Without trucks, the nation stops.
Those words, or similar statements are useful when it comes to painting a picture for the general public with regards the importance of the freight industry to Australia.
For the industry itself though, ‘without new staff, nothing moves’, might resonate more.
One of the sessions of this year’s Australian Trucking Association (ATA) Technical Maintenance Conference in Melbourne dealt with this challenge from the perspective of apprenticeship training, managing Gen Z employees (those born between 1996 and 2010) and looking to the under-utilised and under-employed talent pool of neurodiverse people looking for work in the community.
Women in Trade Apprenticeships Mentor Ashley Belteky led the discussions, explaining just how important it is for employers and trade schools to work closely together to maximise the apprenticeship program for all involved.
“So now, in our sector, if we look at automotive, we have about 15,000 active apprentices, yet we’re still losing about 40 per cent of them throughout the lifespan of their apprenticeship for a whole range of reasons,” Belteky said.
“At Apprenticeship Support Australia (ASA), we did some research about what some of these key reasons were, and a very large part of that is actually a combination of, poor supervision, poor workplace conditions and poor relationships with their workplace peers.”
As part of ASA’s response to the research, it has produced a free online supervisor training resource to help employers stay on top of their obligations are as an employer and a supervisor of apprentices.
“It also talks about best practice for whether you’re mentoring and supervising and how to actually make the most of that relationship with your apprentices in the workforce,” she said.
Dubbo TAFE’s Heavy Vehicle and Automotive Head Teacher Paul Chaseling said Gen Z apprentices suffered the same challenges young people had always faced when it came to entering the workforce, particularly when it came to the expectations of employers.
“I don’t actually think that they’re too different to what we were when we were apprentices,” Chaseling said.
“What I actually see is that what has gone before us has made us into the people that we are today, and as a result, we had this massive amount of experience and knowledge and understanding of how things work, and we just have this expectation that this 16-year-old kid that falls into our workshop is going to have those attributes that we have – but they don’t have the knowledge or skills that we’ve learned through our time as mechanics.”
Chaseling said another factor affecting completion rates was the persistent perception at schools that if you were not good enough to go to university or struggle with your reading and writing, you should take up a trade.
He said while careers advisors would direct these children toward trades, the level of technology in today’s mechanical world meant a high level of reading and understanding was required to get through.
Tatiara Truck and Trailers Service Manager Dylan Jenkin, who employees up to a dozen apprentices at any point in time, said his business had worked hard to become part of the local school community.
“I think they like to know the how and the why. So, if you can explain that better of why you’re doing something, or how you’re doing something, they want to know that,” Jenkin said. “And then once you start to engage with them in that sense, they start to open up.”
The Tatiana team also has dedicated HR team member pointed towards mentorship and a system in place that means workshop supervisors are up to date on the study modules their apprentices are doing and can tailor the work to match as much as possible to maximise the learnings.
On the subject of training organisations and employers working together, Badekar said it was imperative these two groups were in alignment.
“If both the employer and the RTO talk, I think they can steer the apprentice on the fastest path,” he said.
Founder and Chief Enabling Officer of the I CAN Network, Chris Varney, was introduced to the audience by ALRTA Executive Director Anthony Boyle.
Boyle first shared his own experiences as the father of two neurodivergent children and a brother who had been diagnosed with ADHD in his 40s, and how it had reminded him that equality wasn’t about pretending everyone’s the same but about giving everyone the support they needed to be the same.
Varney started the I CAN Network started with the backing of Boyle’s Livestock Transport in Warrnambool in 2015, based on the idea of training autistic adults to go into schools and TAFEs to raise the aspirations, confidence levels, optimism and pride of autistics kids and teenagers.
What started with five schools is now 270 schools in Victoria and right across Australia via I CAN’s online programs.
Varney said the business had employed hundreds of people since, 190 of whom are autistic neurodivergent.