So we've already met Tasneem and thank you again Tasneem. Ladies and gentlemen, please thank Tasneem
for her keynote address.
(applause)
(applause)
I'll take the opportunity to introduce introduce our other panel members. First
up to my immediate right is Mackayla Jeffries, the acting
Commissioner for the Anti-Discrimination Commission of
Queensland. Mackayla is, has a very interesting background, she's
particularly committed to ensuring the mental and physical health of employees
is prioritized and embedded in the culture of organisations. She's an
extremely strong advocate for sport and physical activity being a tool for
social participation, integration and inclusion. She's got a vast experience
in particularly and a background, an educational background, in criminology
and criminal justice. She's also a group process facilitator and an art of
hosting practitioner so engages in a fair bit of dialogue I would imagine.
Please welcome acting Commissioner, Mackayla Jeffries.
(applause)
(applause)
(applause)
(applause)
To second to my right
is Joshua Griffin who is the Diversity and Inclusion Lead at SBS, and Josh, I was
fascinated with this because as the Diversity and Inclusion Lead at SBS,
you're working with the executive team to promote inclusion within SBS'
highly diverse workforce, and I think there's a lot of assumptions that when
you're working in what seems to be a culturally diverse or has a focus on
cultural diversity, that there is diversity and inclusion within that
organisation. But you're actually working very hard to promote inclusion within your
own organization, so I'm sure you'll have lots to talk about there. But I know Josh
that you firmly believe that diversity is only part of the equation and that
many Australian businesses are missing out by not placing equal focus on
building inclusive team cultures - so a broader a view of the subject.
We also have
Dr Jane O'Leary who is the Research Director at the Diversity
Council of Australia. Jayne provides a range of research, advisory and
consulting services to assist Australian employers drive business improvement
through successful diversity management. And Jane's actually established the
council's research function and work with Australia's leading diversity
employers to design and deliver a diversity research which is actually
ahead of the curve, speaks to the Australian context and drives business
improvement, and importantly leads public debate. It's great to have you all here,
can you please welcome our panel.
(applause)
(applause)
We will have time to ask questions as I said -
there's a roving mic, please wait until the mic reaches you, place your
hand up and then wait till the mic reaches you. I will try to invoke the
Twitter rule where possible, so if I kinda of wave them a finger about, then you've gone
over your 40 words, but if you could help us out and keep it
brief. As the people are thinking about their questions, I might just ask each
panel member starting with Mackayla and we'll work our way around, I guess it's
an opportunity here to tell us a little bit more about the organization that you
represent today, and what you're doing in this space. And in particular I'd be
very very interested in knowing from you what would you advise as being the
starting point. I know that we've got a diverse range of people within the
audience but if you had to think of one big-ticket item that people should focus
on to progress this issue, what would that be?
Thanks Peter. So as Peter
mentioned I work for the Anti-Discrimination Commission
Queensland. So we're the statutory body in this state that administers the
Anti-discrimination Act. We have kind of two primary arms. The
first one is our complaints management team. So they receive and assess and
conciliate complaints of discrimination, sexual harassment, vilification and other
objectionable conduct. So that's a really important aspect of the work that we do
because it provides that space and the voice for people who have been
discriminated against to resolve their issues and and have their story heard in
the presence of the respondent. So often through that process they're looking for
some outcome whether it is redress of the issues, getting their job back or
righting the wrongs that have been done. But in a lot of the cases most people
are just seeking, like I said, to tell their story, have their voice heard and
for the other person to understand the impact that that's had on them. So that's
a really important, I suppose, reactive function of the Commission - but on the
other side of our work we have the proactive preventative functions of
education and community engagement. So the education is everything from helping
people to understand their rights and responsibilities under the legislation,
through to the unconscious bias that has already been mentioned today. And other
education modules such as business benefits of diversity and inclusion - so
getting people to understand that that broad picture that it's not just a tick
box of making sure you've complied with legislation but it's really, it's a
bigger story than that in terms of embracing diversity and leveraging
diversity. And our community engagement function goes even further than that, so
we work with the organizations and with communities to help them create the
space for the conversations to happen so they can interrogate whether it's
organizational processes or community connections to get the best out of that
diversity. So we do quite a broad range of thing than probably more than most
people would understand about the Commission, and that gives us two things.
It gives us the statistics about the complaints so we can get a gauge of
what's happening in the community in terms of whether discrimination is
reducing or increasing and in what areas. But the stories from the community are
also that other part of the picture that really tell us what's happening, that
perhaps isn't captured through the complaints process. Because the
complaints process isn't for everyone - it's certainly a vital service but it's
not the only way to resolve these issues. So to your second part of the question
Peter, I'd say the place to start in my view with this is the stories. Telling
the stories, listening to the stories, that adds that part of the equation that
might not be evident just from data or the statistics. If you can understand the
story, and Tasneem's story about Ewan, I think we'll probably all remember
Ewan for a long time. The stats that she quoted I probably will never remember
them, but Ewan is in my mind now forever so I'm
gonna be picking Ewans out everywhere, sorry Ewan. So that's really important
to connect people's head and their heart with the story of discrimination and
diversity and inclusion and all the things we're talking about today.
