The case for diversity & inclusion

Diversity – “the collective mixture of differences and similarities that include, for example, individual and organisational characteristics, values, beliefs, experiences, backgrounds, preferences, and behaviors.”

Inclusion – “the achievement of a work environment in which all individuals are treated fairly and respectfully, have equal access to opportunities and resources, and can contribute fully to the organisation’s success”

Feeling welcomed and included, a part of the team, has a substantial effect on whether we feel good when we’re at work, our ability to perform in our role, and our overall wellbeing.

Australia, and subsequently its workforce, is one of the most diverse countries in the world. We come from a wide range of cultural, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, gender identities, ages, sexual orientations, and differing family responsibilities.

Yet discrimination, bullying, and harassment in the workplace remain ongoing issues, particularly for people from different cultural backgrounds, people with disabilities, mothers returning to work, LGBTI people, and mature age employees.

Diversity is about our individual differences and acknowledging the unique blend of knowledge, skills and perspectives people bring to the workplace.

Diversity can include characteristics such as cultural background and ethnicity, age, gender, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, language and education. Diversity also includes characteristics such as professional skills, working style, location, and life experiences.

An inclusive culture is one where everyone feels valued and respected and is able to fully contribute. It is about removing barriers to make sure everyone can fully participate in the workplace and have equal access to opportunities. Inclusion is about empowering people to contribute their skills and perspectives for the benefit of organisational performance and business outcomes.

The moral argument is weighty enough, but the financial impact – as proven by multiple studies – makes this a no-brainer.

Diversity is central to innovation. It brings forth new and better ways of doing things, helps us to harness the benefits of technology and improve the efficiency and quality of our services. Inclusion is the key to unlocking this potential.

When we value workplace diversity and inclusion we see benefits such as higher employee engagement, improved performance, greater innovation, retention of talent, improved employee wellbeing and lower levels of unlawful behaviour such as harassment and discrimination.

The case for diversity & inclusion lies in valuing peoples abilities instead of their limitations

Whether business owners and managers like to admit it or not, people tend to recruit someone that reflects back themselves. Sometimes when a management team states they recruit on cultural fit what they really mean is they are looking for a while male aged between 25 – 45 that likes to sink a few beers at the end of the week and supports the West Coast Eagles. Sometimes it’s overt, such as my example, but sometimes you can look around your workplace and realised you’ve basically employed the same person 40 times, this is called unconscious bias.

2018 Diversity & Inclusion report conducted by Hay’s found that  63 per cent of respondents across all markets believe leaders hold a bias towards people who look, think or act like they do.

Research suggests that we instinctively categorize people and things using easily observed criteria such as age, weight, skin color, and gender. But we also classify people according to educational level, disability, sexuality, accent, social status, and job title, automatically assigning presumed traits to anyone we subconsciously put in those groups.

The “advantage” of this system is that it saves us time and effort processing information about people, allowing us to spend more of our mental resources on other tasks. The clear disadvantage is that it can lead us to make assumptions about them and take action based on those biases. This results in a tendency to rely on stereotypes, even if we don’t consciously believe in them.

Read more about this here

No matter how unbiased we think we are, we may have subconscious negative opinions about people who are outside our own group. But the more exposed we are to other groups of people, the less likely we are to feel prejudice against them. So the more diverse our workplaces, the more it will become the norm.

Millennials have a unique perspective on diversity. While older generations tend to view diversity through the lenses of race, demographics, equality and representation, millennials see diversity as a melding of varying experiences, different backgrounds and individual perspectives. They view the ideal workplace as a supportive environment that gives space to varying perspectives on a given issue.

Kicking goals in the area of diversity & inclusion isn’t easy, it’s a work in progress, something that requires continued work and maintenance. Empathetic leadership is key to this transformation. For real change to happen, every individual leader needs to buy into the value of belonging – both intellectually and emotionally.

Like what you see? Click around and discover how partnering with us can give your business a competitive advantage by aligning strategy with people & culture, or, give us a like on Facebook for regular updates on industry trends, blog posts & photo’s of me having coffee at my regular haunts and / or my dog & cat disrupting my work day

Simone Pickering | The People & Culture Office

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In celebration of International Women’s Day

I spent the ’90s in my 20’s and was fed the “you can have it all” message on a steady stream from womens magazines. From Cleo to Marie Claire the message was the same, the modern woman is a superwoman; kids, career, a home lifted from the pages of Home Beautiful. It was all there for the taking and there was an expectation you would.

Never a shrinking violet or raised to be subservient I embraced the message with gusto, I had my boys at 20 & 22, built our first family home at 21 and was promoted to my first senior position at 23. As far as the rhetoric was concerned I had it all.

Around the turn of the millennium I started to revolt on the message, much preferring the “you can have it all but not at the same time” message. Instead of killing myself to be the perfect wife, mother, homemaker I started spreading the load, my husband left his job with a local contractor that saw him work 15 hour days, sometimes for 40 days straight, for a position working an even time roster so he could spend more time with our children. Now upper primary school aged, our boys were taught how to use the washing machine & basic cooking skills. Everyone started to ensure our home life was more equal, and that’s what International Women’s Day (& feminism) is about – Equality.

International Women’s Day is a time for everyone, regardless of gender, to celebrate the progress women have made towards equality and to remember how much further there is to go. Male support, especially when men are prepared to use their privilege to support gender equality, is a welcome amplification of women’s voices. And remember, feminism isn’t just about improving the lives of women, it’s about dismantling ALL damaging gender stereotypes and roles. Achieving gender equality should be as important for men as it is for women. Greater work / life balance is about creating policies that benefit everyone, not just women.

Removing gender stereotypes at work is equally about negative stereotypes of males in predominately female industries such as nursing, hairdressing, care giving and childcare as it is vice versa with females in male dominated industries such as mining, science & technology and mechanical trades.

Equality is an issue for everyone. It’s a societal issue built around how workplaces and job roles are structured; the gender stereotypes our children are fed via our beliefs, the toys and games they play and media imagery they are presented with. The shift starts with you.

So grab a cuppa (or wine) & settle in to read what a bunch of amazing women have to say about IWD.

Footnote – my intent with this post was to have equal amounts of males & females from a variety of age groups sharing their thoughts or experiences as they relate to International Women’s Day. Well, you may have noticed a distinct lack of males in the 30+ age group, and it’s not from lack of trying. When I put the call out to half a dozen or so males it was done thinking that these males, whom I’d so respected within the business world, shared a desire for equality, they were all in senior roles, they all had females in their teams, never once in my interaction with them was I given pause to believe they held slightly sexist views. And here-in lies the problem, you probably got to the stat about the gender pay gap remaining virtually unchanged for the past 20 years and thought, WHAT THE HECK! WHY? HOW? Well when the change needs to be made at the top first and fed down as a cultural shift from our business leaders, and business is predominately led by males aged 30 + age group , and then you consider that 100% of my admittedly small sample size of the population declined to write something, then you start to see why.

Like what you see? Click around and discover how partnering with us can give your business a competitive advantage by aligning strategy with people & culture, or, give us a like on Facebook for regular updates on industry trends, blog posts & photo’s of me having coffee at my regular haunts and / or my dog & cat disrupting my work day

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