need some help you might not be in the same business unit but you still bet that support right and there's there's a lot of us here you know we've got 354 odd Aboriginal staff at the moment really want more but the ones who are here I think it's our responsibility to ensure that when there's onboarding's done it's done correctly to set all of our people up for Success from the start it's really important for agencies to have an Aboriginal component within their HR unit so whether it's people and cultural Human Resources they really need to have an Aboriginal HR business partner so that that person can can liaise with all of the leaders on onboarding we really need an Aboriginal Talent advisor in the recruitment space as well because they will be there when we do all of the Aboriginal recruitment as long as you have some key positions in your people and culture function they're able to keep an eye on the agency of who's coming in and who's not so when your Aboriginal Talent advisor does the recruitment for a role hopefully they're identified up front we've got an Aboriginal person here let's provide that Aboriginal customer care so that we can ensure that they are provided the support I think it's it's difficult for hiring managers who are going to a mainstream recruitment process not knowing who's Aboriginal but if you have that Aboriginal support up front it's so important because you can actually identify them up front and say yeah we've got an Aboriginal applicant here we're going to give you the cultural kind of support that you need so that we can make sure that when you are set up on day one you know who your contacts are who your you know Aboriginal HR business partner is who are who's the talent advisor and potentially who is in the Aboriginal outcomes team for support so that there is key I think you have an Aboriginal employment strategy I think it's important to have an Aboriginal recruitment strategy so that you know how many roles and where you're feeling those roles but also to have your Aboriginal mentoring program your Aboriginal peer support officer program Aboriginal buddy programs all of these programs will support Aboriginal staff coming in so if I can help someone come into government and really get a career and get you know it's that security for family security for Mob we know that oftentimes our people are supporting aunties uncles mums and dads you know we have multiple families in one house because that's how we we live it's a village I think if we can support someone in the public sector to come in make that money and be able to support their family that's been best thing that we can do.