Changes to the demographic make-up of your organisation can have profound impacts on organisational culture – both in a positive and negative way, depending on whether you create the conditions that allow for cohesion.

A high-performing, multi-generational workforce requires a selection of specific behaviours and cultural elements, namely inclusive learning cultures that “celebrate differences and embrace mistakes” and encourage different communication styles, according to a research team from the Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing at Griffith University.

Boards and senior HR management teams need to ensure they understand how changes in demographic trends might require a refresh of certain organisational practices, says demographer and social commentator Bernard Salt AM.

For example, we’ve seen a rise in Australian life expectancies, which jumped from 69 in 1950 to a current 83 for men and 85 for women, he says.

“Before, people worked up to the age of 65, got a gold watch and retired,” says Salt, who is speaking at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in August. 

But the nature of work has changed. 

“In the 1950s or 1960s, many of the jobs were in manufacturing, or labouring in areas like building and construction,” says Salt.

“If you were a blue-collar worker and made it to 65, you usually couldn’t work anymore because of the physical consequences of having worked with your body from the age of 15. You needed to take the pension and retire.

“Today, a greater proportion of the workforce is involved in knowledge work. Medical advancements are also improving our quality of life and life expectancies, providing people with more opportunities to continue work beyond the age of 65.”

On top of this, the current cost-of-living crisis means many people are less prepared for their retirement years and have had to go back to work, he adds. This is a concept known as ‘The Great Unretirement’.

“By default, we’ll end up with a greater proportion of our workforce over the age of 50 and, proportionately, around the age of 70,” says Salt.

Hear more about the future team member of 2030 from Bernard Salt AM at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition on 20-22 August. Secure your spot today.

The Bunnings approach

A company that is already preparing for this demographic shift is Bunnings, which claims age is never a barrier at any of its stores. 

Around 30 per cent of its store team members are aged 50+ while around 14 per cent are aged 60+. Its oldest employee is 93 years old.

“We learnt a long time ago that older and more experienced team members are an integral part of creating a great place to work and providing our customers with the best experience. They have significant life and industry experience, making them a wealth of knowledge for our customers and wider team,” says Damian Zahra, Bunnings’ Chief People Officer. 

“Every organisation is different and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to engaging older people in the workplace.”

Having said that, he adds that Bunnings believes creating a supportive environment for older workers starts with flexibility. 

“We do this by first and foremost offering casual, part-time and full-time working options because we know it’s an important way to keep your team engaged and supported in their wellbeing and performance. 

“Fewer people aged 15 through to 25 are funnelling into the workplace. A shallower pool of youth coming through means there will be a skills shortage for decades.” – Bernard Salt AM, demographer and social commentator

“Then there’s the extras like our popular ‘Travelling Team Member’ program where people can pick up casual shifts at different Bunnings stores while they travel across Australia and New Zealand.

“A team member can map out their desired travel journey and proactively contact stores in the areas they’re visiting to see if any casual shifts are available. They have the flexibility to work as much as they like based on their travel schedules and preferences.”

Zahra says Bunnings’ ‘Retiring Well’ program helps older employees implement a tailored pathway to their retirement. It includes the option of reducing their hours over time to support a gradual transition into retirement, and a dedicated program that provides advice on how they can enjoy financial, emotional and physical wellbeing in their retirement.

Safety is also a priority. 

“We have extensive training and guidelines in place to make sure all our team return home safely each day and feel equipped to perform their roles. 

“This includes ongoing professional development so our team members always feel confident and engaged at work, regardless of their age. 

“We often find our older team value training just as much as our younger cohort.”

Not only is Bunnings creating environments to support its current older workforce to thrive, it’s also actively looking to bring more age diversity into its business.

“We maintain a really flexible recruitment process and use as many channels as possible to reach the communities we serve,” says Zahra. “For example, we place posters around our stores that highlight the great careers of some of our older team members to demonstrate the value mature-aged people can bring to our business.

“We always try to use neutral language in all our recruitment materials, and avoid specific words or phrases that target younger generations. We also accept walk-in resumes to ensure we consider applicants who may not be tech-savvy.”

Read HRM’s article on how to create an age-inclusive culture for the multi-stage career. 

Counting the benefits 

Demographic diversity is a key component of a thriving workplace culture, but when there are no intentional processes around leveraging a multigenerational workforce, it can cause friction points to surface. 

For example, communication barriers can form or differing work styles could lead to conflict within a team. To remedy this, specific programs that cultivate empathy and understanding can help. 

For instance, you could consider:

• Storytelling sessions to give employees the chance to share their career stories with each other, including what they’ve learned, their challenges and their greatest successes.
• Keeping age diversity in mind when building project teams.
• Setting up shadowing programs allowing employees to shadow colleagues from different generations to gain a better understanding of their roles and expertise.

Companies that employ older workers benefit from their corporate knowledge, networks and ability to train and mentor younger workers, says Salt. 

This is an approach that Bunnings has embraced.

“By sharing their knowledge, skills and life experiences, our older team members often become mentors to their younger teammates, which goes a really long way in helping form strong connections and creating a positive working environment,” says Zahra.

“Mentoring can work both ways, and our younger team members can support older workers too.”

There are also opportunities to promote shared learning via reverse mentoring programs whereby junior employees train seasoned employees in relevant areas, such as how to reach a younger audience on social media. 

You could also consider facilitating a skills-sharing workshop where employees of all ages come together to share their knowledge in specific areas.

Griffith University’s research found that valuing co-creation, a strong focus on job satisfaction and tailored HR programs were key characteristics of a thriving multigenerational workforce.

For example, a specific HR program focused on retaining older workers in critical skill areas could help solve Australia’s skills shortages, which Salt believes will be a long-term challenge for employers. 

“Fewer people aged 15 through to 25 are funnelling into the workplace. A shallower pool of youth coming through means there will be a skills shortage for decades.”

If your workforce isn’t yet set up to support employees in the latter portion of their careers, now is a great time to learn from those who already have robust strategies in place. 

This article first appeared in the June-July 2024 edition of HRM Magazine.

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In an increasingly divided world, fostering inclusive workplaces is more challenging and more crucial than ever before. 

According to Edelman’s 2023 Trust Barometer, which surveyed more than 1150 Australians, Australia is currently considered “moderately polarised” and on the brink of “severe polarisation”. Nearly half of Australians (45 per cent) feel the nation is more divided now than at any other time in history.

When this polarisation creeps into our workplaces, it can create a plethora of psychosocial risks, including interpersonal conflict, negative stereotyping and poor communication. 

“The risk is that people form themselves into these binary oppositional groups, and there’s this mentality of, ‘If you’re if you’re not with me, then you’re against me,’” says Dr. Juliet Bourke, Professor of Practice at UNSW Business School and upcoming speaker at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in August.

“But that’s not what the world is really like. There’s a broad spectrum of views. And part of the skill is not getting sucked into that narrative, but to stand back and understand the individuals on a broader spectrum.”

Bourke, who has researched and written extensively on inclusive leadership practices, spoke with HRM to discuss the most effective strategies for leaders to foster inclusive workplaces within a seemingly polarised society.

1. Recognise the spectrum of attitudes towards DEI

An essential step in ensuring that polarisation does not damage organisational culture is engaging employees in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts. However, Bourke stresses that there is no one right way to engage employees in these conversations, given that employees can hold vastly different attitudes and opinions on the subject. 

To help leaders decide the right way to communicate with employees about DEI, Bourke has broken down employees’ typical attitudes towards DEI into a spectrum of six archetypes.

“At one end, there is an oppositional response. That person brings a level of anger or negative emotion to the topic. At the other end is the person who’s really passionate and positively disruptive,” she says.

