This Week's Spotlight - Rick Kane, Strategic Advisor of Rick Kane Consultancy
- Rana Kordahi
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
This week we shine the spotlight on Rick Kane, Strategic Advisor at Rick Kane Consultancy.
Rick began his career in Employment Services in 1995 as an Employment Consultant, steadily working his way through frontline, leadership, and executive roles. Over the next three decades, he became one of the most recognised and influential voices in the sector, ultimately serving as CEO of Disability Employment Australia (DEA), where he helped shape national policy, strengthen provider capability, and champion the rights of people with disability.
After leading DEA, Rick transitioned into consultancy, bringing his deep expertise to organisations seeking strategic guidance, stronger employer engagement, and meaningful reform.
His career trajectory reflects a rare combination of frontline insight, executive leadership, and long‑standing advocacy for a more inclusive labour market. The strategic insight and influence he brings make him someone well worth learning from.
1. How did you get your start in Employment Services?
A friend I was working with at Ringwood/Croydon SkillShare got a job as an Employment Consultant at Crosslink, a DOES (Disability Open Employment Services) operated by the Salvos. I was looking to change jobs and went for an interview as well. That was in 1996. Actually, my start was probably the SkillShare job and I got that through a fantastic CES staff member (yes, I was on the dole and loving it) who went the extra mile assisting me with my resume and prepping me for the job interview.
There was a lot of learnings in my first couple of years in this sector and a lot of support and a bit of old fashioned luck.
2. What advice would you give to leaders who carry a lot on their shoulders, managing people, processes, and systems all at once?
People in any job who carry too much of the burden should learn to chill and trust. That is easy for me to say at the ripe old age of 63. After 40+ years in the workforce and 60+ on the planet I can see in hindsight that we stress far too much and a lot of that is over things that don't matter that much in the end. Trust is key. That opens the door to delegation.
Give people responsibility, clear goals and autonomy. People love autonomy, so let them have it, but make sure you are all on the same page re getting things done. And enjoy what you do. That will ease half the burden whatever its weight.
A good leader knows instinctively or through the journey that having good, smart, interesting, funny people around them is their job. People who can crack the data, divine the research, keep good staff and get results based on smart and effective operations.
"A good leader knows instinctively or through the journey that having good, smart, interesting, funny people around them is their job."
3. Employment Services is incredibly rewarding, but the first year can take real resilience. What advice would you give to a new employment consultant starting out?
Attend to the three Cs: care, curiosity and circumspection. I have mostly worked in disability employment and the job is about the person on the other side of the desk, their life, their journey, their family and communities and their job.
Treat compliance as admin, you have to engage it, so do it properly but the real job, it's rewards and learnings is about the participant and the employer. And focus on what you can contribute to the participant and employer getting mutual benefit from each other.
"Give people responsibility, clear goals and autonomy. People love autonomy, so let them have it.”
4. Can you share a memorable moment when something you did, a conversation, piece of advice, or action, made a positive difference to a staff member, peer, or job seeker?
A long time ago when I was an Employment Consultant I assisted a participant who had not worked for over 5 years into a job packing meat at a Nandos warehouse. The participant had serious mental health issues, mostly managed by medication, understanding his illness and being in the "system" (a MH service share-house, support workers, good family).
He did not disclose his illness as was his right. He worked there for about 6 weeks before he started feeling pressure, in incidental interactions. A fellow worker called him an "old bastard" and he did not recognise that as a (possibly crude) workplace form of endearment. We talked and he decided it was time to disclose his MH diagnosis. We met with the foreman and he explained that while he loved the job and his fellow workers he was feeling pressure trying to socialise in the workplace.
On hearing about his MH diagnosis, the foreman didn't blink, he replied, oh, my sister's boyfriend has schizophrenia. He then asked my participant how he was going. He showed care. That immediately eased a slice of the pressure. We then organised a work schedule that suited the employer and the participant.
I was invited to present to the warehouse workers on understanding MH. The participant worked there for 10 years. We all learned a lot from that experience. However, I believe that if the participant had disclosed at the interview, even with the foreman's personal experience, the participant would not have been offered the job. That is why building employer's understanding of disability is as important as assisting people with disability find and keep a job.
"Building employer's understanding of disability is as important as assisting people with disability find and keep a job."
5. What surprised you most about working in Employment Services once you were actually in the role?
How bogged down the system, providers and participants are by compliance and admin. Over 30 years the level and inanity of compliance has grown well beyond any other aspect of the work.
I loved Monty Python well before coming into employment services. I didn't realise how bang on accurate they were about bureaucratic administration interference until I started working in employment services. Also, how unfocused the program objectives are.
6. What keeps you motivated in this industry, even on the hard days?
How many of us are frustrated with the inequities of the world? Some of the great social movements of and across the world have occurred during my lifetime. And while great tangible strides have been made, each of those social movements still have a long road ahead to bear witness, let alone enjoy the fruits of democratic parity. To be tangibly a part, even in a small way, of the disability rights social movement, and engaged in the rise of the voice of disability (as slow and incremental as it has been) keeps me keeping on.
In 2021 the disability employment program reform reference group, facilitated by DSS, had 30 representatives, with more than half of that reference group being people with disability, DRO representatives.
In the past 20 years that was the first time disability representatives held the balance of power in a DES reference group in the run up to the next iteration of the program. That is a good thing and I trust that balance is maintained and grows into the future. The growth of the disability voice in decision making roles in positions of power regarding government policy, practice and programs is the way forward. That is what motivates me.
Connect with Rick Kane on LinkedIn
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