Guest blog written by Cameron Artango, David Kaling, Nadia Kun, Sharlyne Mangai, and Emmanuel Tomarum
Youth Unemployment stands to be a great issue in present Papua New Guinea. In Team Survivors, we worked on addressing part of this issue through the Greater Sepik Labour Mobility Program in East Sepik, Papua New Guinea. As individuals who are committed to working in the deliverance of this program, the team was brought together to work on how to best reform the program and up-scale recruitment to labour mobility schemes abroad. Our team comprised of a Human Resource Executive Director, a Provincial Youth Coordinator, and three Youth Advocates and Volunteers.
In working on the problem of how to best reform the Greater Sepik Labour Mobility Program (GSLMP) to upscale recruitment within the East Sepik provincial recruitment hub, the team’s main concern was the low amount of workers recruited from the province under both the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) and the New Zealand’s Recognized Seasonal Employer (RSE) schemes. These schemes recruit seasonal laborers through the PNG Government’s Treasury Department, under its Labour Mobility Unit and recruitment hubs from around the country. Based on these the team constructed our problem statement to be:
“A combined total of almost 48,000 visas were issued to workers participating in Australia’s PALM (Pacific Australia Labour Mobility) and New Zealand’s RSE (Recognized Seasonal Employer) scheme between July 1st 2022 and the 30th of June 2023. For the two seasonal work programs, in the year to 30th of June 2023, 17,424 RSE workers arrived in New Zealand while Australia had 18,383 over the same period. In addition, close to 12,000 PALM visas were issued for long-term employment in Australia for up to 4 years. To date, PNG has sent less than 2000 workers and of that, the Greater Sepik Labour Mobility Program has sent only 30 seasonal workers.”
Although our problem statement is long, we wanted to capture statistics and show the great difference that stood in recruitment between PNG and other countries in the Pacific and the potential that GSLMP has in recruiting if there is a proper recruitment system and structure in place.
The GSLMP runs under the Office of the Governor of East Sepik Province and is managed by Dr. Preston Karue, whom the team was fortunate to have as our coach and mentor. Dr. Karue was part of the PDIA 1 Cohort and possess a great understanding of the importance of PDIA and its tools and processes as well as a vast knowledge and understanding of the program itself.
Being our key authorizer as well, he was and continues to be of great assistance to us in our iterations and the overall efforts in pursuit of the reform. His guidance and commitment to the cause and this team steered us through applying the learnings of the course to our problem.
The learnings of the course throughout these past 12 weeks have been concrete, enriching, and practical and they have immensely assisted us progressed through in our pursuit of reforming the program. This course taught us how to:
- Best deconstruct our problem, identify the root causes and specific issues behind them, identify authorizers and concerned stakeholders, find entry points and access them through engagements; and
- Understand what it means to work as a team, being committed to upholding the values we have established; and
- Celebrate small wins and acknowledge that every single step counts towards reaching the end goals.
In deconstructing our problem we have identified 16 sub-causes which we have overtime scaled down to 10. These were ranging from candidate behavioral characteristics to funding delays to low worker demands. Through the PDIA process we have made significant progress and gained huge insights in addressing each of these sub-causes. Our progress included engaging stakeholders and establishing pathways for partnerships, creating key documents, and restructuring current structures to cater for the reform.
By the end of this month, November 2023, there will be an official launch of the program which will see a reform of the current GSLMP structure with Memorandums of Understandings (MoUs) being signed with key stakeholders for partnerships, these include The Voice Inc. and the PNG Tribal Foundation, a new proposed manpower structure for the recruitment hub, and clear pathway for work ready preparations established and promoted for awareness within the province for potential and interested workers. Additionally, earlier this month, the GSLMP made a call-out for applications for interested candidates for the program using a new selection criteria.
The PDIA approach has shifted our perspective of problem solving and has greatly changed the way each of us approach problems. We have come to appreciate its wider applicability and are certain this approach will be used in every other problem that we encounter regardless of its magnitude. We are now using all we have learnt from this course and will continue using them in seeing this reform through.
To fellow PDIA practitioners around the world, we want to share that although it may be difficult to engage authorizers and key stakeholders, understanding your context and building good relationships goes a long way in establishing a strong foundation to work on.
This blog was written by participants who completed a 12-week PDIA for PNG online action- learning program from August – December 2023. 36 participants successfully completed this program.