What Indigenous employees value in a business training programme: implications for training design and government policies

Abstract

ABSTRACT Indigenous people tend to pursue education in their mature age. Indigenous employees thus, may need additional training opportunities in the workplace. As their preferred way of learning are different from other employees, training programmes for Indigenous employees should be designed and delivered with their preferred ways of learning in mind. In this article, we analyse what Indigenous employees working in health services in rural and regional Australia value in a business training provided by a private vocational education and training (VET) provider. The training programme attended by Indigenous employees was offered to Indigenous employees only. Analysis of the semi-structured interviews with the graduates of the programme identifies key aspects of the training that graduates value. This has important implications for engaging Indigenous employees in training programmes through their workplace, and improving design of business training programmes in the Indigenous context. Finally, our findings have implications for government policies and practices in supporting Indigenous training programmes.