The archetypes she has formulated are as follows:

• Oppositional: These employees are strongly against DEI, often expressing anger or negative emotions towards it. They might feel that they are losing privilege or being left behind.
• Disengaged: This archetype is indifferent to DEI. Their eyes may glaze over when DEI is discussed, and they’re unlikely to attend events or workshops. They may say DEI is not “their thing”.
• Ambivalent (two types): In Bourke’s view, there are two forms of ambivalence to DEI. The first type is somewhat supportive of DEI, but fears making a misstep and therefore remains silent. The other is fatigued – while they may once have been committed, they now lack the energy to engage.
• Supportive, but not leading: These employees have a fairly positive attitude to DEI and are willing to follow others in their efforts, but don’t take the initiative themselves.
• Champions: This archetype is passionate about DEI, actively contributes to the organisation’s inclusion efforts and pushes boundaries in a positive way.

The goal for leaders, says Bourke, is to meet people where they’re at and move them up the engagement curve. Understanding the spectrum above is crucial to matching the message to the person, since different archetypes will require a different approach. 

She also notes that while employees on the champion side of the spectrum are already fully engaged in DEI efforts, this does not mean leaders can ‘set and forget’ this cohort; they still need to ensure the efforts of these employees are in fact contributing to a more inclusive workplace.

“Sometimes when people are champions, they can also be tone deaf. And they can be like bulldozers. I don’t think that that’s helpful either,” she says. “So leaders have a role to play in keeping champions connected and curious.”

On an individual level, employees are also influenced in different ways by different means of communication. 

Bourke suggests thinking of information in terms of content that engages the head, heart or hands. For example, some employees will be more affected by hard facts and data, while others will be swayed by heartfelt stories with real emotions. Others learn from doing and want to be guided on the actions they should take. The trick to influencing others to be more engaged in DEI is understanding the person’s archetype and the type of information that is most suited to the person.

She also says that leaders should ask themselves whether they are the best person to deliver that message, or if there is another person who is more suited, perhaps because they have a closer, stronger and more trusted relationship.

“I would say to leaders, step back from the black and white and see [your people] through a lens of colour,” says Bourke. “See the person in front of you with a bit more nuance, think about who influences them and [the way] you’re trying to influence them, and experiment with that.”

2. Facilitate open dialogue

Once leaders have established the most effective ways to communicate with their teams about DEI, a crucial next step is to ensure employees feel safe to express their perspectives at work.

Of course, facilitating open dialogue in a workplace where employees have polarised views creates the potential for conflict, meaning leaders may be reluctant to initiate these difficult conversations. However, allowing polarisation to simmer unaddressed is not conducive to a psychosocially safe work environment.

“I would say to leaders, step back from the black and white and see [your people] through a lens of colour.” – Dr. Juliet Bourke, Professor of Practice at UNSW Business School

In facilitating conversations between employees with differing views, one strategy Bourke has found particularly effective is to try and establish common ground between the parties involved to help them understand each other’s perspectives.

“This strategy is about bringing together those two people who are opposed and saying, ‘Well, what do we agree upon?’ And it is unlikely that you won’t find some commonality.”

For example, she says, while there may be polarised views on current geopolitical issues when it comes to religion or political ideology, employees on both sides are likely to agree that family is important and that peace is the end goal. 

Finding this common ground not only helps prevent conflict, but can also help bust misconceptions employees might hold about their colleagues.

“If we have an open conversation and get an empathetic understanding of the other person, it’s harder to hold onto the stereotypical view you went into the conversation with because you realise that person is a person, a whole person, not a cardboard cutout picture.” 

3. Demonstrate curiosity

When facilitating open dialogue among their teams, it’s important for leaders to model the curious mindset that will help employees understand each other’s points of view.

To demonstrate this curiosity, Bourke suggests leaders take part in regular ‘perspective taking’. Within the workplace, this might look like talking directly with employees about their unique experiences, showing genuine interest in their perspectives and asking thoughtful questions to gain insight and build stronger connections.

Leaders can also immerse themselves in other cultures and communities outside of the workplace to gain a better understanding of a particular cohort’s perspective, she adds. This could be as simple as exploring books and films from other cultures or attending community events.

It’s also important for leaders to demonstrate healthy curiosity about themselves.

“The skill of self-reflection [is important],” says Bourke. “As a starting point, [ask yourself], ‘How am I coming across? How am I influencing this conversation, [maybe] in ways that I didn’t intend?’”

Given that it can be hard for anyone to view their strengths and weaknesses objectively, Bourke suggests leaders get input from trusted people in their circles on where their communication styles might show room for improvement.

“You can also look at other people whom you admire,” she says. “If you look at someone and think, ‘I want to be like that person,’ then ask, ‘What is it they are doing that I want [to mimic]?’”

4. Prioritise self-care

Dealing with a polarised workforce in a turbulent business environment can take its toll on HR’s, managers’ and leaders’ wellbeing. 

These difficulties are reflected in multiple research reports from the past two years showing that managers and leaders are experiencing higher levels of burnout than their junior counterparts.

This is an important issue to address since, according to Bourke, inclusive leadership is only possible when leaders have the space and balance in their own lives to approach this complex issue with energy and curiosity.

“For me, when I come across those challenges, I make sure I balance it in my life with situations and people who give me energy because sometimes dealing with entrenched resistance is very draining.

“Giving yourself time to regenerate and [participating in] positive activities is a way to support yourself to be an inclusive leader.”

Dr. Juliet Bourke will be speaking on inclusive coworker behaviours at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in August. Sign up today to hear from Juliet and other experts, including Seth Godin, Dr Pippa Grange and more.

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Head of Culture and Inclusion at Coles Group Katie Wyatt says it’s a fascinating time to work in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). In some ways, it’s getting easier, but in other ways harder.

The proud Noongar Yamatji woman, from Whadjuk Noongar country around Perth, found the failure of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum “incredibly tough”.

“It really made me stop and think about the challenge we have as a business in balancing the nuances of social pressures, customer expectations and investor demands.”

It’s a balance she’s managed remarkably well. Wyatt is the recent recipient of AHRI’s 2023 DEI Champion of the Year Award, which she describes as a welcome recognition of the DEI commitments she and her team have helped to achieve over the past four years.

“Winning has been a real high, almost like the certificate to say, ‘You did it.’ Of course there is nothing individual about DEI achievements, and this is a reflection of collective effort across our business.”

She’s immensely passionate about DEI, which is just as well because it can be “an uphill battle” at times.

“DEI practitioners often don’t own big teams or budgets, so they have to strategise, influence, convince and persuade, which comes with highs and lows. So it’s absolutely awesome to have that recognised with this award,” she says.

Wyatt believes her fierce drive for social justice “has been there from birth”.

“My dad was a stolen child; he was taken from his mum as a baby. And my mum was a teacher and librarian. It was bred into me to be progressive and socially conscious.

“Whether it was my volunteer work, or my time in the not-for-profit and social enterprise sector, it was always there.”

Wyatt has more than 17 years’ experience as a senior leader across private, public and for-purpose sectors. Her corporate work includes seven years in professional services and a stint at Australia Post. After her years in the not-for-profit social enterprise space, she was elated to join Coles in 2019.

“This role has brought me back to large corporate life, which I really love.”

Now based in Melbourne, she’s relishing the chance to “create meaningful impact in a huge business that employs and serves so many Australians”.

Big corporates, big thinking

The expectations on organisations to support social change have never been higher, says Wyatt, especially those that employ a huge part of the community.

These expectations arise from the public, investors passionate about environmental, social and governance (ESG) and diversity, and employees keen to connect with their employer’s purpose, whether that be caring for the environment or profiling diverse women in senior leadership roles. 

These are expectations she upholds and believes are intrinsically linked to business success. 

“Every business, especially large businesses that operate nationally like we do, is going to struggle in a modern world without diversity of thinking and new ideas.

“People often say it’s the right thing to do. But actually, it’s also very much the smart thing to do. And as a business that serves most of Australia, the more diverse we are, the better we’re able to serve our customers. For example, we can think about what our customers might want in particular locations, such as in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne where customers [require] a wider range of foods, including Kosher, Middle Eastern, Asian, Indian and so on. 

