Live in Sunraysia or Gippsland? We’d like to hear about how your work is changing.

Have you learnt new skills for work in the past few years, changed jobs, or thought seriously about changing what you do for work? Maybe you are using new tools or technologies, retraining for a different field, or supporting someone in your household through a career change.

Our research team at the University of Melbourne is investigating how people in Sunraysia and Gippsland deal with change at work, so that support for workers, communities and industry in regional Victoria better reflects what’s actually happening on the ground.

This is a short survey (about 5 minutes) about your work, training and household. At the end, you can choose whether you are interested in a follow‑up conversation.

We are offering $75 as a thank you* for taking part in a short conversational interview.

*You will receive this voucher after you have completed the interview (whether in person or online) via your mobile phone. You must have an Australian mobile phone number to receive the voucher. We reserve the right not to provide a voucher where we reasonably believe a person is not eligible for the study or has misrepresented their situation in order to take part.

Take survey

  • Every conversation is different, and we'll follow your lead — so there's no need to prepare anything in advance. That said, here are some of the themes we'll likely explore together:

    • Your current work situation — what it looks like right now, and any recent changes you've experienced

    • What prompted the change — what brought you (or your partner) to the point of pursuing a job transition or reskilling

    • The learning involved — the type of training, education, or learning that's been part of this journey

    • The ripple effects — how this transition has affected your household and the wider people in your life

    • The conversations behind the scenes — the discussions and decisions that took place within your household or networks about making this change

    • What it's like living regionally — how being based in a regional area has shaped your experience of this transition

    • The hard parts — the challenges and barriers you've come up against along the way

    • Looking ahead — how you think this transition might shape your work, lifestyle, or household wellbeing into the future

  • We can meet in person or online via Zoom or Teams — whatever works best for you. The conversation will take around 40 minutes and will feel more like a relaxed discussion than a formal interview. We'll ask open-ended questions and follow your lead, so there's no right or wrong way to respond.

    With your permission, we'd like to record the conversation — this simply helps us make sure we capture everything accurately. The recording will only ever be used for transcription purposes and won't be shared beyond the research team. If you'd prefer not to be recorded, that's absolutely fine — we'll just make some brief notes after we've spoken.

  • Your participation is entirely voluntary. You can choose to withdraw at any time and for any reason — and if you do, there will be no negative consequences whatsoever. Any data you've shared up to that point will not be used.

    Unless you specifically ask to be identified, everything you share with us will be de-identified. Unattributed quotes may appear in project outputs — including conference papers, scholarly articles, summary reports for industry and government, submissions to parliamentary inquiries, and op-eds — but nothing will be traceable back to you personally.

    If anything you share touches on topics you'd prefer to keep off the record, we'll generalise those details in any written outputs to make sure you remain unidentifiable.

    Even with de-identification, there is a small risk that someone could identify you from what you've shared. To manage that risk, we've put the following safeguards in place:

    • If something you've told us is identifiable and can't easily be de-identified or generalised, we'll either come back to you for permission to use it — or we simply won't use it at all.

    • You'll have the opportunity to review, edit, and veto the use of your transcript, or any part of it.

    • Only the four members of the RISE project research team will have access to transcripts, audio recordings, and research notes. All materials will be stored in password-protected, encrypted files at the University of Melbourne for five years, after which they will be securely erased. If a third party is engaged to transcribe interviews, they will only have temporary access to the relevant audio recording.

    Our research protocol has been reviewed and approved by the University of Melbourne Office of Research Ethics and Integrity (application 2025-33795-71790-4).

  • Right now, there's a lot we don't know about reskilling in Australia. Who is actually doing it? What gets in the way? And how does it affect the people around you — your household, your community, your region?

    Policymakers and employers are making big decisions about the future of work, but without a clear picture of how reskilling is really happening on the ground — especially in regional Australia — those decisions risk missing the mark.

    That's where you come in. Your experiences will help us answer these questions and build a clearer, more honest picture of what reskilling looks like in real life. The knowledge we generate will be shared directly with governments, industry, and community organisations — so that the support, training, and policies developed for workers actually reflect the realities people face.

    The final project outcomes will be available on this website, and we can send them to you directly on request.