Thanks Michaela, and I probably need to say for those one or two Ewans in the room
you get an extra piece of chocolate cake at the end of the day - I think
that's only fair. Is that is there a Ewan here?
Or you probably don't want to identify yourself? (laughs)
Josh.
So as Peter said, my name's Josh and I'm from the SBS, the Special
Broadcasting Service. I'm pretty sure most people in the room have probably
engaged with SBS at one point or another, but I'll give you the spiel
anyway. So obviously we are a media network and we're bound by a charter to
inform, educate and entertain all Australians and celebrate our
multicultural society. And we do that through obviously most people know SBS
the TV channel, and we actually have a number of TV channels including NITV
which is the premier Indigenous television network, and we also run a
number of in language programs and when I say a number, I mean over 65 in
language radio programs. We have our streaming service SBS on-demand and
perhaps maybe you've just engaged with SBS when you're watching The
Handmaid's Tale, and we do a ton of community engagement work as well. So
we're out there in communities all the time. We engage in a number of mental
programs and things externally, we work with screen agencies around increasing
representation of people with diverse backgrounds in the production sector as
well, so it's not just about what we do within our own business, but also around
how we feed back into back into the industry as well. So diversity and
inclusion you know as Peter kind of alluded to, is largely our kind of
product or service that we put out there, but we're also really really passionate
and focused on making sure that as an employer we're equally focused on being
diverse and inclusive, walking the talk so to speak.
And Josh, the starting point?
Oh yes, I forgot the second part of your question. Look I think
that the starting point always has to be with yourself, right? I think
before you're trying to enact change in a large scale. I mean inclusion
for me is around how you interact with other people and it's
actually remarkable the impact that a single individual can actually have on
the experience of someone else, so I think the starting point absolutely and
it's not the only point and I've got a ton to talk about, but the starting
point I think is reflecting on yourself and reflecting on whether you're
being as visibly or verbally inclusive as as you possibly can be of other
people. And maybe that's as simple as just asking someone for their opinion
where perhaps you might not have naturally been inclined to do so, can
make a massive world of difference for someone else
Thanks Josh. Jane?
Thanks Peter
My name's Jane O'Leary, I'm Research
Director at Diversity Council Australia, and for those of you who don't know
we're a not-for-profit peak body. We have, and we work with, employers in Australia
to help them create more diversity inclusive workplaces. We have about
480 Australian employers or members of ours and one of the services we provide
is research. So industry based research on how, what works and what doesn't when
it comes to creating more diverse and inclusive workplaces. And it's very
topical because Tasneem was saying about unconscious bias training and we just
did some research that we released lately saying beware, beware, approach
with caution. And so that's one thing that I would sort of talk to at a later
point is not to look for the silver bullet, there is no silver bullet and a
lot of companies sort of jumped on board with the unconscious bias training and
we know from the research now that it has very mixed results, and there are
better options and better ways you can spend your money. But I love Josh's point
about it starts with yourself. And so if any of us are looking for
something that they can do and they're not in a leadership position to drive
change necessarily, you can drive change in the
immediate interactions you have, as Josh said, and I think inclusive language
getting across inclusive language is a key way of doing that. And I know that
that's a controversial topic. DCA did a research project last year with David
Morrison the Australian of the Year, called Words at Work and it gives
guidelines on inclusive language across all diversity dimensions. And I think
it's really powerful, words have power whether we like it or not and they can
act to include or exclude. And I think a really clear example of that is just the
phrase 'Where are you from?' and rather than unpack that, I'll just put
that out there and pass on to Tasneem.
Yeah, famous question. In terms, well, yeah you
know where I'm from, and well Bendigo via Kenya. But in terms of what are the
two things that I'd bring, or the thing that I would bring to the conversation
if there was a takeaway. That would be to include or press for, be that person who
says in a meeting every time you've discussed a program or a direction or
innovation, 'How have we embedded a cultural lens on this?' So for example, if
you're promoting an event, if you're planning for an employee, got a new
program coming out, has in the thinking and the structure in the deliberation of
that, have you employed a cultural lens over that which means are you mindful of
the broader community in how they would be included in it? So just be mindful of
your diverse communities who are consumers and who are participants and who
are employees, and is their voice included in the broader picture?
Thank you. I'm going to open it up to the floor now. I'm sure there were lots of
questions. So again in an orderly fashion would like to put your hand up and -
gentleman at the back there.
