Workplace laws and legislation in Australia and New Zealand are complex, but that’s not an excuse for a lack of compliance. Especially when the costs of non-compliance are factored into your bottom line.

Changes to the Australian Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Act 2017 mean that employers involved in serious contraventions of the Act / Amendment could face penalties of up to A$630,000 per contravention. The maximum penalty for individuals is now A$126,000 per contravention.

Additionally, employers in Australia can be fined up to A$63,000 for failing to keep employee records. Individuals (such as directors, managers and others found to be “accessories”) can also be personally fined up to A$12,600 for knowingly making or keeping false or misleading employee records.

New Zealand’s Employment Relations Act includes financial penalties that are now set at up to NZ$50,000 per breach  by an individual and up to NZ$100,000 per breach by a company or body corporate. There are also other sanctions such  as “banning orders” which can go so far as to prohibit people in breach from becoming employers.

That’s why Go1 has teamed up with Subscribe-HR. 

Subscribe-HR's configurable integration with Go1 gives you access to thousands of safety and compliance courses, to meet your legal obligations and protect your business. 

If you’ve got compliance training gaps in any of the following areas, we’re here to help. Simply download this free whitepaper to discover how Subscribe-HR and Go1's unified e-Learning and Cloud HR Software can help you to mitigate your HR and IR compliance risks.

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Learn more about our configurable integration with Subscribe-HR, giving you access to thousands of safety and compliance courses to meet your legal obligations and protect your business. 

See how the new Subscribe-HR and Go1 integration can help mitigate your HR and IR compliance risks

It’s no secret that gender-diverse organizations are outperforming homogeneous ones with a staggering stride. 

McKinsey’s 2018 report on diversity in the workforce states that “companies in the top-quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 21% more likely to outperform on profitability.” Given this fact, it stands to reason that we’d see more women in leadership roles, right? Unfortunately, the reality is that today, women are stalled from obtaining executive roles, and it can’t be blamed on attrition. 

At the heart of gender underrepresentation are organizational failures to address key setbacks for women in the workforce. From recruitment to professional development, women regularly experience unequal investment in their abilities and potential, as well as social isolation and harassment. And the response from employers has been lackluster: Companies are creating HR and L&D strategies that focus on meeting bare-minimum requirements and providing generalized, procedural training that puts the onus on employees (e.g., self-led harassment training, instructions on how to file a report against a colleague, etc.).  

To develop a robust L&D strategy that can actually move the needle on gender parity, L&D professionals must think beyond traditional approaches and embrace diverse one-on-one training and mentorship for female employees — and make a business case for investing in these measures. So far, only 13% of companies that are aiming for gender parity are taking this critical step.

In our ebook, “Your Learning & Development Assumptions: Truth or Lie?” we exposed the myth that leadership training as it exists is helping women to advance. Here, let’s take a deeper dive into the top factors holding women back from the leadership roles throughout the employee lifecycle, and what your company can do to achieve gender diversity every step of the way. 

1. Uneven investment in female employees 

Global training company The Knowledge Academy reports that male employees were 17% more likely to be given training opportunities than their female counterparts. Training for men also tends to be of higher quality and more curated to build the skills needed to be an effective leader. 

With women facing different obstacles than men in the workplace, McKinsey reports that not only should one-on-one mentorship be provided to women, but also that training courses focused on the following topics should be made available:

Building visibility and executive presence

For male counterparts in senior leadership, McKinsey encourages companies to train according to these questions:

“How can we counteract trends causing women to move away disproportionately from line roles and P&L responsibility?”

“How do senior, external, and lateral hires affect our pipeline? Are they diluting gender gains?”

“Which executive men and women are using — and publicly supporting — work-flexibility programs? If none have done so, which leaders would be the most effective work-flexibility champions?”

“Who is sponsoring and mentoring our senior high-potential women?”

Consider this: 98% of companies report having adequate learning programs in place to combat workplace sexual harassment, while 55% of women in senior leadership report experiencing harrassment, according to McKinsey. Furthermore, in the same survey, only 32% of all women employees reported feel that complaints are handled rapidly and effectively. So where are companies falling short?

