457 Visa used to be the most popular and common work visas in Australia until April 18, 2017 when the Australian government abolished it. The 457 Visa used to sponsor the efficient and skilled overseas workers to temporarily work. The full name of 457 Visa had been Temporary Business (Long Stay) and was introduced in 1996 when John Howard was the Prime Minister (border.gov.au 2017). The holders of these visas could be employed for up to 4 years in Australia and could have been employed in any legal profession in the country (Patty 2017). However, the visa had received numerous criticisms from both the government bodies like Fair Work Ombudsman as well as from the local people who were being deprived from getting jobs due to these visa holders.
The 457 Visa had several pros and cons due to which it had been popular among the employers and on the other hand, was to be abolished. Before discussing about the cons that led to its abolition, the advantages of the visa should also be concentrated on (Campbell and Tham 2014). Primarily, the 457 Visa was of a huge advantage to the overseas workers as its term was rather long and it facilitated them to shift to Australia for that long period with their family. This visa, moreover, was not only applicable to the workers but also to the students studying in any of the Australian university (Breen 2016). Apart from this, the process of obtaining this visa was really quick and therefore, the employers in Australia could immediately fill in their vacancies. However, as the article shows the vacancies for the jobs were increasing in the remote areas, distant from the cities because the overseas workers were less interested to work there and the employers could not afford local workers with higher wages. Moreover, it is undeniable that 457 Visa was an easy way to get hold skilled employees, abolishing which the report shows how Australia is suffering from a huge skills shortage (Oliver and Wright 2016). Moreover, the 457 visa facilitated the workers to have Tax Break, which was really advantageous for the immigrants in a new country to settle down there without much worry of taxes. In addition, as for paying taxes, the immigrant students and overseas workers were entitled to pay the same rate of tax, unlike in some countries where some extra taxes are levied on the overseas employees. Apart from this, under this visa, the workers were eligible to recuperate the superannuation at the time when they would be leaving Australia (Larsen 2013).
However, there were some disadvantages too of this visa, the biggest being the temporary nature of the visa. According to the norms of this, if a worker lost his job, he was left with only 28 days to find another unless he had to leave the country (Breen 2016). This was one of the major reasons of concern for the employees who wanted to work in Australia. Besides, the school fees and medical insurance were not covered under this visa. This was a major disadvantage for the employers hiring overseas employees, as the responsibilities of shouldering special medical insurances were entitled on the Australian employers. On the other hand, the overseas employees would have to do medical insurance on their own if they wished to work as teachers or in any government organizations, as the coverage of health insurance is compulsory in Australia. Besides, having a 457 visa, it was difficult to a bank loan in Australia as people with permanent residency were more favored. Due to these reasons, many of the employees had difficulties to work for longer in Australia with a temporary visa and it was not good for the Australian organizations as well since they had problems with retaining employees (Campbell and Tham 2014).
From this article, it can be seen that after the abolition of 457 Visa, the Australian workplaces are suffering from a huge skills shortage due to various reasons. However, researches show that there is no scarcity in the workforce of Australia but the lack of Australian employers’ willingness to train the local employees has created the problem. The 457 Visa had facilitated the employers to obtain skilled as well as experienced workers so that the companies would not have to invest in the training programs of the employees (Kumok 2015). However, the Australian companies are forgetting that they have an ethical liability to train their employees and give the fresher employees a chance. The training sessions should aim to enhance the general skill among the employees as well as the work orientation and the technical skills. Most companies view developing the training programs as an additional burden of expense but it is their ethical liability to bear that for the sake of the society and youth where they are serving. Besides, many a time, the experienced employees need training too and therefore, there is no harm in giving the local inexperienced people opportunities (Marshall 2013). Besides, the Australian employers often seek overseas employees not only because they are experienced but because they can be paid a much lower wage. However, apart from all these, the organizations have ethical responsibilities to create employment in the area they are doing business that none of them can negate. The most obvious reason behind this being the local resources they are using and the assistance they are taking from the local government. Hence, even if the required skilled and experienced workforce is not available in the area, it is the ethical duty of the employers to invest in training and develop a suitable training program for the local people to make a skilled workforce out of them. As for Australia, several organizations have put forward the excuses to support their inability to develop an additional training program stating that they are running out of budget or that they are understaffed to provide training (Patty 2017). However, all these reasons are not sufficient to overlook the moral and ethical responsibility of the employers to invest in training of the locals that they are carefully evading.