“It’s the best of both worlds. I’m working with great people, getting great opportunities, and I feel like I’m making an impact.”

“If people feel like they can be themselves, that drives engagement, which drives performance, and therefore revenue and profit. Diversity is absolutely a smart business decision.” – Katie Wyatt, Head of Culture and Inclusion, Coles Group

Strategies to boost women’s representation in leadership  

Some of Wyatt’s most important work at Coles has been in the gender space. 

In 2019, women accounted for 33 per cent of leadership roles, which jumped to 41.5 per cent by 2023. 

She played a pivotal role in launching the Store Manager Accelerator Program in 2022, which brings women with diverse backgrounds into store leadership roles, supported by development, which focuses on the skills needed in the role over experience.

Since then, 20 women have come through the program, with applications open for the next cohort. There are now 800 women who are store managers around Australia. The women are of all diversity groups, including First Nations and culturally diverse women.

To create positive change, Wyatt looks to research and evidence-based systems for guidance. To inspire her gender inclusion strategies at Coles, she used the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s Employer of Choice for Gender Equality framework, as it’s based on global best-practice research.

“We know that offering flexibility, making sure your talent management processes are as free from bias as they can be, and putting targets on senior leadership roles, all makes a difference,” she says. “You can say, ‘We want more women at the table.’ But unless you are actually creating change in your organisation to make it more appealing and accessible for women, nothing’s going to stick. We now have a really healthy leadership population and pipeline [for women].”

The organisation is also making life easier for transgender people among its 100,000 store workers who have to log on to a roster that displays the legal name they were assigned at birth.

“If they’ve affirmed their gender and now go by a different name, this can be incredibly impactful, and not in a good way. It’s also unnecessary,” says Wyatt. “So we’re reconfiguring our systems to build a solution that shows someone’s name of choice on the roster. While most people won’t notice, for some individuals, it’s going to be massive.”

Owning and driving diversity and inclusion

While it can be hard to quantify the impact of diversity strategies on an organisation’s bottom line, Wyatt measures Coles’ success in terms of engagement and representation.

Impressively, engagement of all diverse groups has increased, largely thanks to Coles’ five key diversity pillars: Gender Equity, Pride, Accessibility, Belonging and Indigenous Engagement. 

Each pillar is led by business leaders with cross-business representation, which Wyatt’s team supports by driving conversation, planning initiatives and helping those in each pillar to think more strategically.

LGBTQI+ engagement, for example, has jumped from 61 per cent in 2021 to 66 per cent in 2023. 

To promote LGBTIQ+ inclusion, Wyatt found another “evidence-based roadmap” to follow: the Australian Workplace Equality Index for LGBTQ+ inclusion, which has since awarded Coles with Gold Employer status. 

It shows that rather than having one champion in the business, all the systems, processes and training must also be inclusive. 

“If the business doesn’t own and drive DEI, then it’s never going to sustain itself.”

And she does mean the entire business – DEI is not just an HR responsibility.

“If people feel like they can be themselves, that drives engagement, which drives performance, and therefore revenue and profit. Diversity is absolutely a smart business decision,” she says. 

“Watching people get involved in these diversity teams and witnessing their individual transformations is what keeps me going.”

“I’m working with great people, getting great opportunities, and I feel like I’m making an impact.” – Katie Wyatt, Head of Culture and Inclusion, Coles Group

Setbacks and catalysts on the path to inclusion

Over the past four years, Coles has been on a “maturity journey”, says Wyatt.

“We’ve gone from being passionate about our DEI cause, perhaps because of people we know, to integrating it into how we do business. Now it’s the way we hire people and the way we develop people. Our leadership population is much more diverse, and that’s not just gender. That’s cultural diversity, First Nations, LGBTIQ+ and people with disability. 

“And that’s not just because my team is running around making things happen. It’s because we’ve hardwired it into who we are as a business.”

Over the coming years, Wyatt plans to continue her work in DEI, “learning and adapting along the way”.

As an Australian company with a huge profile, determining how much to wade into public discourse around social issues remains a “tricky” subject for Coles, she says. The company is strongly committed to reconciliation, but didn’t feel it was its role to tell the public or its team how they should vote in the Voice to Parliament referendum.

“While I personally was hoping to see a Yes vote, organisations don’t vote and it wasn’t our role to tell anyone how to do so.

“It’s a tricky line to walk, but businesses need to make those decisions for themselves, in line with their values and with the information they have at the time. And those decisions have to make sense, both for your people strategy and for your business commercially.”

While promoting the inclusion agenda is certainly getting easier, the road can feel “bendy and jolty”, she says. But that only fuels her passion and drive.

“In the uncertain economy and global world we’re operating in, DEI feels even more important, but even less predictable.

“Sometimes there are moments that can feel like a real setback in the work we do. But in other ways, they can also feel like a catalyst to do more.”

A version of this article was originally published in the April/May 2024 edition of HRM Magazine.

Know someone who has made award-worthy contributions to their organisation or the HR profession? Applications are now open for the 2024 AHRI Awards. Read more and apply here.

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When Natasha Cuthbert MAHRI explained to her children what she did at work, she used to say, “I help people be happy in their jobs.” 

It’s a simplistic description that echoes her professional purpose: to create a workplace where everyone can be their best self.

“It’s important to be our authentic self at work rather than having a work persona and a home persona,” she says. “Creating a diverse and inclusive environment is what really drives me.”

Happy employees are also good for business, she adds, which is why Cuthbert feels frustrated when people label HR a “soft profession”.

“HR people have to have a really strong backbone and commercial background. It’s about getting the best out of people to get the right commercial outcomes, but doing the right thing by them while you do it. I think making that connection is the most powerful thing you can do as an HR professional.”

Cuthbert’s achievements as Chief People and Culture Officer at Viva Energy Australia led to her winning AHRI’s 2023 HR Leader of the Year Award, a recognition she describes as “very humbling”.

“It’s a very positive endorsement of the great job we’re doing in terms of looking after our people, making the employee experience amazing and delivering our business strategy through a really great people strategy.” 

Of Cuthbert’s win, the AHRI judges said she “clearly understands the importance of listening… in developing HR activities”.

“Her capacity to truly ‘hear’ the voice of her workforce has led to the design of a meaningful EVP framework, leadership framework and D&I framework, which has created true business impact,” they said.

While Cuthbert has no doubt the award will benefit her career, she confesses she had to be “coaxed” into the nomination. 

“While I’m always very keen to make sure that our Viva Energy LinkedIn profile highlights the great things we’re doing on gender equality, flexibility or family, for example, I’m not really someone who personally works ‘out loud’,” she says.

An unexpected passion for inclusion

Though it could appear Cuthbert was always destined for a career in HR, it wasn’t her first ambition.

“My initial degree was in Zoology. I wanted to care for endangered species. I was very passionate about the environment and conservation,” she says.

But then a working holiday role in the UK after university gave her a taste of HR. She dipped her toes into performance management and wrote disciplinary reviews, which she found surprisingly interesting. 

“It’s in those challenging environments where you can really make a difference as an HR professional.” – Natasha Cuthbert MAHRI, Chief People and Culture Officer, Viva Energy Australia

Returning to Australia, she worked for a consulting firm that guided organisations on their strategic vision and values, before working on graduate and mid-level leadership programs.

“I became fascinated by organisational dynamics, team culture and how to get the best out of people at work – so human behaviour, as opposed to animal behaviour.”

Three years later, an offer from Coles Myer gave her the chance to work within the heart of a business, and she revelled in new opportunities to manage operational HR through the supermarkets business and then move onto more corporate programs, such as improving Indigenous employment across supermarkets, early work on the gender pay gap, and starting to think about how to embrace LGBTQIA+ Pride.

But after 15 years at the retail giant, she was hankering for “a really big challenge”.