Chief Learning Officer reports that companies are relying on educating rather than training employees on sexual harassment. The key is that education is about knowledge, whereas training is about behavior. Most companies have invested in educating about sexual harassment — providing information about what is and isn’t legal, and how to report violations — but are falling short on actually training employees through real-life scenarios. 

However, Chief Learning Officer calls on companies to start delivering content that is relevant to employees’ everyday environments. For example:

Unconscious bias: What is it and how to recognize it in your daily work life

How to speak up when someone unintentionally steps over the line

How to intervene when you see harassment, inappropriate behavior, or suspicious behavior

Women in leadership positions often find themselves isolated. McKinsey reports that 1 in 5 women say they are often the only woman or one of the only women in the room at work. That number doubles for senior-level women and women in technical roles. The recommendations to tackle this issue of isolation requires a cross-departmental effort — from HR to executive leadership. Some courses to consider to make your workforce more inclusive for women are:

How to avoid incorporating biases into business decisions and promotions

Sponsoring and mentoring high-potential women and minorities

Recognizing and eliminating microaggressions in the workplace

To close the gender gap and create a gender-balanced workforce across all stages of an employee’s career, companies need to move past bare-minimum and policy-focused education. Instead, organizations need to begin training and mentoring their leaders — men and women alike — with the support of learning content that is curated to the real-life needs and obstacles that are preventing women from moving ahead. 

Women in leadership: what’s holding them back, and what can you do about it?

Each year, on 8 March, we observe International Women’s Day across the world.

For many, it’s a day to celebrate the social, political and cultural achievements of women all over the world. For others, it’s an important call-to-action to continue pushing for gender equality and a reminder to reflect on what’s been achieved - and what work still needs to be done. 

Many people believe that gender equality has already been achieved. However, this is unfortunately not the case. In fact, according to the Global Gender Gap Report 2020, gender parity will not be attained for another 99.5 years. This means that’s it’s very unlikely we’ll see gender equality achieved within our own lifetimes. 

It’s really important to realise that gender equality improves things for everyone. For society as a whole. 

As the Global Gender Gap Report 2020 says, “gender parity has a fundamental bearing on whether or not economies and societies thrive. Developing and deploying one-half of the world’s available talent has a huge bearing on the growth, competitiveness and future-readiness of economies and businesses worldwide.“

Let’s pause and think about that. Gender equality is essential for economies and communities to thrive. 

So where do we get started, to work towards that goal as a collective?

Accelerating gender equality in the workplace

One of the key areas in which we still see a lack of gender equality is in the workforce. 

While today, 87% of companies are highly committed to gender equality - a huge increase from 56% in 2012 - many challenges women remain, including the persistent gender wage gap, an under-representation of women in leadership and the tech industry, and the impacts of sexual harassment, discrimination and gender stereotyping.  

With this year’s IWD theme, there is a strong focus on 'collective individualism' - the idea that we are all parts of a greater whole. And that our individual actions, conversations, behaviours and mindsets can have an impact on our larger society.

As renowned journalist and activist Gloria Steinem said, "the story of women's struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organisation but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights.”

Here are some positive actions you can take in your workplace - whether you’re an employer, manager, or employee - to create steps towards a culture of gender equality. 

How employers and managers can promote gender equality

If you’re an employer or manager, you’re in a strong position to take action on this issue. There are many things you can do to accelerate gender equality within your organisation, creating positive change on a higher level in the process.

Aim for an equal target of representation of each gender in employment and leadership roles.

Make sure that women and men who are doing the same role (for example, two engineers or two senior leaders) are paid the same amount of money.

Ensure female employees are involved in policy and decision-making processes.

Always be inclusive, making sure women are equally represented in delegations, speaking panels and boards.

Provide ongoing training in areas such as inclusion, unconscious bias, gender and leadership.

Create a safe and positive environment for all staff - all individuals have the right to work in a non-threatening work environment, free from any form of harassment.

How employees can support women in the workplace

It’s not just CEOs and employers who can make a difference in improving gender equality in the workplace. Employees are also encouraged to look closely at how their female colleagues are treated and valued in the workplace. 

Individuals – both women and men – can choose to create powerful positive change within their own spheres of influence. In recent years, we are seeing more men becoming better champions and allies for equality, helping to accelerate gender equality in the workplace. 

