A question I’m asked nearly every day is: “why would I get someone from overseas when I can get someone here?”. I usually reply a little cheekily with “if you could, you wouldn’t be talking to an international recruitment consultant right now!”, but the reality is that the answer is a bit more complex than that. Below I delve into why you should hire international workers and the benefits that come attached.
As a child of immigrants and being a bicultural Australian (my parents are Filipino), I know first hand the benefits diversity brings to not only a business, but society in general. I’m not the only one though. A recent survey completed by AI group found that with skills in short supply, businesses are more willing than before to employ skilled migrants. Their Skills Survey found that while in 2021 only 7% of businesses were willing to hire skilled migrants, in 2022 this jumped to a massive 44%. These numbers showcase the strong intention to make use of skilled migration to reduce skill shortages.
Benefits of International Workers
Thinking about these benefits, the first, and possibly the most obvious benefit, is multi-lingual skills. This cannot be understated enough. For example, it is quite common for many Filipino workers who come to Australia to be proficient in English as well as their first language. With someone being able to speak your customers or clients in the same language brings immediate trust and an inclination to buy from them as they can understand better in their own language. Think about it, how often when you’ve been traveling and in a country where English isn’t widely spoken have you favoured the store when your first language is spoken or written?
The second is creativity. By diversifying your workforce, you bring in different ways of looking at things that workplaces with a single culture workforce base cannot possess. The reason for this is by bringing together people with different experiences via their backgrounds, education and upbringing that more ideas get generated through more thorough questioning which brings better outcomes for the business.
The final, and most important, is the productivity benefits international workers can bring to workplaces. Australia is called “the lucky country” for a reason – we are. The number of business owners who have worked with me to bring workers in from two or three different countries have been stunned by how well these people work together but also share their best practice principles to complete tasks faster and at time with a higher standard than what they were expecting. These diverse skills are then shared with the established workforce who implement these new skills into their day to day tasks. The same is true the other way too. The established workforce share their best practices and Australian work standards with the international workforce to enhance their existing skillset. The employer eventually ends up with a worldwide melting pot of skills that only makes their workplace better.
I think it’s fair to say that I’m obviously a strong advocate for multi-cultural workplaces. I’m a big believer that diversity is a strength and only makes workplaces not only better places to be but also more productive. And it goes without saying, happy work places are productive workplaces, and productive workplaces are more profitable ones.
Source:
- AI Group – Deep dive: Solving the skills shortage crisis, 27.01.2023. https://www.aigroup.com.au/resourcecentre/research-economics/economics-intelligence/2023/solving-the-skills-shortage-crisis/
Author: Paul Dizon