The Future Workforce - Conference Summary 

CPSISC hosted its fourth national conference in Melbourne on 29-30th August 2011. Over two hundred and fifty delegates attended the conference and heard CPSISC Deputy Chairman, Mr Noel Hamey talk about CPSISC’s role and achievements and what the ISC will be doing for The Future Workforce of the construction and property services industries.

Senator the Hon. Chris Evans, Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations opened the conference. To see an interview with the Minister about The Future Workforce, watch the video above.

The Conference program consisted of presentations from two keynote speakers (one on each day) and a series of panel discussions. There were also presentations from the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) and COAG National Licensing about the impact on the construction and property services industries, a presentation on the spatial information industry and disaster management, and a presentation from Building and Construction ITO and the Industry Training Federation in New Zealand on their perspective of The Future Workforce.

Bernard Salt was the keynote speaker on the first day. He talked about how Australia has gone through a phase of hyper growth and how the baby boomers are tilting out of the workforce and into retirement.
To watch an interview with Bernard Salt at the conference, Watch the video above.

The conference included a series of panel groups to discuss key issues affecting the construction and property services industries. The first panel group, Sustainability & Alternative Energy was facilitated by Brendan Mulhall of BMA Consulting and panelists included: Mr Glenn Carter, Centre Director Building & Environment Centre CIT; Dr Keith Hampson, CEO Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre; Ms Anna Henderson, Executive Director Business Skills Victoria and Ms Tomi Winfree, Project Manager National Centre for Sustainability, Swinburne University of Technology. The panel examined four key challenges: 1 - Cultural change; green concept and understanding demographics, 2 - Government policy to support change, further incentives for research, support the manufacture of alternative energy i.e. turbines, solar, 3 - Centre for excellence, and 4 - workforce development and the collaboration between RTOs and employers.

The second panel discussion Attracting & Retaining People in Our Industry was facilitated by Tim Powers, Altegis Group, and it explored how employers could attract, retain and up-skill workers. The panel discussed young people’s perceptions of our industry, pathways and strategies to attract our future workforce. Panel members included: Mr Alan Waldron, Training Manager Hutchinson Builders; Mr Flynn Beazley, Apprentice Hutchinson Builders; Mrs Kareena Ballard AM, Director Jones Ballard Property Group and Mr James Latimore, Workforce Development Manager, CPSISC.

The third panel, Building a Sustainable Workforce for the future in Regional Communities analysed two issues. The first issue was ‘effectiveness in regional areas’ such as transport and training and the second issue was how to address the indigenous  communities such as lack of industry attention and no jobs after completion of qualification. Andre Lewis, Director of ALA was the facilitator and panelists were: Mr Max Wilson, Executive Director, NSW Property and Financial Services ITAB; Mr Arthur Blewitt, CEO AgriFoods ISC; Mr Brett Schimming, CEO Construction Skills Queensland and Mr Gavin Findlay, Assistant Director, Relationships & Engagement Team, Indigenous Economic Strategy Group DEEWR.

The final panel Working with Equity Groups had a range of female presenters from different backgrounds. Senator Kate Lundy flew down to Melbourne to share her background for this panel discussion group. The facilitator was Rob Stowell, Learning Australia and panelists along with Senator Kate Lundy included: Ms Sam Sheppard, Director Buildmore Group; Ms Laurice Temple, National Association of Women in Construction; Ms Veronkia Frank Women in Spatial NZ. Key issues were: ‘How having a family impacts on working mothers’, ‘The importance of personal attitudes and self image’ and ‘The importance of mentoring’. The panel ended by looking at what could be done to increase the participation of women in the workforce for the future.

On the second day Mr Peter Baines awed the delegates with his passionate speech on leadership, change management and corporate social responsibility
in response to acts of terrorism and natural disasters.

MC Brendan Mulhall provided a summary for delegates at the conclusion of the conference, outlining the key points and outcomes of the presentations and discussions
throughout the two days. This presentation can be downloaded (along with other conference presentations) by clicking here.  

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