Skilled Migrant Professionals October 2014 | Page 30

Migration

“But the longer they stay in accounting, the less positive they feel. They become disappointed
and disenchanted because it is less likely that they are matched with appropriate jobs and given
independent tasks or access to managerial positions”

Remote and Excluded
“We asked about social interaction in the workplace and had a measure for exclusion. Migrant
workers experience incidents of exclusion at a higher rate than locals,” Yu says.
“They also have difficulty accessing opportunities in the workplace. Accounting is very much a
customer-focused industry but the taxation side, for instance, has lower status than auditing because auditing is more likely to involve relationships with high-powered customers. We suspect
that migrants are not given equal levels of access to such customers.”
Peter Wilson, chairman of the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI), agrees that the
problem of exclusion may lead to migrants suffering lower levels of professional identity over
time. He says there are some examples within Australian industry of organisations managing issues of diversity and cross-culture extremely well. But Wilson notes that the AHRI, which presents
annual awards for various HR specialties, is not being bowled over by the number of high-performing businesses in the category of cross-cultural and diversity management.
“The capacity within Australian industry for foreign workers to feel alone and remote is
huge,” said Wilson. “There are two points of disconnection for migrants. One is the fact that
their [original] culture is naturally relationship-oriented and the other is simply that they are already disconnected from their relationships as they have come to a new country. So employers
must find a way to engage with them as people, to make them feel good about their work and
about themselves to get a better result.”
According to Wilson, the way business is conducted in Australia can be different to the way business is done elsewhere and managers need to be aware of this when dealing with migrant staff.
“In Australia we say: ‘Here is the job. You understand what needs to be done. If you perform
well then I will pay you well.’ But Asian cultural systems, for example, are more driven by relationships, so the way to get the best out of them is to say: ‘Here’s the job. We are seeking out performers but I understand