Question any lack of women's participation

Ensure credit is given for women's contributions

Supportively call-out inappropriate behaviour

Identify alternatives that are more inclusive

Remember, you have a voice and the right to speak up about gender inequality and bias when you see it. Let International Women’s Day be a positive reminder to celebrate women’s achievements across the world and advocate for a more gender inclusive world – every day of the year.

With continual, ongoing action in this area we can help to drive better outcomes for women and change lives around the world.

This year, we’ve created the Go1 IWD Pathway - a collection of online training resources to help you raise awareness of the importance of gender equality and inclusivity within your organisation. 

Online training is a great way to effectively communicate to employees and engage them in this important discussion. Interested to learn more? Reach out to a Go1 representative. 

In honour of International Women's Day, we’ve created the Go1 IWD Pathway - a collection of online training resources to help you raise awareness of the importance of gender equality and inclusivity within your organisation. Online training is a great way to effectively communicate to employees and engage them in this important discussion. 

International Women’s Day 2020: an equal world is an enabled world

In today’s workforce, it's increasingly common to be a remote worker, with more companies supporting and encouraging the idea of employees working from home.

In fact, these days many companies are comprised entirely of remote team members, working across different continents and time zones, from various office locations or home workspaces.

Remote working can have a bunch of great benefits for both employers and employees. It allows staff the freedom to choose where and when they work, with the opportunity for more flexible hours and a greater sense of autonomy.

For workers taking care of a family, or dealing with health issues, remote work enables them to continue to use their skills to contribute to organisational goals, while managing their individual needs and lifestyle. Many creatives, such as writers or designers, for example, can also really benefit from remote working arrangements, preferring to deliver projects from their own home workspace rather than the traditional open office working environment.

Whether you’re telecommuting for a company or working for yourself as a freelancer or contractor, it’s important to know how to make remote working a success for you and your employer.

Working from home gives you the opportunity to create your own dream workspace, exactly as you’ve always wanted. Spend time creating a home office space, decorating it with things that make you feel uplifted and energised, like your favourite books, artworks or house plants. It may sound trivial, but by doing this you’ll be establishing an area of your home that’s dedicated exclusively to work.

This is an important psychological step as it helps delineate your work from your home life, which is vital to avoid burning out from work. Although some people may think that remote workers have it easy, lounging around at home in their pyjamas, the risk of burning out is still high – perhaps even higher, as remote work is often very deadline driven and there’s no one around to tell you when to stop!

Besides, working from your bed or couch isn’t going to cut it in the long run. It might be a novelty in the beginning, but you’ll soon realise you need a proper office set-up to feel productive and efficient.

You should also spend some time organising your virtual desktop. Setting up clear folders, tabs and bookmarks on your computer will make everyday work life so much easier. Messy workspaces, whether it’s your physical desk or virtual desktop, won’t help when you’re having a busy day.

Being a successful remote worker takes a lot of discipline and structure. You need to establish a good routine and a realistic schedule that works for both you and your employer.

This means figuring out what hours you’ll work, as well as the hours you won’t work. People who work from home are susceptible to working around the clock, being available and switched ‘on’ at all hours. It may take a while to figure out the best work schedule for you that fits in with your lifestyle and personal working habits.

For example, while some people are more focused in the early hours of the morning, others may feel at their best in the afternoon. You can schedule different tasks for different times of the day depending on your personality, which is one of the best things about flexible work arrangements. Falling into a night owl routine can be a risky trap for freelancers though, and isn't the best for your health.

Once you’ve made decisions like switching off at 5 pm, or not checking emails on weekends, stick to it! If you’re feeling intimidated at the thought of working alone, or feel like you could use some guidance in setting yourself up remotely, look into online courses for remote workers. You’ll learn skills and helpful techniques to avoid and resolve some common problems faced when working remotely.

Take proper breaks when working from home

When you create your work routine, don’t forget to factor in proper breaks. In offices, you’re more likely to take the time to grab coffee with a colleague or go out for lunch as a team. Social interaction reminds us to stop working for a second and have a chat or a snack.

