Common Strategy:
What we do
Partnering to create positive social change at system, place and individual levels.
Our Initiating Strategy Roadmap drives our focus and performance. The Roadmap operates at three levels.
1
System-level
Addressing societal and structural barriers with practical solutions that enhance employment flow.
2
Place-level
Supporting local employer demand driven place-based collaborations that deliver job outcomes at scale and quality.
3
Individual-level
Amplifying and scaling good businesses and organisations.
Our system-level focus
Working with Deloitte Access Economics, we have developed a system‑level Monitoring Framework to assess the status of employment for people with disability in Australia. The framework measures system status through employment quantity and job quality, and tracks drivers of change across both employer demand and workforce supply.
We engaged Performl to develop a Data Asset that brings disability employment data into one place. It draws on sources including the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census, National Disability Insurance Scheme, Inclusive Employment Australia, Workforce Australia and the Disability Support Pension, with data aligned to the lowest common place level and overlaid with employment participation rates. Our intention is to provide open access to the Data Asset.
With Deloitte Access Economics and Wallis Social, we are undertaking the inaugural annual State of Nation report for disability employment in Australia. This survey will provide an opportunity for societal, employer, government and sector conversation and is scheduled to be released in September 2026. The National Survey will provide a basis for sharing stories of great employment experiences for businesses and their employees with disability.
Enabling commercial enterprises
We are developing partnerships with for-profit businesses that have workforce shortages for accessing valuable workers who are people with disability currently looking for work or non-participating. We do this directly and through partnering with organisations that build employer capability for employing people with disability.
Growing social enterprises
We are developing partnerships with for-purpose organisations that provide work opportunities for people with disability that pay at least the minimum Award wage but require additional capability and capital support to grow their businesses.
Modernising Australian Disability Enterprises
Performance benchmarking:
We supported Ability Roundtable to deliver a benchmarking study with 32 Australian Disability Enterprises (ADEs), representing around 50 per cent of supported employment in the sector. This work is now being established as an ongoing annual benchmarking program, supported by Communities of Practice in Process Excellence and Finance Excellence to strengthen organisational capability.
Commercial supported employment:
Commercial supported employment or supported employment social enterprises operate as commercially viable businesses and employ people with disability. Their commercial viability is essential to sustaining jobs over time and enabling reinvestment in workforce development, skills growth, wage progression and career pathways for their employees. DEInvestments supports models where commercial performance and high-quality employment outcomes are mutually reinforcing. We also see the use of the Supported Wage System in for-profit enterprises as a valid means of enabling first work opportunities when used with transparency, safeguards and clear pathways.Day programs to work skills:
Every person with disability should have the opportunity to maximise their work potential. We believe in refocusing day programs to building job‑readiness skills, confidence and workplace behaviours.
Performance benchmarking:
Inclusive Employment Australia (IEA) is a $1.3 billion annual investment in disability employment services, supporting around 244,000 participants through 82 service providers. As the largest direct investment in disability employment, we are partnering with Deloitte Access Economics and Ability Roundtable to support a benchmarking study that enables providers to compare service, operational and financial performance and identify areas for improvement.
Customised employment:
Some people need extra support to prepare for and to be successful in work. We see an ongoing, relationship-based approach to supporting people with more complex disability to be successful in work as an important part of the disability employment support system.
Transition employers:
There are innovative models and organisations that can help people learn and grow into work.DSP reform:
The Disability Support Pension (DSP) is an important income support for people with disability, but its current structure does not encourage workforce participation. Working with Deloitte Access Economics and sector peak bodies, we have developed a proposal for the Federal Government to reduce disincentives to work by lowering the taper rate and extending the suspension period, alongside other measures to remove unnecessary barriers to employment.
NDIS for work:
We see significant potential to strengthen how NDIS supports pathways to work, in particular by:-
Ensuring employment is a clearly identified goal in every plan for working-age participants aged 16-24 years
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Stronger coordination across the system
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Ensuring that the Scheme is clear in the supports available and the processes to access, including how NDIS operates with other disability employment supports and programs.
