Experts in diversity
Putting equality and the experience of the individual first
We take a fair and balanced view of the people we serve.
This means understanding varied identity markers which could include ethnicity, age, gender identification, sexual orientation, physical ability, educational background, income, marital status, parental status, or religious belief.
Our approach to supporting our customers includes more than recognising a single characteristic, but also the intersection of those which may influence a person’s experiences, goals and challenges.
As people move through different life stages, we support stakeholders like government and community networks to ensure their services are relevant and stop people falling through the cracks. Drawing from broad experience we are able to see people’s current needs but also predict what may affect them next. This means we can deliver both an intervention at the right time, or a preventative service to support continual development.
MAX is a confident thought leader when it comes to putting equality and the experience of the individual first.
MAX possesses a number of valued credentials from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), Australian Disability Network, and Diversity Council of Australia (DCA), allowing us to work in different areas and support people from different backgrounds across our services.
Our teams
At MAX we know that a diverse workforce fosters innovative thinking. Our workplaces celebrate and promote diversity in backgrounds, ideas, work styles and perspectives. We welcome people with disability and accommodate staff with additional needs. We also employ and provide career pathways and mentoring for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
A few areas of focus include:
Indigenous
Support for Indigenous people is a key part of MAX’s work in the communities we serve, and our Reconciliation Action Plan has been in place and evolving since 2020 providing structure and direction to the way we do business. Over 4.5% of MAX’s staff identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, and our MAX Indigenous Advisory Committee provides guidance to MAX’s activities in community and ensures a representative voice exists.
CALD
We support Cultural and Linguistically Diverse people from varied backgrounds to participate economically and socially in the Australian community.
Our employment service is backed up by translation services available to all customers - particularly helpful at the start of the service. Our paper ‘Ready to work’ [Ready to work report released | MAX (maxsolutions.com.au) summarises key themes and findings from CALD customer survey activities, providing insights and recommendations.
We also deliver the Adult Migrant English Program to help new migrants and refugees to develop the language skills to participate more freely in Australian life.
Mature age
MAX is a thought leader in supporting older Australians to find work, thrive in the roles they perform, and unlock the value of their experience. We recommend strategies for both employers and employees to promote retention of mature age workers as detailed in our paper ‘Breaking the age barrier’ [Revelatory new mature age worker report released | MAX (maxsolutions.com.au)]
Disability
As one of the largest providers of disability employment services in Australia, our work in finding jobs for people with disability and improving disability confidence for employer partners, is well established.
We deliver specialised assessment services to schools in Victoria supporting children with intellectual disability or severe language disorders through our Program for Students with Disability.
We also provide Certificate-level vocational training courses to students looking to develop a career working in the disability space, and our Health Service Officers across the country are trained to support our customers with disability.