Employer Innovation Lab
The Employer Innovation Lab – Young People with Disability is an innovative project between Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYDA) and Social Ventures Australia (SVA) to increase the knowledge, skills and confidence of employers to employ more young people with disability in their workplaces.
The Lab kicks off with a two-day immersive workshop that brings participating employers together with knowledge and lived experience experts from CYDA and SVA.
Young people with disability also join as youth consultants, providing important insights and lived experiences.
Following the ideas and learnings from this Lab, employers develop a ‘pilot’ to roll out in their business.
Following the 2-day workshop, CYDA and SVA provide regular coaching to participating employers as they design and implement pilots allowing them to employ young people with disability into meaningful employment opportunities.
Throughout the pilot process, participating employers receive support to develop, update, and refine their policies while challenging their business-as-usual (BAU) practices to create a more inclusive workplace.
They also build their understanding of disability through CYDA’s Workplace Disability Awareness and Inclusion Training.
By the end of the pilot, each of the 8 participating employers (including medium and large businesses, councils and state government departments) will hire at least one young person with disability.
The next step is scale. Creating a case study and reviewing the learnings and progress of each organisation allows them to later expand their pilots, and better equips them to employ more young people with disability in the future.
As a systemic advocacy organisation, CYDA know that supporting employment for young people with disability requires a three-pronged approach:
- supporting young people with disability to feel confident engaging in the workforce;
- supporting government to ensure legislation and initiatives which promote the employment of young people with disability, and;
- supporting organisations to build their policies, confidence and practical skillsets to employ young people with disability.
Throughout our advocacy, submissions and programs, we are proud to work across each of these important areas.
Voices on work report
Employers are key to enabling young people with disability to find, retain, and thrive at work.
The young people with disability in this study offered several recommendations for how employers can do this:
- Encourage young people with disability to apply and ensure they feel safe and supported throughout recruitment.
- Ensure managers know what ‘good’ looks like and are supported to learn new behaviours.
- Proactively address ignorance in the workplace culture about people with disability
Want to learn more?
You may also be interested in our DREAM Network Employer Resources for both employers and young people with disability, developed through CYDA’s DREAM Network.
If you would like to learn more about the Employer Innovation Lab – Young People with Disability, CYDA’s Workplace Disability Awareness and Inclusion Training, or CYDA’s work supporting employers to make their organisations more accessible for young people with disability, please reach out to our Youth Action Team by emailing [email protected] or by calling us on (03) 9417 1025.
This project is supported by funding from the Australian Government through the Local Jobs Program.
