2020 – The First Half

When the going gets tough, the tough get going

Good! – Now they’ve left us, let’s look at reality – when the going gets tough, many people suffer and dis-proportionally, people with disability suffer more. Quoting one job seeker from this week, ‘I’ve been told to self-isolate, that’s easy for me, I’m alone anyhow’.

Nightmare!

Unemployment is reaching record highs and pretty much everyone shares the fear of getting caught up in the in-going disaster that’s caused by Covid 19.

You’d think that this would be a hard time to find employers willing to take on a new worker – isn’t everyone on JobSeeker or JobKeeper payments? – Surely the economy has tanked?

Times are indeed tough – NOVA enjoyed record placements for January & February and did well in March.

However, just when we thought we might be spared, the wheels came off our cart in April and bad news continued into May – two horror months with many of our business partners forced to furlough their staff and only JobKeeper payments preventing an employment apocalypse.

Our response?

One thing my team are good at is adapting and their response was to rewrite our programs to meet Covid restrictions. We included work from home and ‘Zoomed’ to never before used levels.

We adapted.

At the same time our business owners and HR managers were also adapting wherever possible, many businesses repurposed their equipment and products. Restaurants offered take-away, maintenance and cleaning contractors develop Covid defence products.

June/July?

Given the equivalent of an employment opportunity ‘lemon’ we have been able to work with our existing employers and identify many new business opportunities to ensure NOVA and our business partners are doing the equivalent of ‘making lemonade’.

We are still getting great offers from employers. Right now, securing a job before JobKeeper begins to be wound back would look like a no-brainer to me. If you are a person with a disability who is keen to secure work give us a call on 1300Ability.

If you are an employer looking for staff (like many others) now’s the time to give us a call. People with disability are an underutilised resource that smart business owners are well advised to consider – give us a call on 1300Ability.