Coles Group is seeking to increase the number of Australians it employs who are living with disability, by piloting a program (RecruitAble) aimed to support employers create more job opportunities and inclusive workplaces.
The RecruitAble pilot is a partnership between Get Skilled Access, founded by Australian of the Year Dylan Alcott AO, and national recruitment agency Randstad Australia.
The Australian Government launched the $2.43 million pilot program with Coles today at the Coles Head Office (Store Support Centre) in Melbourne.
RecruitAble is designed and delivered by people with disability and lived experience and will work to build their disability confidence, identify key areas for increasing accessible practices in the hiring process to create more inclusive workplaces.
At the same time, Randstad Australia is working to help employers understand their business needs, and assist jobseekers to match their skills, abilities and aspirations with vacancies.
Minister for Families and Social Services Anne Ruston says the pilot will benefit the more than 2.1 million working age Australians with a disability.
“People with disability are hardworking and dedicated employees but too often businesses fail to recognise or even consider their skills and capability,” Minister Ruston says.
“Having a job is an absolute game changer in everyone’s life and that shouldn’t be any different for someone who has a disability.”
Championing accessibility and inclusion
Coles Group CEO Steven Cain says the pilot is one of the many ways Coles plans to be a champion for accessibility and disability inclusion.
“We encourage and support the employment of people with disability and we’re committed to building a team that’s representative of the local communities we’re part of,” he says.
“We know that more than 3% of our workforce identify as having disability and we want to ensure that our management team take our learnings from this pilot to help our disability hiring acumen across Coles Group more broadly, and ultimately seek to increase the number of people with a disability that we hire.”
Coles will focus the first stage of the pilot on its technology function within its Store Support Centre, dedicating up to eight roles this year to new hires for candidates with disability.
Technology recruiters, general managers and hiring managers within Coles will undergo targeted disability confidence training designed by Get Skilled Access to ensure the success of the program.