What the most inclusive employers do differently

A new financial year is a natural moment to look at how your business operates and ask what could work better. Workforce planning, budgets, team structures — most employers review these things in June and July. But one area that often gets skipped in that review is recruitment.

Not just who you hire, but how you hire. And whether your current process is working for you or quietly against you.

Employers who consistently get inclusive hiring right tend to do things a little differently from the start. Not dramatically differently. But the gaps add up. Here’s what they do and how you can apply it before the new financial year gets away from you.

1. They write job ads around what the role actually needs

The most inclusive employers start with a simple question: what does this person actually need to be able to do? Not what qualifications do they need on paper, but what skills, attributes and behaviours will make them effective in this role.

That distinction changes the way a job ad is written. It tends to result in shorter requirements lists, fewer arbitrary degree or experience thresholds, and language that invites a broader range of applicants rather than narrowing the field before anyone has applied.

It also tends to surface better candidates. When you advertise for what you actually need, you attract people who actually have it.

2. They don’t rely on SEEK and job boards alone

Mainstream job boards have their place. But the most motivated, work-ready candidates may be working with specialist employment service providers through Workforce Australia or Inclusive Employment Australia, being supported to find the right opportunity at the right time.

Employers who build relationships with employment service providers (like the team at CoAct) access a different pool of jobseeker. Pre-screened, work-ready candidates who are actively supported through the hiring and onboarding process. That reduces risk and tends to improve retention.

3. They treat the first 90 days as seriously as the hiring process

Getting the right person through the door is one thing. Keeping them is another. Inclusive employers know that the first 90 days are where retention is won or lost, and they plan accordingly.

That means structured onboarding, clear documentation of role expectations, and regular check-ins in the early weeks. Not formal performance reviews — just brief, low-pressure conversations that ask: how are you going, and is there anything that would help?

Those conversations surface small issues before they compound. They signal to new employees that their experience matters. And they create space for adjustments to be made while there’s still time to make them.

4. They make flexibility the default, not the exception

Rigid availability requirements, inflexible shift patterns, processes that don’t account for the reality of people’s lives — these things quietly shrink your candidate pool and push good workers out the door.

Inclusive employers don’t treat flexibility as a concession. They build it into the way work is designed wherever the role allows it. And when a specific adjustment is needed for a specific person, they approach it practically rather than treating it as a complicated HR problem.

5. They don’t wait for a problem to start a conversation

Many workplaces only have the hard conversations reactively — when something has already gone wrong, when an employee is disengaged, or when a resignation arrives. By that point, the outcome is usually already decided.

The employers who retain people well create space for those conversations earlier. They normalise asking what helps people perform at their best. They don’t make employees feel like they need to reach a crisis point before raising something.

That might sound like a culture shift. In practice, it usually starts with one manager asking better questions.

6. They measure the cost of turnover

One reason inclusive hiring doesn’t always get the strategic attention it deserves is that the cost of not doing it is invisible. Turnover costs — recruitment advertising, onboarding time, lost productivity, the institutional knowledge that walks out the door — don’t show up as a line item. They’re absorbed quietly across the business.

Employers who take inclusive hiring seriously have usually done the maths. They know what a bad hire costs them, and they understand that a supported, well-matched placement through Workforce Australia or Inclusive Employment Australia is far cheaper than another recruitment cycle.

What this looks like in FY26

You don’t have to change everything at once. Most employers who get this right started with one thing: one role filled differently, one relationship built with a specialist provider, one onboarding process made a little more structured.

The new financial year is a practical moment to make that start:

• Review how your job ads are written.
• Ask whether your onboarding process is set up for the people you’re actually hiring.
• Have a conversation with an employment service provider before the next vacancy lands on your desk.
• Get in touch with the team at CoAct to find out how we can help you become a more inclusive employer.