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Jawun aligns to the organisation’s purpose

An organisation’s core purpose refers to its ‘most

fundamental reason for existence’.

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Jawun aspires

to build capable and empowered Indigenous

communities who will lead systemic, breakthrough

change for Indigenous people. Companies and

government agencies are attracted to partner with

Jawun when their organisation’s purpose aligns

to these aims. Catherine Hunter, Head of Corporate

Citizenship at KPMG, explained:

‘Inspiring confidence, empowering change’ is our

internal purpose as an organisation. If you look at

the concept of Jawun—around skills transfer and

capability build to help empower our Indigenous

communities to self-determine the communities

they want to see—the notion of empowerment is

absolutely aligned with our purpose.

Engagement with Jawun enables companies to

demonstrate their purpose to employees, clients

and the wider community in practical ways.

Westpac, Australia’s first and oldest bank, was one

of Jawun’s founding partners in 2001. Westpac

CEO Brian Hartzer described the value of the

Westpac–Jawun partnership in helping to achieve

the organisation’s purpose:

Westpac aspires to contribute positively to

the national economy for the benefit of all

Australians. Our relationship with Jawun gives

Westpac employees the opportunity to continue

to learn, respect, celebrate and share skills, so

that ultimately we can help shape a nation in

which Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians

share social and financial equity. By doing this

we’ll be living up to our purpose.

Another founding partner of Jawun is the Boston

Consulting Group (BCG). BCG partners with its

clients in solving the hardest problems challenging

their businesses—and the world. In explaining

Jawun’s alignment to BCG, Anthony Roediger,

Partner, said: ‘Our work with Jawun and its

Indigenous partners allows us to contribute

to a better Australian society, to stretch and

grow as individuals, and help Indigenous leaders

and their communities solve some of the most

intractable challenges there are.’

Partnership helps drive strategic objectives

When the Jawun partnership is part of an

organisation’s business strategy it can be leveraged

to drive value more broadly across the business

in the areas of workforce development, culture

and reputation.

For participating agencies within the Australian

Public Service (APS), Jawun has been integral

to

growing internal capability

in the area of

Indigenous affairs. It also supports an agency’s

talent

strategy by being positioned at targeted

organisational levels as a development program

for future leaders. Dennis Richardson, Secretary

of the Department of Defence, said the partnership

serves a very practical purpose for his agency:

‘I see Jawun as a vehicle through which individuals

can gain a lot, but I can get benefits which drive

broader change in the organisation.’

APS secondees attest that public servants derive

real value from working with people who are

directly affected by government policies and seeing

the effect

policy decisions

have on the ground.

This view was endorsed by Katherine Power,

Director of Talent Strategies at the Australian

Public Service Commission, who said secondment

experience plays back into the way policy and

programs are approached in the APS:

In many instances we are seeing some quite

transformational learning occurring. People are

coming back and saying, ‘As public servants we

often focus on analysis and driving towards a

solution, and actually it is also really valuable

to pause and listen and find local solutions to

local challenges without assuming we have

all the answers.’ So it is creating individuals

who advocate a different approach on how

we go about designing and delivering different

policies and programs. This is a direction we

are increasingly moving towards; finding local

solutions and working with communities rather

than telling them we have the answer. It is really

important that we have people with experience

that gives them those insights and they bring

that back, share it with others and inject it into

their own work and the work of their teams.

30 JAWUN 

2015 LEARNINGS AND INSIGHTS