Remote workers can be guilty of forgetting to take enough breaks, eating lunch at their desks, or deciding to just push through and get things done. It’s well-known that taking breaks during your workday increases productivity and efficiency, so it’s important to practice that. You’ll return to your desk after your break with a clearer head, feeling energised and ready to continue your work.

Getting outside is also important as a remote worker. Switching off from technology, even just while you walk around the block, is vital for your well-being and mental health. To help you stick to this, you can use an alarm on your computer or phone to remind you to take a break or shut down. If you need the discipline of hard stop times, set the alarm for 15 minutes before your break or end of the day, to give you time to wrap up what you’re working on before switching off.

While collaboration technology is making remote teams just as efficient and productive as traditional workplace environments, as a freelancer you will be missing out on face-to-face interactions with colleagues and managers.

An article in Forbes discussed how important it is for remote workers to remain networked as closely as possible with peers and leaders in the office.

“While working at home can be beneficial for both companies and workers, it can also lead to ‘invisibility’ that can limit opportunities for career advancement,” Ana Dutra, chief executive of Talent Consulting says.

To avoid this, and maintain working relationships with teammates, it's important to make the effort to be involved in Skype meetings, video chats, conference calls, LinkedIn groups – whatever it takes. This will help you stay connected with your colleagues and managers, as well as in the loop with networking or career opportunities.

Last but most certainly not least – be sure to celebrate your achievements! Working from home means you won’t be getting the same kind of feedback on your personal or team work as you might in an office environment.

Finishing up a big project, securing a new client or hitting that important deadline is harder to celebrate when you’re working by yourself. But it's a good idea to take the time to acknowledge your achievement before simply moving on with the next piece of work.

Celebrating that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction will reinforce your subconscious to keep up the good work, so it’s an important step in building your confidence and career. You might not have an actual office full of people you can celebrate with, but you can share your milestones with friends, family or your professional network connections.

As Maren Kate Donovan, CEO of Zirtual – a company comprised entirely of remote employees – says, “when you finish a big task, celebrate your accomplishment through sharing it with your team and getting that extra latte just the way you like it from your favorite coffee shop down the street.”

On the flipside, when you do find yourself working in your pyjamas at midnight, fuelled by coffee and deadlines, don’t be too hard on yourself. Because days like this will happen and no one is perfect. Just try and get back to your proper routine the following day.

Marking your achievements, establishing a proper workspace and routine, and maintaining connections to the outside world will go a long way towards making your remote work life a success.

For more insights, be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

How to be a successful remote worker

Remote workers have become increasingly common in today’s workforce, with more and more businesses supporting and encouraging the idea of employees working from home.

These days, many organisations are made up entirely of remote team members, working across different continents and time zones from their home offices, co-working spaces, city libraries, or local cafés!

While remote working has many benefits, for both individuals and their employees, it also has its challenges. Practising clear communication, staying up-to-date with collective goals, and maintaining productivity are all key to remote work.

If you’re managing remote employees, it’s important to know how to make the arrangement a success for the worker, as well as your team and organisation.

Here are some tips you might find helpful when it comes to managing remote employees.

While working from home has its definite perks, over time it can make you feel a bit disconnected from the team and regular office life.

There’s no doubt that collaboration technology is making remote teams just as efficient and productive as traditional workplace environments. However, as a remote worker, you’ll no doubt be missing out on face-to-face interactions with colleagues and managers.

A recent article in Forbes discussed how important it is for remote workers to remain networked as closely as possible with peers and leaders in the office. To achieve this, managers of remote workers should be scheduling regular face-to-face time with team members working away from the office, through Skype, FaceTime or Google Hangouts.

Having this ongoing contact between manager and employee will help anchor the employee back to the company, while also maintaining a positive working relationship between manager and team member.

Use collaboration tools to connect remote teams

In addition to face-to-face time over video calls, you’ll want to invest in collaboration tools that allow remote workers to stay connected to the team.

Slack is a very popular and handy collaboration tool, suitable for both small and large companies. Through Slack, you can link all of your remote workers together, allowing them to easily communicate and share files in real-time.

Programs such as Slack boost transparency and a feeling of team connectivity, giving employees the ability to chat with colleagues about their projects (or anything really!) and see what their team members are working on at any given time. You can also quickly and easily jump onto a voice or video call through the Slack platform, so your teammates are only ever as far away as the call button.

