Focus On Hospitality | Helping Your Overseas Workers To Settle In

 

Settling in may not be easy!

As you can imagine, Australia provides vastly different cultural and working experiences for most foreign workers.

Settling into Australia may not be as easy as you or your workers anticipate when they excitedly leave home for their Australian adventure, and happily join your business.

From language barriers to cultural shock, different work practices, and difficulty maintaining relationships back home, new Australian visa holders may experience an array of negative emotions arising from the new situations they find themselves in, including in their new workplace.

Differences in language, work culture, employment law variations, and strict requirements with respect to Australia’s OH&S laws, amongst other things, mean that new migrant workers have a minefield of new experiences to navigate through and get used to.

Even getting a phone, using public transport, opening a bank account, and looking for accommodation can be highly stressful for a new arrival.

 

The Settlement Curve

The illustration below by the team at Immigration New Zealand is called “The Settlement Curve”. The curve traces a new migrant’s typical emotional experiences after arrival. It looks like a roller coaster ride, and it isn’t a stretch to imagine that a new visa holder in Australia is likely to experience similar feelings.

According to this chart, it can take new migrant visa holders up to 24 months to fully settle in and start feeling comfortable and happy in their new country!

With appropriate help and support, we believe this emotional roller coaster ride can be smoothed, reduced significantly, or eliminated completely.

“The Settlement Curve” (Courtesy Immigration.govt.NZ)

 

Helping new migrant workers to feel more comfortable in their new country, and assimilate into your business is extremely important for your workers’ mental health and happiness.

It is important that your overseas employees have an idea about Australia’s social norms (culture), their employment rights and obligations, Australian laws, and how to seek assistance if needed.

A happy, well supported, and settled employee will be engaged with your business, productive, and poised to facilitate business growth, whereas a neglected, homesick, and culturally disengaged employee, may develop mental and physical health issues, which can negatively impact them, affect your whole team, and your business bottom line in general.

 

Provide optimal support and training

To facilitate high-performance employees, as an employer you should ideally provide support both in and outside of the workplace.

You can assist your foreign employees to integrate into the workplace with tailored training and support. It is also important to assist your migrant worker’s family to integrate for example, into accommodation/housing school, and employment.

Helping your overseas workers understand how day to day things work in Australia, such as how to get a phone or bank account, how the health system works, how to find a doctor, eligibility for things like Medicare, etc, will pay off mightily for any employer employing overseas workers – simply because it helps your new worker find out how things work, settle into their new environment, and reduce their overwhelm and anxiety which comes with living in a new country.

 

What should I include in my foreign worker training?

Topics will vary depending upon the type of work your foreign employee is performing. As a minimum though, topics should include:

 

Resources

The Department of Home Affairs has published a very helpful and comprehensive guide called “Beginning a Life In Australia” in many different languages, which you can access here.

The 128 page guide is excellent and covers everything your foreign employees need to know about living in Australia. It also comes in 39 different languages. We highly recommend that you give it a once over as well.