When an opportunity came up at Viva Energy in 2020, it was the perfect marriage of her environmental passion and desire to make a real difference to people’s lives.

“Oil and gas has to change; we won’t be putting petrol in cars forever,” she says. “And the only way a business like Viva Energy is going to thrive in the future is to have a really strong transformation plan. 

“[The company] has a very clear vision of how it needs to change and I wanted to be part of driving that transformation. For the first time, I have the whole HR department reporting to me. That has been instrumental in reshaping how the people and culture agenda impacts the company. To be given that opportunity has been pretty special.”

Challenging assumptions about gender equality

Passionate about diversity and gender inclusion, Cuthbert also knew that in such a “male-dominated industry that has a bit of a blokey culture”, she could have a real impact. While there was already a push underway to recruit more women, there was a long way to go.

“In our 2020 employee engagement survey, there were comments like, ‘Why do you have to be a female to get a job around here? Men do a better job. They’re better qualified.’ I could see it wasn’t great and that there was plenty of work to do on changing attitudes.”

Fast-forward four years and it’s a completely different picture.

By challenging the assumption that these roles need to be performed on a full-time basis and that prior industry experience is necessary, the representation of women in frontline shift-based roles at Viva Energy’s Geelong refinery has increased from nine per cent in 2018 to 26 per cent in 2023 – an increase that impressed the AHRI judges.

Furthermore, Cuthbert has broadened its diversity pillars from Gender and First Nations to also include Culture, Families, Abilities and Pride.

Among other initiatives that helped secure her the title of AHRI’s HR Leader of the Year, she introduced the ‘Say it Again’ campaign, designed to give employees a safe phrase to use if they experience casual sexism or racism; extra domestic and family violence leave, which is paid time off for employees to find safe and secure housing; and culture and ceremonial leave, which enables team members to observe a religious or cultural day of significance.

“HR people have to have a really strong backbone and commercial background. It’s about getting the best out of people to get the right commercial outcomes, but doing the right thing by them while you do it.” – Natasha Cuthbert MAHRI, Chief People and Culture Officer, Viva Energy Australia

“If people see that our organisation supports MidSumma Pride March, that we’re working with specialist autism services, that we love to see people dressed up in traditional Indian clothes for Diwali, inclusivity feels real and genuine,” she says.

“In our employee engagement survey we no longer see comments about why you’d hire a female over a male. Instead, we see comments like, ‘I have a gay daughter and it’s amazing that I feel that I can talk about her freely at work.’”

While Cuthbert says there’s “always work to be done”, she’s very proud of Viva Energy’s progress.

“It’s in those challenging environments where you can really make a difference as an HR professional. That’s rewarding.”

A values-based approach to transformation

Cuthbert has further challenges on the horizon in terms of Viva Energy’s transformation journey. The company took over Coles Express in May, which brought the number of people across the business from 1500 to 7500. With its more recent acquisition of convenience store operator On the Run, the number of employees will swell to 15,000 later this year.

Cuthbert’s team will be tasked with uniting the three different businesses.

“Each business unit will have a unique culture – the convenience and mobility unit will be different to the culture in our infrastructure business, and that’s okay.”

As the world moves into more sustainable fuels, Cuthbert is aware that business will need to evolve.

“How we morph into a different organisational shape in terms of purpose and vision is very much on our minds.”

She’s confident her Smart with Heart concept will help to cultivate Viva Energy’s leaders of the future. This is a framework defining the competencies that enable its leaders to be successful, and includes things such as: safety first, strategic vision, customer centricity, collaboration, performance and accountability.

“We have a lot of clever people here, but if you’re smart without the heart, you’re not going to get cut-through. We want people to be business leaders and people leaders. So we built a set of smart competencies and heart competencies that frame our leadership program.”

Cuthbert believes a good HR strategy is not only about attracting and retaining top talent, but also about asking the right questions. 

“Getting the complete picture is crucial whether it’s a personal or an organisational matter,” she says. “That’s how we find solutions and create a positive impact.”

A longer version of this article first appeared in the February/March 2024 edition of HRM Magazine.

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As a long-time neurodiversity advocate, and someone who’s spent time with HR managers and executive leaders from almost every industry, I’ve seen countless organisations place neurodiverse recruitment in the ‘too hard’ or ‘not for us’ basket based on simple misconceptions.

In reality, the evidence is stacking up on the benefits of cognitively diverse teams. Studies indicate diverse teams see higher productivity, make better business decisions, and are more innovative. Add to this, data estimates around 15-20 per cent of the world’s population exhibits some form of neurodivergence, meaning those hesitant to hire neurodivergent candidates are also missing out on a significant chunk of the potential workforce.

Major global companies such as Microsoft, Goldman Sachs and IBM are already leading the way with neurodiversity hiring initiatives, but common myths continue to derail the broader conversation when it comes to bringing neurodivergent talent into the workplace. 

Below, we debunk five of the most common myths about neurodivergent employees.

Myth 1: Accommodating for neurodiversity in hiring practices is creating an unfair advantage

Traditional hiring practices – including job descriptions with strict ‘must-have’ requirements and formal interview formats – can be challenging for some neurodivergent candidates to navigate. But simple accommodations, such as sending interview questions to a candidate beforehand, can enable neurodivergent individuals to arrive better prepared and demonstrate the full suite of their expertise. 

This is  a way to provide equity to neurodivergent candidates who face far higher unemployment rates than neurotypical individuals. By adopting a more inclusive hiring process, you’re creating a fairer starting point for these candidates and ensuring a level playing field. 

Myth 2: Accommodating neurodivergent employees is costly and disruptive

Many employers believe that making accommodations for neurodivergent candidates in the workplace will be expensive and disruptive to other employees. In reality, many accommodations are simple, cost-effective, and can be of benefit to all employees. 

For example, flexible working hours, quiet workspaces, providing written meeting notes and agendas, and the option to work remotely can enhance productivity and job satisfaction for everyone. In fact, investing in these accommodations has been associated with improved employee wellbeing and reduced exhaustion, burnout and fatigue. 

Accommodating differences in the workplace isn’t something specific to neurodivergent individuals – it’s just good people management. 

Myth 3: Neurodivergent people are only suited to tech roles

While I have a vested interest in encouraging neurodivergent people to consider roles in tech because of my role at WithYouWithMe, this certainly isn’t the only field their skills and abilities are suited for. 

Neurodiversity covers such a broad spectrum of experiences and abilities that there are neurodivergent candidates well-suited to every type of role. In fact, chances are, you already have several neurodivergent team members succeeding across all your business functions. 

“Instead of thinking about why you shouldn’t hire neurodivergent candidates, consider what your business could gain if you did.” – Ian Handley, VP of Oceania at WithYouWithMe

Myth 4: “We just don’t have any neurodivergent candidates coming through our pipeline”

This is something I hear a lot from hiring managers, and while it can be true in some instances, there are several factors that may explain why:

1. You do have neurodivergent candidates, you just don’t know it. As with any form of socio-cultural differences or disabilities, individuals don’t have to self-declare, and many don’t want to for fear of stereotyping. Others simply don’t see it as a defining factor of who they are.
2. Your job advertisements outline rigid ‘must-have’ role requirements such as educational credentials, past job titles and years of experience. Some neurodivergent people tend to think in black and white – meaning if there’s one requirement of the role they don’t specifically meet, they won’t apply.
3. You have a lack of visibility around your inclusivity efforts. Unless you clearly communicate that you welcome neurodivergent candidates and are eager for them to apply, people may assume the working environment is not welcoming, supportive or able to accommodate their needs. Sometimes you need to invite people to take a seat at the table. 

Myth 5: Hiring neurodivergent individuals will lead to cultural misalignment in the team

Many people are apprehensive about broaching certain topics like neurodiversity or disability in the workplace and worry about saying the ‘wrong’ thing. While this apprehension is well-meaning, it doesn’t foster a culture of inclusivity. Rather, it leads to hesitancy around embracing differences and a perception that those differences will somehow change the culture of an existing team and lead to misalignment between old and new members. 

