Hiring First Nations employees without having a plan is simply not going to work. You will have an endless number of new hires who leave, and your business and team will suffer as a result. Bringing diversity just to fit into the trend is not relevant anymore. If you truly want to have a place where people want to stay, you need actual Aboriginal employment programs aimed at creating a safe environment for them. Unfortunately, too many organisations spend lots of money on hiring campaigns that yield no results, as their employees leave immediately after joining the organisation. However, all this can be easily prevented.
Beyond headcount: What does cultural safety actually look like?
What does cultural safety mean? This isn’t about displaying an Aboriginal art piece in the lobby and considering it sufficient. This is a concept that implies creating such a space where First Nations workers can feel comfortable and respected without being afraid to show their true selves.
Without cultural safety, the retention rate decreases rapidly. Indeed, First Nations people are three times more prone to becoming unemployed. Why? They have to enter into a different world of employers who know nothing about their culture. We should go beyond simply hiring. The hiring part is just the beginning of the story.
A Generalised Anecdote on Moving from High Turnover to High Retention
Consider a common scenario we see across Australian industries. A major manufacturing company launched a big campaign to recruit local Indigenous staff. On paper, it looked brilliant. They hired ten new team members in a month. But within half a year, eight had resigned.
The exit chats revealed a clear pattern: isolated workers, awkward comments from supervisors, and zero cultural support. The company took a hard look in the mirror. They brought in external Aboriginal-led advisors, put their managers through proper training, and set up a mentor system. The result? Their next intake stayed. That’s the difference between a transaction and a relationship.
Step 1: Auditing your current culture (the uncomfortable first step)
Before you even think about hiring, you need to look at what is happening inside your own walls. It is a tough step, but you cannot skip it. Most workplaces operate with massive blind spots. You might assume your workplace is perfectly fine, but your staff often see things differently.
Running an organisational cultural reflections survey is a great way to find these blind spots. Next, you need to critique what training you already have. Simple compliance slide-decks won’t cut it anymore. We need to upgrade basic anti-discrimination training to comprehensive, modern cultural awareness training. This builds a genuine foundation of understanding across the team, rather than just ticking an HR box.
Step 2: Redesigning First Nations Recruitment from the Ground Up
Standard recruitment processes often filter out the best talent. Those long, corporate job descriptions with endless bullet points of “requirements” can turn away great candidates. We have to change how we advertise and select.
To address this problem, we should:
- Consider our recruitment strategies in light of culturally safe recruitment practices.
- Simplify our advertisements and consider how we can look for candidates who will be engaged in the community.
- Create culturally safe recruitment agreements to ensure that candidates are safe while being interviewed.
De-biasing the hiring pipeline isn’t just about fairness. It’s about opening the door to people who see the world differently.
Step 3: The Critical First 90 Days (Structuring Post-Placement Support)
The onboarding phase is where most programs fall apart. Too many employers think their job is done once the contract is signed. But the first 90 days are the real make-or-break window.
You cannot just throw people in the deep end and hope they swim. You need structured, ongoing support, including:
- Post-placement support and mentoring for the first three months to help new hires settle in.
- Intensive cultural safety training for up to 15 of your key managers and staff. This ensures the immediate team actually understands how to support their new colleagues.
- On-call access to external cultural safety experts who can help resolve misunderstandings before they turn into major issues.
A little support early on goes a very long way.
The Strategic Angle: Meeting Social Procurement Goals Without Tokenism
Numerous companies get involved in this sector hoping to fulfil certain social procurement requirements or compliance objectives. There is nothing wrong with this approach. However, fulfilling the requirements should not become a transaction.
By focusing on cultural safety first, you automatically meet your social procurement objectives. In addition, you can use external knowledge in order to create successful Reconciliation Action Plans (RAPs). This will help turn your compliance initiative into a relationship-building opportunity.
Why you need to team up with people who actually get it
You definitely do not have to go through this process alone. Partnering with an agency that is 100% Aboriginal-owned and operated will always be the way to go.
It is recommended to use professional indigenous employment services which come ready-to-use in terms of the pre-existing framework. This means no need for trial and error on a corporate level and will ensure success.
Conclusion:
Cultural safety is a process, not an overnight change. It requires dedication, but the benefits that it will provide to your business and your community are huge. Do not consider diversity just another to-do box on your list. Reach out to First Nations-led professionals, analyse your environment and begin creating a space where everyone will flourish.
