How Gen Z is driving Indigenous business success

The youngest cohort of workers in the corporate sector is helping businesses drive better social outcomes, especially within Australian Indigenous communities. 

The number of Indigenous businesses grew by 74 percent in the 12 years to 2018, bringing in a total of at least $4.9 billion annually, according to Melbourne University’s faculty of business an economics. 

While the catalyst for this growth has been government-imposed spending targets, businesses say they are increasingly finding young ‘champions’ among their workforce eager to find ways to create social impact.

“We are absolutely seeing that the new generation of workers want to work on purpose-driven initiatives,” says Stephanie Roache, sustainability manager at Australia post. “I’ve heard many people from our procurement team say that on the weekend they don’t necessarily want to talk to their friends about the big telco contract they secured at work. They’d rather talk about how they worked with one of their big fleet suppliers to carve out a small contract to give to an Indigenous fleet company giving them an opportunity to get into the supply chain and grow. That’s giving people a go and makes workers feel really good about what they’re doing.”

Businesses aspiring to improve their Indigenous engagement in supply chains are gradually shifting strategies from spending targets to employment targets. They are also finding ways to support greater Indigenous representation in technical roles, rather than low-skilled roles such as cleaning.

Roache features in JLL’s Perspectives podcast with Troy Rugless, co-founder of Indigenous-owned PSG Holdings and director of Evolve FM, and Henri Fadli, Executive Director Supply Chain and Procurement, JLL.

The episode was recorded to coincide with National Reconciliation Week.