Australia’s displaced employees labelled ‘commercial genocide’

A senior MBA specialist with global industry and academic experience believes Australia is creating “commercial genocide” by allowing a generation of talented business people to be displaced.

The warning has come from Dr Lee Styger who is Director of the MBA (Master of Business Administration) Program for the University of Wollongong’s Sydney Business School.

“There’s a vast group of mainly middle-aged business people who are despondent, distressed and displaced who have found themselves out of work due to factors beyond their control such as the Global Financial Downturn,” Dr Styger said.

He said it was no secret that student numbers in programs such as the MBA have been falling off right across the country.

And who should be the first in the queue to boost these student numbers -- the displaced business people who should be upskilling their qualifications, according to Dr Styger.

“There are people who have started in businesses and trades at a young age and have worked their way up the ranks to become CEOs, senior account managers, operations managers and then suddenly find themselves out of work due to the current financial gloom.

“As they try to claw their way back into another job they are up against much younger people equipped with impressive academic credentials.”

Dr Styger said employment statistics hid the true situation going on in Australia as many of these displaced people were taking on any jobs they could find – and the wealth of knowledge these displaced employees had built up was being lost.

“And you find some of these displaced people re-badging themselves as ‘consultants’ which was something of a nonsense when they clearly don’t have the breadth of knowledge both industry and academically wise.”

Dr Styger is one of the rare breed of MBA directors who has both strong industry and academic credentials. He recently attended a conference where he was the only participant to have both sides of the coin of industry and academic experience.

He is a chartered scientist, a chartered environmentalist and a chartered engineer and he has held positions in the high tech, medical and transport areas across Europe, Asia and Australia. He has worked with companies such as BAE, Rolls Royce and BMW and currently consults for leading companies and government agencies around the world.

“I have been involved in international supply chain management and have brought products to market and closed markets down.”

And while still working in industry he realised the vital importance of improving his academic skills to the level of undertaking a masters degree and a PhD “the hard way” while holding down senior full-time commercial roles.

“So I can confidently look any displaced employee in the face and say I know what you are going through and can I advise you that your best way out of this is to catch up educationally.”

Dr Styger said companies should get more involved to keeping good staff and assist them to approve their knowledge base.

“These days you don’t have to quit your job to do an MBA or a Master of Logistics or a Master of Retail degree as they can be done part-time or in some modular form – and fee help is available.

UOW’s Sydney Business School operates out of Wollongong and Sydney, up and down the east coast and courses can also be run in different parts of the country.