Collaboration framework:
Building on the foundations of NDIS for Work, there is an opportunity to strengthen collaboration and alignment at national and local levels between employers, employees, and the employment and vocational support systems. With clearer coordination and shared accountability, existing government funding can deliver stronger and more sustainable employment outcomes.-
Our place-level focus
In place we are seeking to establish local programs focused on activating employer awareness, desire and capability to employ people with disability to meet their workforce needs. These areas of leading practice can then be shared and adapted to other communities.
Most labour programs remain supply‑driven, with multiple employment support organisations independently seeking to place people into the same businesses, regardless of whether suitable roles or active demand exist.
Our approach is to support communities to move from an employee supply-side ‘push’ model to an employer demand-side ‘pull’ model, where businesses can find workers when they need workers.
Five elements for improving employment flow
We have identified five elements that together can significantly help improve employment flow:
Aggregating local demand for specific jobs in sectors where there are known labour shortages.
Having an open conversation about the labour potential that is available.
Helping employers be confident and capable to access a labour pool that is currently significantly underutilised.
Helping employment support organisations to bring better aligned and prepared candidates to job opportunities.
Ensuring that the local system is operating collaboratively, even when there are competitive tensions.
Hobart, Adelaide and Gippsland programs
We are finalising the design for three programs based in Hobart, Adelaide and Gippsland. Each program seeks to address place-level challenges, adapted to the local context.
Supporting a new community-wide cultural change for engagement and employment of people with disability
The Adelaide program is initially a 3-4-year, employer-demand led program, delivering coordinated multi-level interventions aligned to local workforce needs to drive sustained disability employment across the region.
Accessing new revenue and employment from major government funded infrastructure projects with social procurement targets in regional areas.
In partnership with Latrobe Valley Enterprises (LVE), the Gippsland initiative pilots a replicable labour hire model that embeds disability employment in long term clean energy infrastructure projects by activating employer demand and aligning Tier One and Tier Two contractors with coordinated supply partners.
Industries with significant labour shortages in the next 2 years.
The Hobart program initially over 3-4 years, is an employer demand led, intermediary model aligned to priority workforce shortages, connecting businesses with fit for role employees through coordinated supply partners and targeted training.
Hobart employer demand-driven pull model for employment of people with disability
Working with sectors with significant labour shortages in the next 2 years.
1,000 people with disability sourced for employment over the next 3–4 years.
New workers required by 2027:
1,300
retail sector
2,500
healthcare and social assistance sector
The Hobart program is an employer-demand-led, intermediary model aligned to prioritise workforce shortages and connect businesses with fit-for-role employees through coordinated supply partners and targeted training.
Jobseekers with disability:
14,000
DSP recipients
5,000
IEA & WFA (with disability) participants
Employment Ecosystem
Hobart Local Jobs Coordinator, Jobs & Skills Taskforce, Industry Partnership Manager, Aging Australia, HumanAbility, Industry Advisory Committee Australia Retail Association, Local Area Coordinators.
Our individual focus
Amplifying and scaling good businesses that employ people with disability.
Businesses will only sustainably employ when there is a profitable, business reason for doing so. In simple terms, this means seeing opportunities to grow revenue and to reduce cost. With nearly one-in-five people in Australia having a disability, there are significant revenue opportunities for businesses that align products and services to include a focus on people with disability, as well as significant opportunities to manage business costs through better operational processes that access entry-level labour costs of currently excluded workers with disability.
We support commercial businesses to make sustainable changes to their recruitment and employment practices to equivalently engage people with disability in their workplaces.
We are supporting Australian Disbaility Enterprises (ADE's) in transitioning to commercially-operated social enterprises that leverage supported employment, providing benchmarking and building organisational capability, initially in two core disciplines of process and finance.
We find organisations that currently provide good employment for people with disability, and provide investment to scale their businesses and employment, considering commercial and for-purpose opportunities.