Invest in the development of remote workers

As a manager, you’re no doubt invested in the professional development of your staff. After all, helping employees to boost their skills, knowledge and experience is a key part of being an effective leader. It’s also highly beneficial to the business, as a company is only ever as good as its people!

Unfortunately, however, remote workers can sometimes be neglected when it comes to professional development – even though this is most likely unintentional. In the same way, employees who work away from the office on a full-time basis can often be overlooked for recognition or promotion. It’s harder to be noticed when you’re less visible.

To avoid this from happening, managers must make a conscious effort to include remote workers in ongoing training and development opportunities. Which is easy to do these days with the help of online learning.

Schedule quarterly sessions, to check in with their progress and identify any learning needs or skills gaps. Enrol them in relevant online training courses and modules. Let them know that you are invested in their development and growth, and keen to support their career goals.

Keep your remote team members in the loop

On that note, it may seem quite small and trivial, but one of the biggest challenges of remote work is feeling left out of the loop and distant from colleagues and teammates.

As a manager, it’s important that you make an effort to keep remote employees up-to-date with things going on around the office – large and small. Keep them informed of organisational news, such as recent hires, internal job postings, milestone events, exciting awards won… all of this will help remote workers to feel more included and connected.

Why not end your regular Skype meetings on this kind of catch up note? You might be surprised at how many good ideas come out over these less formal conversations.

Establish trust and communication with remote workers

To be effective at working remotely, employees need to be clear and proactive communicators. Being able to communicate well with managers is absolutely essential for remote workers. And vice versa.

For most managers, it’s easy to see when an employee is just having a bad day, as opposed to genuinely struggling with their workload. When your team members are right there in front of you in the office, you’re able to get a pretty good sense of how they are tracking.

However, when managing remote employees, especially those working in different countries and time zones, it’s much harder to know what’s really going on. That’s why it’s important to build a positive and trusting relationship with remote staff.

By establishing trust and honest communication, you’re letting remote workers know that they can come to you if they need help with their workload, deadlines, clients, or any factor that could be affecting their job. All of the steps above will help you to build that trusting working relationship.

Want to read more about working remotely? You may also like to check out our top tips for being a successful remote worker.

5 tips on managing remote employees

Despite our best efforts, when we form bad habits, it can be challenging to change them. Resolving to go to the gym three times a week is a start, but getting there and sticking to the plan is another story. 

We can be overly optimistic when setting ourselves new goals, and failing to reach them creates a negative feedback loop. If this happens too many times, we might give up altogether. 

Luckily, researchers have simplified the process and identified a process known as the habit loop. With knowledge of this cycle, it is possible to re-program the most reluctant mind to repeat the desired behavior effortlessly - it just requires a little strategizing and discipline. 

Let’s look at how the habit loop works and how we can apply it to make learning at work a more natural process.

Discovered by MIT researchers, the habit loop is a basic neurological cycle that drives every repeated action:  

In his international bestseller, The Power of Habit, author Charles Duhigg explains that we can use our wiring to create new, positive patterns of behavior.

He adds that there are endless ways to form new habits. The way people create them depends on personality traits and the behavior they would like to embed. For example, getting into the habit of going to the gym is different to creating a routine of cooking at home more often. 

People also have different motivations for starting a new behavior. One person might want to go to the gym to build strength, while another to feel more energetic. These factors all contribute to how a person will form the habit. 

To account for these differences, Duhigg created the following framework to help anybody form a new habit over time:

Below, we’ll explore how to use this framework in the context of getting into a regular habit of learning at work. 

Using the habit loop to make learning at work easier 

Knowledge of Duhigg’s framework can help you to make professional development an effortless task that naturally fits into the working week. Busy schedules are a significant barrier to learning, but a regular session will free up your time to complete other tasks. Use the following guide to work towards a habit that sticks! 

To start a habit loop for learning, find a time you could allocate each week that is usually available to you.

This regularity will help your brain to trigger the new behavior into action with minimal effort. It is also important to remember that the average employee has only 24 minutes to learn per week. Setting aside just half an hour of your time could make all the difference and help you to get ahead. 

