The World According to Cachia

The Australian Industry Group (AIG) conducted discussion groups and surveys designed to identify the level of numeracy and literacy problems in the workforce and what impact this is having on business. It was found that more than 75% of employers believed poor literacy and numeracy affected their business.

In total more than 390 responses to the survey, came from companies within the Manufacturing; Construction and Service Industries who employ (approx) 56,000 staff.

The main issues seemed to include poor completion of documents and the loss of productivity due to repeating work processes. Other problems include:-

•  - Ineffective Work Teams,
•  - Materials Wastage,
•  - Ineffective Training,
•  - Financial Miscalculations,
•  - Unsafe Work Practices (which lead to Workplace incidents and injuries), and
•  - Ineffective recruitment Practices.

Whilst these issues occured with labourers and process workers... [some] managers and engineers too were effected by poor numeracy and literacy skills.

It is beleived that the Goverments new Award system - being implemented from 1 July 2010, comes with unfair cost and complexity to business.

Although the Award Modernisation process was to streamline the many federal and state Awards, into just 122 [occupational or industry] Awards, opinion suggests the new system will both increase and decrease wages.

Further issues causing concern relate to employers having to reach agreement with each employee regarding [any] changes to rates of pay; this of course will become a challenge particularly considering the logistics of such a communication strategy.

These transitional arrangements have their opponenets and as such further clarification and/or information should be sought to assist employers understand their obligations as well as their next steps.