Building a Skilled Workforce: A guide to VET for Human Services Employers

About this guide

If you’re an employer or manager in human services, you’ll be familiar with workforce issues like mandatory skill requirements, the need to upskill staff, attracting workers to the sector and limited availability of resources for training.

Employers across the human services say they need to engage with the Vocational Education and Training (VET) system to meet growing workforce demands – but they don’t always know where to start or who can help.

From an organisation perspective, there’s an acknowledgement – particularly within our sector, of the growth that’s happening and how rapidly it’s happening – organisations can no longer do it alone. There’s a definite need for those strong partnerships to be built and utilised from a pipeline perspective.

(Aged care and disability service provider)

The Human Services Skills Organisation (HSSO) is a national employer-led body addressing the growing and evolving workforce needs in aged care, disability support, allied health, veterans’ services, youth services, and early childhood education and care.

The HSSO has designed this guide to help employers and managers in these industry sectors to address workforce development needs and challenges using VET.

The guide provides simple information about what VET can do for you and how to navigate the system. There’s also guidance on how to build effective relationships with training providers and how you can play an active role in shaping training products and policies.