During 1980s the 70:20:10 model was developed by three researchers and it has been one of the most commonly used methods thereafter to train the employees. This formula is known to explain the most advantageous sources of learning and development applicable for the managers. The explanation behind 70:20:10 Model is to receive 70 percent of the job-related knowledge while on the job, 20 percent knowledge comes from the interactions that the employees make with their seniors and colleagues and the rest of the 10 percent knowledge can be derived from the formal educational programs held for the employees to teach them (Scott and Ferguson 2016).
This model is regarded as a general guideline for the organizations to ensure the maximum effectiveness out of the training programs they arrange and it also helps them to arrange other developmental inputs and activities accordingly. Many of the aspects of 70:20:10 Model is similar to the conventional training methods although some contrasts with them. The makers of this model lay maximum emphasis i.e. 70 percent to the practical experience on the job, as they believe that hands-on experience is the most beneficial for the improvement of the employees (Le 2013). Similar to this, in the traditional training method, on the job training finds an important place. This process of learning while performing is a highly popular training method until today. However, according to the traditional approaches the on the job methods mostly rely on understudy approach i.e. when an employee is trained he remains under supervision of a senior. There are so many other methods of on the job training such as special projects, committee assignment or job rotation but the 70:20:10 Model does not clearly mention any specific method (McCall et al. 2014). On the other hand, the importance placed on interaction in the 70:20:10 Model is really innovative and useful as interaction is one significant way through which the employees can learn a lot that no formal way of training can teach them. This medium of training, in the traditional HRM training methods, is missing. On the other hand, the 70:20:10 Model does not omit the formal educational coaching sessions that companies arrange to teach their employees in a direct way (Blackman et al. 2016). These coaching sessions aim at developing the skills and efficiency of the workers as well as their technical skills. However, the weight age percentage of the formal educational training being only 10 has attracted criticisms. Moreover, the model avoids some significant training aspects like behavioral and sensitivity training of the employees that are highly essential although it is a fact that 70:20:10 Model concentrates more on innovation in business than on all round development of the staffs. The model has been criticized too for not being based on enough supporting data and for the nature of research that it is based on. Overall, the 70:20:10 Model emphasizes the non-formal ways of training and in this way it is unique; however, the grounding ideas behind the model are more or less same with the traditional training approaches (McCall et al. 2014).
The 70:20:10 Model is closely linked with the learning and development process in a way that aligns the process of learning directly with the business strategies. Due to its advantages, several organizations are adopting the 70:20:10 Model, as it is significantly useful to realize the business innovation strategies the leaders make for their organizations (Shanmugasundaram, P. and Aanandhi 2016). In brief, it is a deceptively plain framework that extends learning to the point where employees witness improved performance. The model brings together diverse development activities that until now were not imparted by the learning programs of the organizations and rather were dealt with as disconnected entities. The major advantage offered by the 70:20:10 Model is that it aligns structured development with workplace learning acquired from both non-formal and formal sources and that this integration is perfect to execute business strategies. Moreover, this model offers scaffolding that brings change within the organizations and acts as an ideal medium supporting the development of newly made strategies (Le 2013). The 70:20:10 Model assists in operating principles and defining the models of stakeholder relationship while providing a clear guidance to up skill learning, that the employees being trained with the help of this model can acquiesce mostly through non-formal medium of learning. In general, it has been seen that organizations employing this approach report having a greater impact on their overall business in comparison to the organizations that employ technology enabled learning (Scott and Ferguson 2016). The organizations have also reported that usage of this model to train the employees leaves a positive impact on the organizations in terms of improving the communication level among the leaders and subordinates as well as emphasis placed on learning while performing strategy facilitates the companies to receive output from the employees who are under training. Thus, the model in a way enables the enterprises to put the entire workforce into work and monitor the learning outcome of the employees at the same time. Studies conducted in this area of concern shows that the employees trained under this unique integration of non-formal and formal learning are likely to respond four times faster to business change and a noticeable improvement in the motivation level of the staffs has also been observed. On the other hand, any business strategy would aim customer satisfaction that can be achieved not only through theoretical knowledge but through experience and the power of situation analysis (Blackman et al. 2016). The importance of this practical knowledge is highly realized in the 70:20:10 Model where the hands on experience gained from on the job training enable the employees to meet the customer requirements. Therefore, it is evident that 70:20:10 Model is apparently a very useful model aligning business innovation and organizational change with the very process of learning and development.
