Big Business And ‘Second Step’ Helps Where Government Doesn’t

Tonight I was really moved seeing Toll Holdings’ Paul Little talk on the 7.30 Report about their Second Step program – getting drug addicts into jobs – about government doing a bit more and about encouraging other corporates to look at Toll’s success…what they are doing, their rewards and the social contribution. Many will have seen the program but the message deserves to be passed on…

Toll chaplain Ruth Oakden says:

“The approach in the transport industry is not about being warm and fuzzy. It’s about big trucks and getting stuff delivered on time. Not many bosses would hire some of the employees taken on by Toll Holdings. It’s hard to imagine any business, let alone a transport company, employing former drug addicts as drivers, receptionists and welders.

Toll has taken on 18 former addicts as trainees. They have gone on to become information technology specialists, welders, clerical workers, forklift drivers, receptionists and drivers. The program offers work for a limited period of 12 to 24 months, with no guarantees after that. Only one failed to make it.”

How Does It Work?

There are random drug tests once a week. Trainees also receive four hours’ counselling a week and are allocated a mentor. Personal histories are kept strictly confidential. Nobody knows their stories, except the managers and mentors.

Ruth continues:

“We talked about the different ways to do it and we decided that writing a cheque was not the best way to help them…

One of the big problems in getting people out of a negative social environment and into a supportive environment is breaking the ties that get them back into drug abuse, and one way to do that is through employment.”

Second Step Followed First Step

The Second Step program was developed after Toll was approached by First Step, a non-profit organisation that runs a clinic in St Kilda working with addicts. First Step provides addicts with treatments such as rapid detoxification including induction onto naltrexone tablets and slow-release naltrexone implants.

Toll became one of the biggest funders of First Step, providing managers and supervisors to help it develop its management practices.

It still provides back-office support, with one staff member handling accounts and billing arrangements, and partly covers the salary of an employee who handles the pre-employment selection and a training program, picking out potential Second Steppers, as well as providing counselling.

Ruth, as program coordinator, says they have been approached by other companies interested in adopting a similar program, and she notes the program’s effect Toll managers.

“It opens their minds to things that they haven’t engaged with before, and it means they are considering their current employees slightly differently too.”

Toll is also considering extending the approach to other areas. “It opens us up to less traditional ways of employing people, and once you jump over that hurdle, you start asking what other potential employees are there.”