Are We Failing Our Ageing Population by Failing the CALD Workforce?

The Australian Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) people accounted for about 13% of a total population of 21.5 million people in 2011. By 2016, 21% of the Australian population spoke a non-English language at home, and English was not the first language for 15% of the population. Australia is indeed culturally diverse and the workforce includes a good percentage of CALD people. People must therefore ask the question: Are we failing our ageing population by failing the CALD aged care workforce? Has anybody seen any releases from a government department that target the workforce in a language other than English? We get information for our clients in multiple languages while ignoring the workforce.

Government is taking diversity into account when it comes to aged care. In December 2017, it released its Aged Care Diversity Framework in which it sought to comply with the World Health Organisation’s principles of non-discrimination, availability, accessibility, acceptability, quality, accountability and universality of aged care services. While taking CALD old people into account, which is a noble effort, the government has completely forgotten the CALD workforce. Yet, the CALD workforce contributes a lot in terms of knowledge of how to look after CALD old people. They have the language skills and the cultural knowledge to connect and communicate with the old people with whom they share a background. It is simply amazing that their needs are completely ignored.

Having opened its doors to immigrants in the 1970s, Australia has a very diverse workforce. In 2011, 13% of Australian workers were born in non-English speaking countries and 23% were born overseas in more than 114 countries. According to the 2016 census, the proportion of people born in China increased from 6.0% in 2011 to 8.3% in 2016, while the proportion of people born in India increased from 5.6% to 7.4% in 2016 and the proportion of people identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders increased from 2.5% in 2011 to 2.8% in 2016. There are similar increases in other ethnic groups. All in all, according to the 2016 census, there are over 300 languages spoken in Australian homes and, after English, the next most common languages spoken at home were Mandarin, Arabic, Cantonese, and Vietnamese.

Diversity within the Australian population is reflected in the diversity among older people. Statistics have shown that older Australians from the United Kingdom and Europe are becoming less dominant with growing proportions from New Zealand, India, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Vietnam, China, the Philippines and Malaysia. That means the proportion of older Australians from the CALD background is increasing and they use aged care differently from Australian-born older people. Service providers have to change accordingly, and so should the workforce.

Right now, the greatest challenge in the aged care sector is staff shortage. The growing population of people over 65 years (15% of the population in 2016 and projected to be 18% by 2016) means that competition for skilled workers in the aged care sector is bound to intensify with time as demand grows. Australia would be wise to make the best of its immigrant workers especially because their clientele has a growing immigrant proportion. Yet, most of the immigrant workers are non-English speaking and the government is not doing anything to recognise this diversity factor and include the major CALD languages in its laws and releases. How are these workers supposed to know what is happening in their sector if they have no idea what is being said about the sector in which they work? How are they supposed to air their grievances if they are not proficient in English?

The problem is not limited to government departments. Most employers’ policies and procedures are written only in English. Most Industrial bodies, such as unions, have websites or distributed information written in English only. In fact, if you look at the labour riots that recently happened around wages and entitlements, the rioters were from the CALD communities. Is this because even their awards are only available in English? CALD workers still face barriers when seeking employment and their overseas qualifications and skills are not fully recognised. They face discrimination, racism and intolerance in all industries including the aged care industry. Organisations are forgetting very important information. China, Japan, South Korea, India and their regional neighbours account for almost 50% of Australia’s total international trade in monetary terms. Having benefited a lot from its trade and business ties in Asia, it is vital for Australia to maintain these links by taking advantage of the skills and resources available in its CALD workforce.

Organisations doing business, or planning to do business, in Asia should attract employees who speak relevant languages and understand how to do business and build sustainable relationships in Asia. The advantages of CALD employees are that they can:

• Understand Australia's multicultural consumers.
• Provide better customer service by using their language and cultural skills.
• Provide access to new market segments and networks in Australia.
• Bring innovative ideas due to their diverse backgrounds and experiences.
• Improve decision making as part of decision-making teams.

The organisations that employ the right mix of CALD employees can expand internationally to overseas markets either to get raw materials or to export their goods. Even organisations in the aged care industry can benefit from multi-cultural employees since they have multicultural clients. And, nothing will stop these organisations from expanding overseas since there is a need for aged care everywhere. All in all, companies with a diverse workforce are known to be attractive employers, to have higher profits than similar companies and to outperform their competitors. Employing CALD people definitely has huge advantages that employers are ignoring!

Some people argue that these CALD people should have a reasonable degree of English proficiency as they had to take courses and their English language level should be at least 5.5 etc. Hypothetically this may be right but in reality, many schools and training organisations cater to the overseas students for whom they provide additional support as required. With that said have you seen many trainings even offered in languages other than English? One problem is that some migrants are sponsored by their families and they are not required by law to speak English. Immigration figures show that 25% of the immigrants who arrived between January and August 2017 had limited English language skills, up from 19% in 2011. Such non-English speaking people can still contribute a lot as part of the workforce if given a chance.

It is obvious that as the CALD population grows, and we have specific aged care facilities and organisations catering to subgroups of the CALD population, language may not be an issue for service providers. However, we still have a projected need for mainstream services that will only be met by the use of overseas workers from a CALD background.

What and how do we better meet the needs of the CALD workforce since they make up such a large percentage of the population? The first place of call is education. Language learning in Australia is generally low since politicians believe that adding a second language to the curriculum will crowd it. But to solve the problems that CALD workers face, we should make sure that all CALD students learn to read and write in their languages in addition to English. For example, a school with a good number of Mandarin-speaking students, should include Mandarin as one of the second language options. It is an easy arrangement to make. The government should also encourage all immigrants to attend English literacy classes in community centres so that they can mix with the rest of the society and become employable.

With a good education background plus proficiency in their languages, CALD employees become valuable additions to any organisation. When planning their workforce needs, an organisation should:

·        Understand who their existing customers are. Can they serve them better with different skill sets? Does the workplace reflect the customer base?

·        Research potential new markets. Who are the products or services suited to? Could a more diverse workplace help to reach those new markets?

·        Plan the future of the business. Where can they possibly export their products or services? Is importing goods and services possible or necessary in the future? From where? What language skills would help the organisation to do this more easily?

·        Adjust the recruitment process accordingly. For example, if an organisation is keen to recruit a Vietnamese-speaking employee because they have opened an aged care facility in a high-Vietnamese community, they can advertise the position in the local Vietnamese language newspapers or community radio.

Australia talks multiculturism but fails to do anything to support CALD workers to enable them to deliver quality care despite them wanting to do the best possible and having excellent work ethos. It is time for the government to recognise the changing demographics and improve communication with the CALD members of Australian society. It’s high time the aged care sector recognised the changing demographics within their clientele and match that with recruiting more CALD employees. It is also time for all organisations to recognise the business advantages that CALD workers can bring to them.