Address by Minister for Labour Affairs Tony Killeen at the Launch of the KWCD Employer Exchange EQUAL Development Partnership

The Partnership concept and EQUAL

The Development Partnership approach, which is a key feature of EQUAL, is also the key to its success. The partnership brochure contains the legend: “Working in partnership to create opportunities”. The message underlining the EQUAL Programme, of course, is that the opportunities to influence policy are greatly enhanced by groups and organisations working together on a common agenda. In that regard, EQUAL and the ESF have been significant factors in building relationships between Community & Voluntary Groups, the private sector and the State sector. I know that the Social Partners, who are involved directly in some of the projects, are enthusiastic about the Programme’s potential for demonstrating new approaches or adapting existing approaches in new areas. The partnership structure in EQUAL also provides the catalyst for creating longer-term relationships and partnerships between Community & Voluntary Groups, employers, NGO’s and the local and National Agencies.

The working relationships, which your partnership has established in the past, will give you a head start in achieving your aims and addressing the challenges faced by employers in recruiting long term unemployed and marginalized groups into employment.

Addressing the challenges

Two policy areas are particularly important in addressing the challenges faced by policymakers in the coming years:

Firstly, we must continue to focus on up-skilling those in the workforce and drive the lifelong learning agenda, and

Secondly, we must create the opportunities for those not yet in the labour force to play a full part in it.

Our buoyant economy is forecast to enjoy continued growth into the medium term and that growth will be ever more dependent on us to provide highly skilled workers that companies require to meet their competitive needs. It also means creating more opportunities for learning and employment growth amongst disadvantaged individuals and groups. Although the numbers of long term unemployed are at historically low levels there are still many thousands of people who would like to work, but who cannot do so for a variety of reasons. It may be due, for example, to their family circumstances, their age, ethnic origin, disability, time served in prison or simply through prejudice.

However, accommodating groups who were traditionally outside the Irish labour market will require new ways of thinking about recruitment policies and human resource and diversity management practices if this diversity is to be harnessed in a positive and beneficial way. It will also mean getting employers directly involved in this process.

Involving employers/corporate social responsibility

The promotion of corporate social responsibility is an underlying theme of the KWCD Employer Exchange project. The role of corporate social responsibility is becoming more and more recognised as a key element in the success of Irish business. It is a concept which goes beyond a company's existing legal obligations. It is about companies giving something back to the community and to their employees. The idea of giving back to the local community is being adopted by more and more companies. It has the potential to change society, the workplace and the environment, and all for the better. It is not about companies seeking good publicity for gimmicks, but rather the conducting of real long-term policy.

Corporate social responsibility also has another function: It allows companies to innovate. It means adopting better practices in day-to-day management. This is a fundamental point: Social responsibility leads to improved performance and supports economic and social progress.

I applaud the advocacy by your project of the social responsibility approach to recruitment practices. In many of the smaller companies, a lack of training for operational managers and inflexible company policies all contribute to the continuation of bad practices in recruitment.

The services, which you will provide can help to tackle the fundamental basis for discrimination in recruitment practices such as lack of awareness and false assumptions. Awareness and word of mouth exchange from other employers can also have a significant impact on attitudes and the implementation of equality legislation and the inculcation of good practices models of recruitment. This can bring real competitive advantages to a company.

Learning the lessons nationally and transnationally

Innovation is a key component and building block of the EQUAL Programme. I hope that the KWCD Employer Exchange project can find innovative solutions to fill the gaps that currently exist in mainstream policy provision and help to respond to the specific needs of under-represented groups and the long term unemployed. I expect that the solutions and the learning arising from the experimental work under this Programme and other initiatives under EQUAL will be shared with policymakers, the social partners and other relevant organisations to support the implementation of current and future labour market policies.

In that context, it will be important that mainstream organisations at national level should have contact from the outset with the project and with all EQUAL projects, while those projects are still at their early stage of development. This would help to ensure that the Development Partnership understands the type of policy issues which the mainstream organisations feel need to be addressed in innovative ways, while the mainstream organisations would have a better awareness of which new ideas are being planned on the ground by the Development Partnership.

The organisations and interests represented in the DP are reflective of key actors in the area with which this project is concerned, i.e. employer, the community and voluntary sector, training and recruitment organisations, existing service providers and representatives of the target groups. The bringing together of the expertise of the constituent partners, should provide sufficient impetus to the ongoing promotion of the project and assist in the dissemination of results nationally.

Transnational cooperation

The transnational facet to the programme is unique. This aspect singles out the EQUAL programme from other programmes and mainstream actions as it involves taking part in a broad network of partnerships across Europe with a real chance to influence and feed into EU policy and to learn and share experiences with other Member States in developing labour market policy initiatives. I welcome and wish you well in your cooperation with your transnational partners in Spain, Poland and Northern Ireland. Cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Republic within the EQUAL Programme has been a particularly welcome feature of the Programme in both jurisdictions. Working with and engaging with employers by promoting their active involvement in furthering the transition from unemployment to employment is a common objective. There are ongoing and new areas of commonality between the EQUAL Partnerships, North and South, based on particular policy concerns that could be developed cooperatively to produce relevant joint mainstreaming outcomes.

Concluding Comments

The Initiative, which the KWCD Employer Exchange Development Partnership is developing, will contribute towards achieving my Department’s objectives and will complement other strategies being developed to integrate and re-integrate the long term unemployed back into the labour market.

I would like to conclude by congratulating all involved in setting up the Partnership and their constituent organisations involved in this very worthwhile Initiative. I have no doubt that it has taken a lot of dedication, commitment and hard work by those involved to consolidate the Partnership and to form a solid base from which the programme of planned activities can be sustained.

I wish all the partners together with the facilitators and trainers who will be active on the ground and all the participants every success. I hope that they will go on to contribute in a fully integrated way to the economic and social fabric of the country.

Best wishes go to all those connected with the Programme, present and future participants and beneficiaries, and I look forward to successful and productive outcomes to the Programme.

ENDS

LA 148