Sydney company rated OECD best practice employer

Sydney power-supply manufacturer Benbro Electronics has been highlighted in an OECD report as a best practice employer.

In fact, Benbro is the only company cited from the seven countries studied so far — Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Australia, Luxembourg, Spain and the UK.

The report, Sickness, Disability and Work, is being prepared for the 30 OECD member countries, to examine and make recommendations on the problem of people with disabilities either leaving the workforce or being unable to gain access to employment. It will show the resultant pressure on long-term sickness and disability benefit schemes

“People from the OECD came to see us last year and asked us a lot of questions about our employment practices,” says Steve Bennett, managing director of Benbro Electronics.

“We were happy to explain our policy for employing people with disabilities but we didn’t realise quite how important this study is.”

Benbro employs 20 people, eight of whom have a disability of some kind. They have a policy that requires that at least 25% of their workforce should be people with disabilities.

Steven Bennett and his brother John also founded the Employers Network on Disability, an association of employers actively contributing to the employment of people with disabilities.

“But we’re no sheltered workshop,” Bennett said.

“We employ people for their ability to do the job and we don’t accept any government subsidies, because that would demean the employees and set them apart from their workmates.

“We treat everyone the same and pay above-award rates. And we get great results.”

Benbro produces critical power-supply equipment for use in communications, power-generation, mining and military applications.

“Most of the equipment is mission critical and installed in isolated regions, so reliability is paramount. We’ve proved that people with disabilities can produce the goods,” said Bennett.

“Now, as a result of this report, other OECD countries might follow our example.”