In reality, building a strong organisational culture is not about increasing uniformity, but instead about embracing the variations and fostering an environment where all team members feel valued, supported and encouraged to share their ideas. Especially in the fast-paced business environment we find ourselves in today, innovation and outside-the-box thinking is critical, and history has shown it doesn’t come from maintaining conformity. 

As businesses strive to navigate a competitive recruitment landscape and a growing lack of digital skills in the market, it’s time for a shift in mindset away from screening people out for their differences and instead seeing those differences as opportunities. 

So instead of thinking about why you shouldn’t hire neurodivergent candidates, consider  what your business could gain if you did. 

Ian Handley is Vice President of Oceania at WithYouWithMe, an Australian social impact tech organisation. In his role, he works alongside leading Australian organisations in defence, government and industry to implement skills-based hiring, enable internal talent mobility, and diversify workforces.

Ian is a neurodiversity advocate and change management leader with a technical background in training management, design and delivery, across 15 years in the defence, government and technology sectors.

Need support enhancing your HR capabilities? Take AHRI’s capabilities analysis test to learn where you can enhance your skill set and receive a personalised report outlining what your AHRI learning journey could look like. Learn more here.

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The last few years have seen diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) climb to new heights on HR’s list of priorities. Recent research indicates that HR professionals are more attuned to the importance of DEI to organisational success than ever before.

According to AHRI’s The State of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Australian Workplaces 2023, the vast majority (84 per cent) of HR professionals say DEI is critical to the future success of their organisation. This increased focus on DEI has been significantly influenced by social movements, heightened expectations from employees and stakeholders and greater engagement in DEI conversations. 

However, the research also reveals a clear gap between intent and execution. Just 50 per cent of HR professionals say their leaders see DEI as a priority for their organisation, and a similar proportion (49 per cent) say their organisation is not placing enough focus on DEI.

To help HR narrow this gap and drive sustainable progress, AHRI’s DEI Advisory Panel has created a paper to guide organisations, DEI specialists and HR professionals in fostering more inclusive work environments. 

Below, three members of the panel offer their insights on ways that HR professionals can respond to some of the most pressing DEI challenges facing Australian organisations. 

Invest in DEI leadership

By Barbara Sheehy MAHRI, National Indigenous Manager, Australia Post

We know when organisations engage in diversity, equity and inclusion strategic practices, the return on investment in enabling diverse thinking and collective voice is impactful. However, these benefits are not linear.

A deliberate lens to invest in leadership capability and diversity appointment, in my view, is the advancement that corporate Australia, industry and government should seek to demonstrate when navigating the DEI landscape.

The AHRI DEI Futures Paper provides HR practitioners and members with valuable insights and evidence-based examples to shift workplace culture from participation towards a maturing capacity through the AHRI Diversity and Inclusion Maturity Model.  

This inclusion framework identifies three key levels of maturity: compliance, changing mindsets and embedding DEI into an organisation’s DNA. This transformative roadmap distinguishes and measures an organisation’s commitment to creating thriving workplace cultures of belonging and impactful, sustainable change.

Another benefit to understanding and embedding the Diversity and Inclusion Maturity Model is that it can be adapted across organisations, regardless of industry, size or complexity. Each organisation’s adoption will be bespoke, however, the learnings, investment and sustainable impact will positively contribute to the ever-challenging yet rewarding landscape of Australia’s DEI conversations.

Read HRM’s article on the importance of intersectional leadership here.

How can HR leverage lived experiences in a respectful and effective way to inform their DEI frameworks?

By Mathew Paine FCPHR, Executive General Manager, People & Culture, Australian Financial Complaints Authority

It’s important that HR can effectively leverage lived experiences to inform their DEI frameworks to ensure they suit a broad range of employees and actually deliver on their needs.

HR can do this by implementing strategies such as:

• Organising listening sessions (for example, inviting marginalised groups to speak at leadership team meetings about their lived experience).
• Sponsoring and funding employee resource groups.
• Collecting feedback through surveys.
• Providing inclusive training.
• Collaborating with external organisations.
• Conducting regular inclusive policy reviews to ensure fairness and equity.
• Encouraging leadership engagement and attendance to D&I events.
• Consulting and gathering feedback on HR initiatives from specific employee cohorts.
• Establishing accountability measures. 

By integrating real-life experiences into these initiatives, HR can gain valuable insights to develop comprehensive DEI frameworks that address systemic barriers, promote inclusivity and foster a culture of belonging.

Collecting diversity data

By Roman Ružbacký MAHRI, Principal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Consultant, Roman Ruzbacky & Associates

Diversity data literacy is becoming an essential skill for HR and DEI professionals – including ensuring Human Resources Information Systems house fully inclusive data sets, and skilled personnel can critically interpret their data, provide insights and develop evidence-based approaches and actions that can be measured. 

It’s important to have clear success metrics in place so you actually understand what action has resulted in moving the dial, whether it’s representative target, or a percentage agreement rate for inclusion in the organisation, or knowing who feels included.

The correlation between data sets is critical to understand the full impact of data. For example, how gender pay gaps are connected to representation, job segregation, recruitment and promotion. Intersectional analysis can also provide a more granular analysis and insights into the employee experience. 

In order to translate these insights into action, HR professionals must hone their ability to find the human stories behind their data sets. Finding strong headline data which is irrefutable can help connect with leaders and inspire greater commitment to DEI.

For example, the number of women who have experienced violence by an intimate partner, the 53 per cent workforce participation rate of people with disability, or the gender pay gap; these are figures you can’t dispute. And they’re the kind of figures that should be prompting people into action.

Check out AHRI’s full Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Futures Paper for more valuable insights on navigating Australia’s DEI landscape and driving sustainable change.

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HR professionals often talk about the social contract at work: how will our teams work together? How do we make decisions, communicate and share information?

The principle of the social contract allows us to consider the spoken and unspoken agreements that govern our daily practices and policies. 

These contracts don’t just manifest in a workplace environment; they govern our attitudes to behaviour, rules and authority in all aspects of our lives. In their ideal form, they can be a powerful force for good, fostering a sense of unity, cooperation and purpose. However, harmful or antiquated social contracts have the potential to perpetuate bias and unfair practices.

According to Marian Baird, author and Professor of Gender and Employment Relations at the University of Sydney, there is a particular social contract employers should consider in policy design, particularly when it comes to parental leave: the ‘gender contract’. 

This intangible contract is made up of a collection of unspoken and spoken guidelines that shape interactions between genders, assigning distinct tasks, worth, duties and expectations to men and women. These rules are often upheld across cultural and organisational frameworks, as well as the ways individuals are brought up within families.

As we strive for greater gender equity, there’s a pressing need to reassess how this contract shapes workplace policies and practices. 

“The gender contract should be integrated with the social contract, so that employers, industry [and] government as a whole are much more conscious of the way in which the lives of women as workers operate, as opposed to men as workers,” says Baird, who will be speaking at AHRI’s International Women’s Day virtual event on 12 March.  

“Once we do that, it’s much clearer and easier to see the sort of policies you need to address the unpaid care that women do, and to work out ways to share the care between men and women.”

Understanding the ‘gender contract’

Historically, the gender contract positioned men as the primary earners and women as caregivers. While society has evolved, some policy frameworks have lagged, continuing to reinforce outdated stereotypes. 

This traditional gender contract has tangible consequences. It contributes to the gender pay gap, limits women’s advancement into leadership roles, and restricts men’s participation in caregiving roles.

Baird points out that the disruption to work during the pandemic exacerbated the existing issue that unpaid domestic work is disproportionately performed by women. At the same time, women’s labour force participation is increasing, leaving many female workers struggling to balance work and care responsibilities. 

