The gloom clouds in the US spelling the end of DEI may have captured our attention back in January, but here in Australia we were heartened by a renewed commitment to diversity and inclusion by many organisations.
This year we developed diversity and inclusion strategies for an international airport, a well-known media company, a national retail property manager, an iconic technology firm, a state power utility, a healthcare provider, rail organisations, retirement living operators, and a century-old for-purpose organisation. Diversity right there.
What that mix had in common was a recognition of the need to take intentional action to attract and retain diverse talent. Given that an organisation’s commitment to diversity is a key choice factor for a new generation entering the workforce, that’s going to pay-off for business.
Engaging broadly
We valued the opportunity to meet with lots of employees, as well as customers and other stakeholders, to develop these strategies. This broad engagement may have been, in part, a response to concerns that some men felt overlooked in the diversity conversation, and to the backlash seen more starkly in the US.
It may have also reflected the higher priority placed on finding common ground in an increasingly fractured world. Commercially, it reflected the importance of tailoring interventions to business context, sector workforce trends, and diverse customer needs.
Pragmatic solutions
A common ask was to make sure strategies were pragmatic.
So we looked for opportunities to tweak processes and practices to achieve fairness – in hiring processes, in performance review processes, in the way team meetings are structured. That’s the basis of effective behavioural change anyway – embedding change into the system.
Targets and teaching (not preaching)
This year, gender equality target setting has been on the agenda for all organisations with 500 or more employees, and we’ve been guiding some of Australia’s largest organisations to carefully select their numeric and action-based targets.
As well as strategy and target-setting support, we’ve continued to facilitate our ‘Inclusion in Action’ workshops, most notably in one program for 400 board members of Victorian public sector organisations, where we helped them identify steps to attract diverse talent and create the safe and inclusive environment that we all want.
Any program like this where we engage people from the dominant majority – and help them see the ways people from under-represented and marginalised groups are often subtly excluded at work – is always a highlight.
You can read more about this program, which featured in Australia’s newsletter for public service professionals, The Mandarin.
This year we’ve seen more organisations focusing on psychological safety, the shared belief that it’s safe to speak up without negative retribution. And rightly so, given a new authoritative book by Professor Binna Kandola says psychological safety is the overlooked key to organisation success.
We’ve travelled around Australia meeting leadership teams and boards to discuss ways to build psychological safety and help mitigate psycho-social hazards, the latter in response to new Australian work, health and safety laws.
Speaking of Binna Kandola, he’s back with us early next year to talk all things psychological safety. Our clients loved hearing from him at the start of the year. This one will stretch our thinking about how to cultivate safety at the individual, team and organisational level.
And, finally, we can’t talk about 2025 without mentioning AI. We stepped up our focus on AI in our diversity diagnostics to help clients remain alert to the potential for bias in models and ensure AI systems are designed with accessibility in mind.
Gratitude
Thank you to everyone who has worked with us this year, our 16th year in business. Whether you’re a client, a partner who rushed to a RFQ deadline with us, or just interested in what we do, we’re grateful for your support.
We have an outstanding team of consultants who ride the highs and lows together, and I can’t thank them enough for their professionalism and care.