References:
Blackman, D.A., Johnson, S.J., Buick, F., Faifua, D.E., O’Donnell, M. and Forsythe, M., 2016, January. The 70: 20: 10 model for learning and development: an effective model for capability development?. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2016, No. 1, p. 10745). Academy of Management.
border.gov.au 2017. Abolition and replacement of the 457 visa – Government reforms to employer sponsored skilled migration visas. [online] Border.gov.au. Available at: https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Work/457-abolition-replacement [Accessed 7 Jun. 2017].
Breen, F., 2016. Australian Immigration Policy in Practice: a case study of skill recognition and qualification transferability amongst Irish 457 visa holders. Australian Geographer, 47(4), pp.491-509.
Campbell, I. and Tham, J.C., 2014. Labour market deregulation and temporary migrant labour schemes: An analysis of the 457 visa program.
Kumok, Z. 2015. 457 Plans: The Pros and Cons. [online] Investopedia. Available at: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-advisors/110515/457-plans-pros-and-cons.asp [Accessed 7 Jun. 2017].
Larsen, G., 2013. The subclass 457 visa: a quick guide. Parliament of Australia. Accessed November, 11, p.2013.
Le, Q.V., 2013, May. Building high-level features using large scale unsupervised learning. In Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), 2013 IEEE International Conference on (pp. 8595-8598). IEEE.
Marshall, V. 2013. Pros and cons of a 457 visa – HRM online. [online] HRM online. Available at: https://www.hrmonline.com.au/section/specialist-hr/pros-cons-457-visa/ [Accessed 7 Jun. 2017].
McCall, M.W., Yost, P.R., McHenry, J.J., O’Connor, P. and Plunkett, M., 2014. Beyond 70-20-10 leadership development. In Panel discussion presented at the meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Honolulu, HI.
Oliver, D. and Wright, C.F., 2016. Australia’s shifting skills ecosystem: Contemporary challenges in education, training and immigration’. Industrial Relations Reform: Looking to the Future, Federation Press: Sydney, pp.163-186.
Patty, A. 2017. Businesses estimate skills shortage of 54,000 jobs in NSW. [online] Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/content/adaptive/smh/business/workplacerelations/businesses-estimate-skills-shortage-of-54000-jobs-in-nsw-20170524-gwcl7j.html [Accessed 7 Jun. 2017].
Scott, S. and Ferguson, O. 2016. NEW PERSPECTIVES ON 70:20:10. [online] Available at: https://www.goodpractice.com/media/1586/new_perspectives_on_702010_2nd_edition_online.pdf [Accessed 7 Jun. 2017].
Shanmugasundaram, P. And Aanandhi, V., 2016. Prolegomena To Blended Learning: A Novel Tool For Developing Self Directed Learning (Sdl) And The 70-20-10 Model Learning For Pharmacy Students. International Journal Of Pharma And Bio Sciences, 7.
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