“Policies begin in a certain way. And it’s quite hard to shift them without a very radical intervention. And you see that in a lot of our policies around work, care and family.” – Marian Baird AO, Professor of Gender and Employment Relations, University of Sydney

Her research has also demonstrated that having a child delivers a boost in men’s hours of work, while women’s hours tend to decline without full recovery.

These issues are indicative of the need for policymakers to acknowledge the gender contract and adjust to the different demands and expectations placed on workers in their personal and professional lives. This is one of the central arguments made by Baird’s latest book, which she co-authored with Elizabeth Hill and Sydney Colussi, titled ‘Turning Point: Work, Care and Family Policies in Australia’.

Many of the pitfalls in existing processes come down to the fact that they lack a holistic approach, instead relying on reactive and incremental changes to existing policies, she says.

“Policies begin in a certain way. And it’s quite hard to shift them without a very radical intervention. And you see that in a lot of our policies around work, care and family,” she says.

“We need an approach that understands it’s a life course, it’s not just one-off events that interrupt our careers – it’s ongoing. And our policies, of course, don’t match that.”

This brings us to the eponymous ‘turning point’ in Baird’s latest book: can we harness the momentum of change in work and care to improve work experiences for parents and foster gender equity?

The role of HR in integrating work and care 

Rethinking the gender contract is not just about promoting fairness or equity, says Baird; it’s about creating workplaces that reflect the reality of our lives. By integrating work and care more effectively, organisations can unleash the full potential of their workforce, fostering environments where everyone, regardless of gender, can thrive.

The legislative landscape in the gender equity space is moving in a positive direction, she says – evidenced by recent industrial relations changes such as the end of pay secrecy clauses and the requirement for employers to publish their gender pay gap via the WGEA, which was introduced last week. 

Read HRM’s article on what the WGEA pay gap reporting requirements mean for employers.

However, in other areas, particularly surrounding care and parenthood, policy has yet to catch up with the expectations of the workforce. 

While many organisations have enhanced their parental leave and flexible work provisions to position themselves as an employer of choice, a stronger government safety net is needed to ensure employees in all sectors have access to the support they need, says Baird.

One of the most important roles employers play in addressing the gender contract is making it easier and less stigmatised for men to work fewer hours to engage in more care work. Research shows this is one area where Australia is lagging behind its global counterparts, and she stresses that closing this gap is essential to achieving pay equity in Australia.

The below graph details the distribution of paid parental leave among mothers and fathers in Australia compared to other countries.

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For more than 20 years, professional services organisation Deloitte has made gender equity a priority. The company aspires to achieve 40:40:20 gender representation at all levels by 2027. 

This commitment has had a significant impact. Already, women work in 50 per cent of all roles up to management level.

However, in 2021, Deloitte realised that achieving change at higher levels was more difficult. 

The proportion of women working as senior managers and directors was plateauing at around 30-35 per cent. This, in turn, affected female representation at partner level.

Deloitte decided that a dramatic solution was needed. So, the company charged its People and Purpose team, led by Pip Dexter, with reinventing Deloitte’s approach to diversity, equity and inclusion.

The result was a powerful new strategy, which delivered a three-pronged solution. The first was an innovative and forward-thinking parental leave program. The second was the elevation of part-time work. The third was making leaders at all levels more accountable for gender representation. 

This strategy, named Making Work Work for Families, was a finalist in the Best Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategy category in the AHRI Awards 2023.  

Going deep to understand the root causes of gender inequity

Before undertaking the reinvention, the People and Purpose team delved deep to uncover the root cause of the challenge.

“While we had – and still have – 50 per cent representation at more junior levels, why was it that as women progressed through their career they were dropping out of the organisation?” says Dexter, who is a speaker at AHRI’s virtual upcoming International Women’s Day event. 

To find out, the team examined data, best practice and academic papers. In addition, they conducted extensive consultation with employees – comprising more than 30 listening sessions and a survey of hundreds of participants from across Deloitte.

“We pride ourselves on designing people policies for our people and with our people,” says Dexter. 

“So, we ran a lot of focus groups and interviews.”

“It’s part of our philosophy that every man who is caring for a child is creating an opportunity for a woman who wouldn’t otherwise have it.” – Pip Dexter, Chief People and Purpose Officer, Deloitte

Deloitte’s female employees repeatedly reported they wanted to feel sure they could have children without sacrificing their family’s wellbeing or their career trajectory. 

Their priorities were flexibility, the ability to work part-time and ongoing support, such as ways to manage care during school holidays. 

Further, employees sought support at all stages – from planning to start a family, to returning to work, to looking after children during schooling, to caring for ageing parents. 

Read HRM’s article on how to support the ‘sandwich generation’ of employees caring for both children and parents. 

“One of the interesting insights was that women were starting to make choices about whether they would stay at Deloitte before they were pregnant,” says Dexter. 

“So, we knew the target audience, in many regards, was made up of women who were considering having a family.”

Innovative, forward-thinking parental leave

Armed with this insight, the People and Purpose team turned their focus to innovating Deloitte’s parental leave scheme.

Though the ‘target audience’ was women, the goal was to make parental leave – and the return to work – more accessible, flexible and easier for both mothers and fathers. 

“The research shows that people still think caring responsibilities need to be done by [a woman],” says Dexter. 

“It’s part of our philosophy that every man who is caring for a child is creating an opportunity for [their partner] who wouldn’t otherwise have it.”

This opportunity can provide a woman with the time and space to pursue her career – so, it’s essential to achieving female representation at senior level. 

Deloitte’s new scheme gives every employee access to 18 weeks’ parental leave, including superannuation, from day one – and there are no waiting times between periods of parental leave. 

On returning to work, parents receive a support payment which, Deloitte believes, is the first of its kind in Australia. This enables parents to work three days per week while being paid for four, or four days per week while being paid for five, for up to 12 months. 

“[Most parents] struggle with time and money – the cost of nappies, that you’ve gone down to one income, that when you return to work you have no time,” says Dexter. 

Returners also receive coaching sessions – and are relieved from financial KPIs.

“A lot of people worry about KPIs,” says Dexter. 

“‘I’ve been out of the business for 12 months; how can I come back, juggling my new life as a parent, with the same expectation?’”

Once children are at school, parents enjoy flexibility during holidays, with the option of working compressed or elongated weeks. 

In addition, the Deloitte Families Hub, an online platform, provides interactive resources, webinars, podcasts and courses, covering working dads, raising toddlers and teens, elder care and other subjects. 

Elevating part-time work

Given that many new parents struggle with time, it’s often the case that one decides to work part-time – and, more often than not, it’s the mother.

“The majority of our part-time workers are female,” says Dexter. 

“We have to break down this concept of [the] ‘breadwinner’, because you’re both breadwinners. How do you manage this together? 

“For a lot of next-generation families, both parents work part-time, both parents contribute [financially].” 

That’s why the strategy elevates part-time employment for all genders. 

The People and Purpose team developed a part-time playbook, which provides role-modelling, advice from part-time employees and guidance for leaders.

“We have a number of partners who’ve progressed their career while working part-time,” says Dexter. 

There’s also a part-time plan. This empowers employees to talk to their leader to clarify and agree on expectations about schedules, workload, communication, career progression and boundaries. 

“If you work part-time, we adjust expectations accordingly, so there’s no adverse treatment,” says Dexter. 

Making leaders more accountable for gender equity

As well as revolutionising parental leave and elevating part-time work, the People and Purpose team increased the accountability of managers at all levels.

“[Managers] must ensure 50 per cent of our hires at senior level are women, and that when we’re promoting at senior level we have gender balance, and that 50 per cent of people in our succession pools for leadership are women,” says Dexter. 

Further, gender targets are now incorporated into the financial plans of Deloitte’s 1000 or so partners in Australia. 

“We have to break down this concept of [the] ‘breadwinner’, because you’re both breadwinners. How do you manage this together?” – Pip Dexter, Chief People and Purpose Officer, Deloitte

Breaking down gender norms

In just 18 months, the strategy has started changing the way new parents at the company share caring responsibilities. 

