building everyday digital & trade capabilities for regional and rural WA communities
building connected digital & trade capabilities for regional and rural WA communities
Form follows function capabilities
Our mission is to create measurably stronger capabilities for individuals and communities in regional and rural Western Australia. We aim to do this by supporting policymakers, designers, engineers, subcontractors/employees, small business owners and trade clients in bridging the labour mobility and skill gap between digital workers and traditional trades. And the how? Specific capability-focused investments, co-designed policy and grassroots services.
Regional and rural WA futures by hand
We mean something specific when we say ‘capabilities’. Our framework for evaluating Steadyhand projects draws on the Capability Approach, first developed by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, and which has since grown into an influential framework for those concerned with multidimensional community development. Steadyhand brings together tradespersons (broadly construed as anyone engaged in some service-based practice that stems from a trade tradition) and digital workers to foster a number of key capabilities and functionings.
Recent empirical work done on SMART work design by world-renowned researchers in Western Australia at the Center for Transformative Work Design have helped to refine what some of those key capabilities and functionings are likely to be for particular workers, organisations and businesses. But Steadyhand's projects emphasises the way people co-design and interpret the capabilities they wish to foster themselves.
Digitally-enabled trades in capability terms
The capabilities we develop go across multiple stakeholder groups:
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Policymakers (LGA, State, Federal and Regional/International)
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Researchers, Engineers & Designers
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Investors
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Trade businesses, their apprentices, employees and subcontractors
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Digital workers
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Young people in regional and rural areas (18-25)
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Hidden workers in regional and rural areas who face underemployment due to job market obstacles
Most importantly, we work on capabilities in a specific conception of regional and rural WA spaces. We target what the Regional Australia Institute (RAI) refers to as Great Small Cities, those 31 cities in Australia over 50,000 in population excluding metropolitan capitals. These Cities and their rural networks are marked by unique transitions from old to new economic drivers, demographic change. We honour the details of these places.
1. Narratives that Great Small Cities are mired in slow and negative growth, as well as other forms of social dysfunction and incapability.
Gross Regional Product (GRP) estimates are still experimental, and unhelpful for analysing West Australian Great Small Cities due to limitations in their sub-regional definitions, narrowly linking prosperity to mining-intensive areas. But this picture misses the truth, and we have other ways of measuring regional city and rural network capabilities.
2. Regional cities will be left behind in the new economy world.
Current data shows significant digital literacy gaps between metropolitan and regional/remote Australia, with WA bearing the worst inequalities, leading to assumptions that rural zones are reluctant to participate fully in the new economy world.
3. Population size is the most important factor in predicting economic performance and human development indicators.
The mere fact of the co-location of people and resources in cities sometimes leads to the untried policy assumption that larger towns and cities perform better than smaller ones, an assumption often statistically disproven.
4. Past performance is the best predictor of future growth.
As Dr. Leonie Pearson writes: 'International literature on regional development emphasises that the greatest growth is being seen by second tier regions, those traditionally considered ‘under performers’. This ‘catch-up’ growth plays directly to bolstering national economic performance, countering the orthodox economic approach of ‘backing winners’.'
Regional cities are consistently misunderstood within national policy narratives. Here are four myths set out by the Regional Australia Institute that Steadyhand's capabilities-focused approach confronts.
WA's Great Small Cities & Their Rural Networks
The Problem Space
Source:
Leonie Pearson, Kim Houghton, Geraldyne How. Lighting Up Our Great Small Cities: Challenging Misconceptions" 2017, Policy Paper for the Regional Australia Institute (RAI)
Supporting SMART work design in Great Small City trades under pressure.
IV. Great Small Tradies & Artesans
Capability Areas: Justice, Health, Economic
Supporting individuals, groups, organisations and businesses in their sustainable and data-driven interactions with local water systems, but who are often hampered by a lack of public support, educational opportunities or operational integration.
III. Great Small Waters
Capability Areas: Justice, Land Management, Health, Economic
Supporting the next generation of producers, unit managers, production workers and artists that serve the growing demand for regional and rural WA film, theatre and arts productions, but which face complex policy disarray, uneven industry protections/expectations and strategic-funding obstacles for further development and secure employment.
II. Great Small Productions
Capability Areas: Education, Economic, Arts & Culture
Supporting organisations and actors that contribute important public-serving capabilities for transport and mobility, and which face strategic-funding obstacles for further development, logistical weaknesses and disconnected policy.
These include repairers in transport, courier services, shuttles and commuter services, and specialised access-focused initiatives across ages, genders, sexual orientations and cultural backgrounds which connect people to new spaces or new ways of moving/being.
I. Great Small Mobilities
Capability Areas: Justice, Health, Education, Transport, Economic
Steadyhand Five-Year Strategy (2026-2031)
Useful Links
Steadyhand builds on decades of specialised research and practice.
regionalaustralia.org.au
transformativeworkdesign.com
datawisely.au
digitallabour.ilo.org
Regional Australia Institute (RAI)
The Regional Australia Institute is a think tank that regularly publishes credible policy papers and data on regional Australia.
A WA Research Centre where passionate organisational psychology researchers and professionals are working together to transform work under the directorship of Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, Professor Sharon K. Parker.
Center for Transformative Work Design
Data Wisely
Led by 2024 Asia-Pacific Women in AI Award Winner Sarah Kaur, Data Wisely specialises in AI strategy and design across government and industry.
ILO's Digital Labour Policy Tracker
The ILO's policy tracker that aims to provide a comprehensive overview of global policies, legislation, collective bargaining agreements, and judicial decisions related to digital labour platforms.