Employer of the Year

Sponsored by Southern Cross Television.

Winner: Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation

Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation (ALPA) was founded on the principle of increasing Yolgnu employment and economic opportunity. A large part of ALPA’s success is due to its commitment to and investment in quality training for staff, which includes operating its own retail training school.

Now one of the largest Aboriginal businesses in Australia, ALPA employs around 780 people and 612 of these are Aboriginal. Its operations include 25 remote retail stores, an enterprise RTO, delivery of employment services and community-based social enterprises.

The Yolgnu Board of Directors invests in vocational training as means of creating local employment opportunities in a remote region. As an RTO, ALPA delivers Certificates I to IV in Retail Services and up to 100 trainees are employed at any given time in the retail group. More than 1,500 ALPA trainees have been supported to complete retail traineeships in remote communities. ALPA believes better training opportunities leads to increased employment opportunities and real jobs on communities.

Runner up: Carpentaria Disability Services

Carpentaria Disability Services (CDS) builds community capacity by supporting the training, mentoring and employment of people from culturally diverse backgrounds. Around 80% of staff are from non-English speaking backgrounds, including Aboriginal people and refugees and migrants. The service works collaboratively with BCS Training to deliver certificate and diploma qualifications in community services.

CDS is proud that 90% of its workforce is qualified at the Certificate III level and higher. It continues to build capacity by giving program managers the opportunity to become workforce trainers and assessors. Three members of staff have so far achieved this qualification. This gives CDS the ability to deliver internal competency-based training and assessment tailored to staff requirements.

CDS credits its commitment to increasing the professional training of staff to its reputation as an employer of choice. It no longer needs to advertise for support workers as competition for vacancies is high and staff retention has increased since the increased investment in VET.


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