There’s been a nine per cent increase in men taking 18 weeks’ parental leave in a block – from 15 per cent to 24 per cent. 

Further, the percentage of men returning to part-time work has grown by 20 per cent. 

“This is something I’m really proud of,” says Dexter. 

“The way you’re going to break down gender norms is with more dads taking on caring responsibilities.

“If we’re seeing more men taking blocks of parental leave, they’re getting deeper explorations of the realities of caring for kids, and making greater connections. 

“More men returning part-time is also really valuable, because, [presumably], they’re taking on shared caring responsibilities.”

Read HRM’s article on how to tackle ‘flexism’ against fathers who work reduced hours to care for children.

These shifts also have the potential to inspire cultural change. 

“What we’re doing is encouraging more men to walk in women’s shoes and understand the challenges of what women have done for decades – or centuries,” says Dexter. 

“I’m super passionate about that because I feel like, through our research and conversations, we’ve got to the heart of the issue – we’ve crafted our policies to address some of the real challenges that families face.”

Advice for HR professionals to champion gender equity at work

According to Dexter, the first step to addressing gender inequity is uncovering the driving forces behind it.

“Try to understand the root cause – because every business is different,” he says. 

“We asked ourselves why diversity was struggling to thrive at senior level, and, by analysing the causes, we were able to design a solution to address them.”

Secondly, it’s important to “rumble” with a challenge – and be open to counter arguments.

“You want to co-design with your people, but you also want to engage with the naysayers,” says Dexter. 

“It’s important to have conversations, and listen to criticism and consider [it].”

Finally, HR and employers should remember that jumping in the deep end is sometimes necessary. 

“Just do it,” says Dexter. 

“If [a policy] doesn’t work, you can wind it back – but you have to try it to find out.”

Hear more from Pip Dexter along with a range of other experts, including Sam Mostyn AO and Professor of Gender and Employment Relations Marian Baird AO CAHRI at AHRI’s International Women’s Day virtual webinar on 12 March. Sign up here.

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In today’s dynamic diversity, equity and inclusion landscape, business and HR leaders must recognise that gender equality strategies cannot just be designed for one type of woman.

Embracing intersectionality, the interconnected nature of social categorisations such as race, class and gender, is crucial. This approach acknowledges the diverse experiences and challenges individuals face, ensuring that efforts toward gender equality are truly equity based, targeted and effective at the system level. 

Div Pillay is on a mission to get organisational leaders to not only acknowledge this, but act on it. As the CEO and Co-Founder of MindTribes and Culturally Diverse Women, a D&I management consultancy and social enterprise arm, respectively, she has spent over a decade trying to move the needle on intersectionality. But it hasn’t always been an easy sell.

In 2016, she spoke with hundreds of business leaders who told her that they “weren’t ready” to include more culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) women in their gender equality plans.

“Back then, people didn’t understand intersectionality at all. They said it was too complex. They didn’t have demographic data to understand who would identify as culturally diverse. [Because of this] they couldn’t understand workforce composition and therefore couldn’t make decisions based on that.”

These organisations went on to create their gender equality plans over the following five years without taking an intersectional lens to their approach, which means that now we’re seeing less and less CALD women in positions of power.

“So while organisations can report to WGEA and say they are reducing the pay gap, if you disaggregate women who aren’t born in Australia or women who are from different cultural background or speak a different language, migrants or those with asylum seeker status – you see there’s a significant pay gap. It’s just that they are a minority in the gender pay gap composition,” says Pillay, who will be speaking on a panel at AHRI’s virtual International Women’s Day event on 12 March.

Pillay cites research which shows that CALD men can earn up to 16-20 per cent less than their Anglo male colleagues and that number jumps to 36 per cent for CALD women.

Inequity around progression opportunities is also a consistent barrier for CALD women.

“The data shows that the women getting onto boards were Anglo Saxon, Australian born and from the same education and social classes as the men in the room, and it was the same for C-suite and executive director roles. For me, that was a case for change.”

Australia is lagging behind

According to 2023 ratings, Australia is 26th in the world for gender equality. New Zealand sits in fourth position.

“New Zealand has been in the top ten forever. Why? Because they’ve taken a gender intersectional approach from the beginning. Their structure tells you that you have to look at all women, all of the time. You don’t look at some of the women, some of the time. It doesn’t work.”

And intersectionality doesn’t just mean a woman from a CALD background – it encompasses all kinds of experiences, she adds.

“It could be an Anglo woman who is a single parent caring for a chronically ill partner or an older parent – which is a rising demographic – or women who have a neurodiversity [diagnosis] that they find out about late in life. Those are the types of women, even in the Anglo cohort, who do not progress into leadership.”

Read HRM’s article ‘How to support the ‘sandwich generation’ at work.’

“If you’re going to do intersections well, then you’ve got to do all intersections, all the time. Then you’ve got to redress the inequity that sits there at the system level, and we are talking to HR leaders about employment systems, of recruitment, selection, onboarding, development and advancement or promotion. All these systems at work have inherent structural biases that are still keeping some women out.”

These women then also earn less superannuation, says Pillay, which means they’re vulnerable throughout their entire lifespan.

“So our data shows [these women] have to continuously work closer to 75 [years-old] to pay the rent – especially single women who don’t have a double income and may take on caring for older parents, so they’re working part-time.

“Singapore calls it a ‘silver economy‘. But they value the silver economy. They’ve done an amazing job of bringing older women back into the workforce and paying them well to use their knowledge and skills. 

How to shift the dial in employment systems

Gender intersectionality needs to be considered at its core rather than as an afterthought, says Pillay.

“It’s always been like, ‘Look at our progress for women. But oh, what about the First Nations women?'”

HR professionals can help change this mindset in their organisations by assessing some of their progresses from beginning to end. Take development strategies, for example. Consider who is exposed to opportunities to be visible and vocal at the senior leadership level. It’s often not the women below the mid-level in the organisation.

“So what they end up doing is switching. They reach that middle level, they can’t progress upwards to get the pay impact they deserve, so they end up switching sideways to other organisations and they kind of begin again. They’ll do two to three years at that organisation and then they’ll move on again. 

“Their resumes look great because they’ve had great movement through different organisations and sectors, and they might have marginal differences in their pay, but it’s often so little that it’s negligible.”

Audit your processes to factor in intersectionality

Part of Pillay’s work at MindTribes is to audit the promotional criteria in organisations to identify potential structural racism or sexism.

“Often promotional criteria, in its language, carries a lot of exclusionary criteria that can hold some women back.”

For example, one role Pillay recently audited required that people had ‘X’ years experience in a specific type of role which, historically, would not have been opened up to CALD women or women with disability. So it perpetuates a cycle of hiring the same people over and over again.

“And it required Australian experience in that specific sector. So you could have had an absolutely talented person who had all of their key experience internationally, in a market that’s ahead of Australia, but you excluded that person by [adding in this criteria].

“You have to look at all women, all of the time. You don’t look at some of the women, some of the time. It doesn’t work.” – Div Pillay, CEO and Co-Founder, MindTribes and Culturally Diverse Women

Pillay also audits organisations’ development plans.

“My background is as a behavioural psychologist… so I like to find the evidence. So I ask people to give me de-identified development plans for their teams and, for ten years now, I’ve been able to guess which plans are for people who are Anglo and which are for people of colour.

“They say, “How did you guess?” and I’ll say, ‘Because what you tell an Anglo person in your team to do in terms of development is very light – it’s around things like getting exposure and going to conferences. What you tell a CALD person to do is deepen technical knowledge, which worsens their [pathway] to leadership. You ask them to do behavioural stuff – style, communication, profiling themselves at an SLT level, which can be hard to get access to.'”

Sometimes these plans are also asking people to go against their natural ways of connecting with stakeholders or communication styles, she adds.