While not everyone works on a strict schedule, each of us can identify routine parts of the day. We do this to limit the number of decisions we need to make, which saves time and brainpower for other activities.   

Once you have identified a routine for learning, think about how you will reward yourself when you’ve completed that task. Perhaps you could organize to have lunch out with your colleagues afterwards or make yourself a coffee. Experiment with something that will motivate you, and when you find it, make sure you remember to reward yourself each time. 

3. Isolate the cue - connect with a motivation

How does learning at work benefit you? Perhaps those in leadership have made it a priority to help the organization move forward. Maybe remaining up to date with the latest research in your field is a necessary part of your work.

If your boss is asking you to learn and you can’t understand the purpose, communicate this feedback. You probably aren’t the only person feeling this way, and those in leadership should want to improve the experience. 

It is also essential that the learning you are engaging with is appropriate to your current knowledge and abilities. If the materials are too challenging or too easy, you will be bored and quickly disengage. 

Starting a new habit is often the most challenging part, and your brain will come up with all sorts of strategies to thwart your progress. 

If this experience is familiar to you, a plan might help. If you know you find it difficult to concentrate when learning at your desk, booking a quiet meeting room might make it easier. On the days you are learning, bring your headphones with you. Do whatever it takes to help you focus and get started.  

Another great strategy is working with others. If you and another colleague have both agreed to set aside a particular time in the week to complete learning, you will hold each other to account, and you won’t want to let each other down. 

Understand that Duhigg's framework is only a pathway to creating new habits: it won’t always work, and it can take time. It might be a real challenge for the first month or even the first six months, but stick at it, and you might find that you are soon in the habit of regular learning practice. 

At the very least, by sticking to a routine, you will have eliminated learning from your to-do list and saved yourself time for other tasks. 

Despite our best efforts, it can be difficult to change bad habits. Let’s look at how the habit loop works and how we can apply it to make learning at work a more natural process.

Using the habit loop to make learning at work easier

Go1 has partnered with foundU, a revolutionary end-to-end employee management platform, that covers everything from recruitment, onboarding, workforce management (including rostering and time capture) to training, payroll and reporting.

In an effort to empower its customer base, foundU will now provide their customers with an inbuilt learning management system and access to over 67,000 courses and other learning items created by local and international experts – to be accessed anywhere, at any time, on any device. 

enjoy a seamless learning experience for employees

manage time and attendance with time clock and geolocation

Renee Roussety, foundU’s Head of Product, said foundU is continuously striving to find innovative ways to help clients focus on their core expertise, while providing resources and tools to help them optimise their workforce from recruitment to payroll, all while promoting employee engagement. 

“Training and upskilling employees is a crucial element and we’ve partnered with Go1 to ensure foundU customers have seamless access to relevant courses, created by some of the leading providers in corporate training,” Renee Roussety said.

Go1 Partner Manager, Hanan Wagie, said “We’re thrilled to be working with foundU, particularly to help customers with their workplace training needs. Go1 provides organisations with a really easy way to find, book, deliver and track all their corporate training. The partnership means companies working with foundU will be able to seamlessly access the world’s largest and ever-growing content marketplace from within their foundU platform. The growing library has courses covering compliance through to soft skills, all available in one easy monthly subscription.”

foundU + go1

Finding the the right end-to-end employee management and training solution can be hard, but with the foundU and Go1 integration it no longer has to be. Interested to know more? Register your interest here.

Go1 is the single end-to-end solution for all your business training needs. Go1 Premium gives you unlimited access to a growing library containing thousands of learning resources, from top training providers around the world – all accessible through foundU’s employment management software.  

With Go1’s Premium library, you’ll have the freedom to choose from an ever-growing selection of content providers, to find the best training content to develop your team. The growing library has courses covering compliance through to soft skills, all available in one easy monthly subscription.

Payroll and HR doesn’t need to be hard or complicated, it just needs to be effective.

The foundU platform has been developed to simplify workforce management and payroll – in one, end-to-end system. Say hello to paperless onboarding, easy to build rosters, automated payroll and full-suite reporting. We’ve streamlined and automated the complex – so you can focus on your business. No other solution comes close.

