Key themes to emerge from the project were:
· A lack of formal workforce planning in the wine industry.
· The importance of education and training to both employers and employees.
· A need for industry marketing of career opportunities beyond winemaking.
· Desire for regional on-demand training, particularly short course and skill set based training
to upskill existing workers as well as train new employees.
· Need for a coordinated approach to drive the implementation of the workforce planning
and development strategies.
In recent years a range of wine industry reports have attempted to provide an accurate
understanding of the physical and economic conditions facing the industry. While these reports
are important for decisions on the future of the industry, they have rarely addressed workforce
development issues.
Due to this lack of baseline data about the wine workforce, the SAWIES project shifted emphasis
to focus on obtaining current, valid data to provide an accurate picture of the current workforce,
as well as accessing information to help build a picture of the future workforce needs. A range of
data was sourced covering business demographics, workforce planning, industry trends,
recruitment turnover and retention, training and skills development and workplace conditions. As
a result the project has produced a number of resources:
· Small employer survey
· Large employer survey
· Employee survey
· Task audit summary
· Overall research report summary
· Workforce profile
· Career information kit.