“Let’s say someone spoke with an accent and you kept telling them to speak clearer or slow down… or if they are quieter or more reserved and you keep asking them to speak up. That’s not how their brain or mouth works. They might be a reflector, a thinker or an observer. They’ll give an insightful comment when they need to or see value in it.

“You’re asking them to be more like you than they are themselves and you’re losing the difference that they bring.

“Development plans promotional criteria need to be audited properly, to give leaders some agency to figure out where to take capability builds with managers when they’re having one-on-one and feedback conversations… the bias happens there.”

When Pillay relays these insights to Anglo leaders, she says they’re often quite comforted by it. because they know what to solve for. 

“They see they might need to learn how to develop a person who is not born here differently – equitably but differently,” she says.

Most organisations do a good job of teaching managers about these biases at a theoretical level, but less are doing a great job of telling managers where they are most likely to be introducing biases into their decisions and conversations on a day-to-day level.

“Many [people] go through this leadership training year in year out, but do they have accountability to their team to actually make a substantive shift in [diverse talents’] career mobility and pay?

“And then we go to those managers and say, ‘You’ve lost all the women from your team; gender retention has gone out the window.’ Yeah, because they didn’t know how to promote and develop well; they had no chance to retain her because they didn’t know how.

So now it’s time to give managers and leaders a starting point – and hold them to it, says Pillay.

“Make it a personal development action on their performance scorecard. And ask, ‘Can you show us the evidence of how you’ve done that?’ Then people actually rise to the occasion.”

“You’re asking them to be more like you than they are themselves and you’re losing the difference that they bring.” – Div Pillay, CEO and Co-Founder, MindTribes and Culturally Diverse Women

Also, consider how you use diversity targets or scholarship programs, she adds. While they can be beneficial in elevating diverse talent into high-profile roles, when such positions are scarce, it can cause challenges.

“It means all the women of colour, First Nations women or women with a disability must fight for the one spot that represents them. It means you’re leaving 80-90 per cent of them behind. You’re giving a small ticket to play that doesn’t create a groundswell.”

Instead, Pillay suggests developing an entire cohort of talented CALD and First Nations women in leadership programs that you can draw from when positions become available, that way you’re giving everyone the same development opportunities.

Change requires transformational effort

Pillay worry is that people are treating intersectionality as a “buzzword”.

“It’s not that; it’s a structural change. You’ve got to rethink your talent pipeline, rethink your promotional pathways, rethink what your executive should look like. And do it aggressively in two-to-five-year tranches. 

“It’s a transformation effort to address some of the generational inequity that has existed for the women that I stand up for. [It can’t be] slow, glacial, some-of-the-time activity.”

Pillay would like to see official governance introduced to elevate intersectionality in the DEI space, such as mandatory intersectional reporting included as part of the new gender pay reporting rules that are coming into effect next month. With no incentive to collect and report on gender intersectional pay gaps, Pillay fears women who are marginalised will be further forgotten and hidden in the data.

“The Gender Equality Act [2020] in Victoria is the only gender equality legislation that… has intersectionality in it. That’s good, but [Victoria’s Gender Equality] Commissioner Dr Niki Vincent can only strongly suggest that gender intersectionality be part of the audit, action planning and impact assessments, as the Act guides this thinking, but organisations need to invest and commit to this action. We are not seeing this direct investment in clients we work with, it is still an under-resourced and underinvested area of data collection and planning.”

Pillay shares a gender intersectionality toolkit her organisation developed as guidance for Victorian entities that is on the Commission for Gender Equality’s website. Here you can find a paper, podcasts and case studies. She also suggests watching the TEDX talk by Kimberlé Crenshaw on gender intersectionality, systems, power and privilege.

“The whole diversity and inclusion and gender space is all about education and awareness, [but we need to take] a change management lens to the everyday people experiences where we need to reduce or eliminate gender bias or racism. So that’s my call to action – give them something tangible to do next and then hold them accountable.”

Are you a female HR professional aspiring to undertake leadership roles within HR? This short course from AHRI will help you to enhance your career opportunities as a strategic HR leader.

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The Australian Disability Network (ADN) has recently announced a new pilot program in response to significant barriers faced by people living with disability in securing employment and progressing to senior roles.

The Career Pathways Pilot 2023-2025 was developed by ADN in collaboration with the Business Council of Australia (BCA) and the Department of Social Services. Over the next two years, these entities will work with four of Australia’s leading employers to help them support employees with disability and develop their leadership potential. 

The rollout of the program will be co-designed with the employers as well as their employees with lived experience, and will involve a targeted needs analysis to understand the employment barriers that need to be broken down.

Barriers to employment

With Australian employers grappling with severe skills shortages, the underrepresentation of people living with disability in employment represents an opportunity that cannot be overlooked.

Per ABS data, the labour force participation rate for working-age people with disability is just 53 per cent, compared with 84 per cent among people without disability. According to the Australian Network on Disability, this gap grows wider at the senior and board-level ranks of an organisation. 

The BCA estimates that if Australia moved into the top eight OECD countries for employing people with disability, we could see an additional $50 billion added to Australia’s GDP by 2050.

According to Graeme Innes AM, lawyer, board director and former Disability Discrimination Commissioner, the main barrier people with disability tend to face in career progression is the unfounded assumptions often made about them by recruitment decision-makers.

“Middle managers are generally relatively risk-averse. So, in terms of making the decision about who to employ, they’re not going to employ the person with a disability because it’s perceived by them as a greater risk,” he says.

“The only way we’re going to change that is to have people with disabilities employed in organisations so we have the opportunity to demonstrate that those assumptions are [wrong].  That’s why programs such as this are really important.”

“In business, we all know that what you don’t count doesn’t count. So, if we don’t set targets, then this will just become a ‘nice to have’.” – Graeme Innes AM, lawyer, board director and former Disability Discrimination Commissioner

Historically, he says, the thinking around disability employment has been overly simplistic.

“One thing that used to happen is, when we did a lot of non-digital photography, blind people were often employed in dark rooms – [the logic was], ‘Well, they won’t need to be able to see, so we’ll put them in the dark rooms.’ 

“I’ve also seen a lot of deaf people employed in noisy places because, ‘It won’t be a problem for them anyway.’ That’s very basic thinking and stereotyping. What you need to do as an employer is work out what the skill set is that you want, and then find the people who meet that skill set. And that’s exactly what we do for people without disabilities, so why is it going to be any different?”

The responsibility to instil this mindset in middle managers lies with leaders, he says.

“In anything where there’s change involved, the key driver to change is for CEOs and their direct reports to actually demonstrate that they’re serious about the change,” he says.

“A lot of it is achieved by the senior managers walking the talk by making an employment decision which relates to them, by employing a person with a disability. It’s a very clear indicator that you want that policy achieved.”

Aiding career progression for employees with disability

According to Innes, one of the key lessons employers can take from programs like this is the importance of setting clear and structured representation targets for employees with disability at various levels of an organisation. 

“In business, we all know that what you don’t count doesn’t count. So, if we don’t set targets, then this will just become a ‘nice to have’,” he says.

Here more from Graeme Innes about diversity targets in this HRM video.

Setting and achieving targets to boost disability employment and thereby allowing managers to see people with disability thriving in senior roles is the fastest and easiest way to debunk their assumptions about this cohort’s capabilities.

“[We should take] any chance we get to put people with disabilities in standard roles in the community, and not have us represented as heroes or victims – because that’s the way we are viewed at the moment. 

“The best advice I can give is, just do it – just employ a person with a disability. Next week or next month, say those small but very powerful words to a person with a disability, which are, ‘You start on Monday.’ We can talk about it for as long as we like, we can plan projects, we can work on analysis – you just need to do it.”

Need help taking steps to reduce bias and support inclusion in the workplace? AHRI’s short course will provide you with techniques to create a diverse and inclusive workplace.

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