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Using foundU to access Go1's extensive marketplace - Go1

Accessing Go1’s extensive marketplace on foundU’s end-to-end employee management software

Victoria Houchin, Business Development Manager for Training Alliance at the Cerebral Palsy Alliance, talks about the importance of providing high-quality training to employees in the disability industry. 

The disability industry has undergone significant changes and growth over the past few years since the introduction of the NDIS, and the dust is yet to settle. With the sudden increase in numbers of clients as well as providers, most providers felt the chaos with registering to become an NDIS approved provider as well as change the way that we cost our services.

We must first appreciate the NDIS for what it is, a huge step in the right direction for people with disability, many of which now have access to funding or more funding and able to utilise fantastic supports that enable them to live a fulfilling life. 

Nonetheless, the Quality and Safeguards Commission is here (replacing the Ombudsman) and all providers are or have undergone audits to ensure they provide a quality service. Most are given some minor improvements to make and more often than not, staff training is at the top of the list.

Training in the disability industry has peaked and dipped in it’s popularity over the past few years because of the impact that the NDIS introduction had on most organisations bottom lines, and as an RTO who’s No.1 customer base are disability providers we noticed that organising regular or comprehensive training became difficult with most providers simply trying to keep their head above water with the changes.

David Moody, the newly appointed CEO for NDS released a sobering message on November 1st 2019 regarding the interim report for the Aged Care Royal Commission, titled “Neglect”. From this report he states that there is an expectation of the focus of the upcoming Disability Royal Commission to look at:

restrictive practices including significant attention to the use of medications as a restraint;

quality of food and attention to oral health;

health and medical care including pain management;

It’s a great idea for all organisations to carefully look at each of these points, as well as all of the NDIS Practice Standards and understand exactly what they are doing to support their clients to the absolute best standard, and be able to evidence it. 

Over the past 75 years Cerebral Palsy Alliance (CPA) has supported people with disability to build enriching lives. Training Alliance, as a division of Cerebral Palsy Alliance has developed all of our training through the expertise and experience of CPA and our industry partners to be specifically for the disability and health sectors. 

CPA offers a range of cost-effective in-person, Nationally Recognised and online learning that supports many organisations across Australia to upskill and prepare staff to provide an excellent service.

Our online learning is a great tool for providers who need comprehensive, time efficient and cost effective training for their teams. It’s especially great for organisations who may have regional locations that can be difficult to find in-person training.

Our online learning library offers a range of essential health and compliance topics for Disability Support Practitioners. It is used as a full induction and refresher program for many organisations, and others choose to blend our online and in-person courses. 

Get started with CPA content through Go1 today!

The importance of providing high-quality training to employees across the disability industry

At Go1, we aim to bring you the best training content from around the world, to suit the unique and diverse needs of your learners. 

Today, we want to introduce you to Mind Tools - a well-known content provider creating high-quality, practical, on-demand resources to help learners enjoy happy, successful careers, and contribute positively to the success of their organisations. 

Mind Tools’ range of training resources have been specifically developed to help you to become an effective and inspirational manager and leader – whether you're new to the job or have years of experience. 

Through our partnership with Mind Tools, Go1 Premium customers will now have access to an extensive range of online training resources to help boost management, leadership, and personal self-development skills. 

Introducing MindTools- digital training to boost management, leadership, and self-development skills

Learn more about the Go1 x Mind Tools partnership

Mind Tools are really at the forefront of what is going on in the world of learning at the moment, in terms of trends and what people are demanding. These days, people are looking for self-directed learning for a continuous learning environment. 

Mind Tools provide access to self-directed resources, in a variety of formats, to work for different learning styles - giving people access to what they need, at the point they need it. 

You can also be sure that you’re getting the very latest training content, with Mind Tools’ in-house Content team updating or producing a new resource every working day using academic research, credible sources and expert advice.

Mind Tools have a wide range of online courses in Go1 Premium, available to Australian customers. 

Get started with Mind Tools content here!

Mind Tools - Leadership and self-development training - Go1

Introducing Mind Tools - digital, on-demand training to help boost management, leadership, and self-development skills

In the last 30 years, research shows that the number of companies offering remote working options had tripled. In this rapidly shifting workplace environment, autonomy is becoming a necessity, rather than a nice to have. 