I'll try to explain these as short as possible. I just
want to give my experience in two areas. One is my own personal life,
and the other one is the department that I work for. I've been working there for now
25 years. At the personal life, I have some of my best friends and my closest
friends are Australians. I mean Anglo Saxon Australians. Very,
very close to them and they are very close to me. But I also come across a few
who are rather racially biased. Now the way I deal with them is quite quite
different probably not to recommend it to anybody else.
One is direct confrontation by questioning and that will change
their attitude to a large extent. I give example - I meet this guy in the lift
in my office, I meet him every day and just they looked at me and he didn't
even smile just stare at me. And one day he looked at me and asked me, "What's your
name?" I said that "I'm Derek'". "Derek?" So then he asked me, "From where are you?"
I said "I am from Sri Lanka". "How can a Sri Lankan get an English name,
Derek? They have very long names..." And then I told him, "Have you heard of colonialism?" (audience laughter)
And before I went to speak about colonialism, he just left the lift, he went away.
And ever since then when I meet him in the lift, he gives me a very
good smile, he's my friend now. So that type of questioning and confrontation.
But I will not, for example, my wife and my child, are much more submissive and
gentle and meek. I don't know how they will respond to a situation like that.
Number two about the department. Now, I doubt very much in our department there
is a percentage of the gender bias thing. There are very few females in
the management level and also top level. And that's a genuine principle policy
that we'll increase the number of females to about 40 per cent in the next five to ten
years. There is no such percentage for for racial
equality. So I have worked there for twenty five years, I doubt very much that that will
be reversed. There'll be very incremental changes but very doubtful. My question is
how will that impact my daughter and the children who were born here to
migrants. They are on the top, as you said, they get OP 1's and OP 2's. And
they're doctors and engineers and economists. How wrong the situation
can be, even into the next generation, and that will be a big problem if our
children who are doing so well academically, have to face the kind of
discrimination we have faced. I wouldn't mind going through the rest of my life after
retirement the way it is. But I'd be very worried if that is going to be continued
into the next generation. Thank you.
Thanks Derek. I always at the beginning of a
session makes some allowances for the first question. So there's a few tweets
within that (audience laughs) but no thank you. But very pertinent I guess taking it from the
personal to the systemic and then back again to the personal. I wonder if
any of the panel would like to respond to any of that? I'm looking at
Mackayla, I'm thinking about the work of the Commission.
Thank you for your
multi tweet question. I think targets and quotas are certainly part of
the equation, but that's not the be all to end all. So you don't necessarily
have to have targets to put that kind of thing on the agenda. I think it's about
starting the conversation in the workplace and having the dialogue about
is our organization reflective of the community, I think that was mentioned a
bit earlier. So you can still approach it without necessarily having the target.
And by the time your children get to the workplace I'm hoping that things are
already shifting, so I'm hoping that they will have shifted even further and they
can find their place without having to hang their hat on some particular
target but just be recognized for the unique skills and abilities they bring,
rather than necessarily being a number. So I'm not sure that necessarily answers
your question but targets are certainly one part of the equation, but there's
other ways of getting those things on the agenda.
Can I talk to the target question? One of the directors, board
directors of DCA, Ming Long, is one of the few culturally diverse women who's been
a CEO of an ASX company. And she has put out there that for the last couple
of years, and I love this idea, of targets 40-40-20 she calls it. And so you look at
gender balance for 40/40, and then you have a target of 20 per cent in leadership for
cultural diversity and/or other key demographics. And I would really like us
to go that way. And I know that targets are unpopular, so, quotas are unpopular
but I think targets is something that a lot of people are comfortable with. And I
think in any sort of business we never have a business strategy without setting
a goal or a target to make ourselves accountable and see how we're tracking
and I think this should be no different.
Thank you. Other questions? Gentleman at
the back there.
Thanks very much for joining us today, and I particularly appreciated in
Tasneem's, the report card that you gave for
executives and boards and the fact that that's quite poor. So my question is
probably around, for those kinds of roles where often it's not an open merit
recruitment process, what can be done to disrupt, to make sure that we are aiming
for 40-40-20?
Again I don't think there's a silver bullet solution to those.
Often in my experience it comes down to leadership within a board and I just
I think I'd be very blessed to have been around what I can only describe as
visionary leaders who actually saw the merit in having a board that was
representative of a community. And that was the driver.
So then knowing that was the driver, the interviews and assessments were made
against a target. But also the way in which call-outs are made and where you
advertise and how you recruit. If it's to the same-old same-old you're only
getting the same batch of applicants time and time again so you need to widen
the net. And so then it comes down to recruiting culture as well. I know one of
the organisations I chair, we've been looking for a chief operations officer
for some time, and we were just advertising through the same - I don't
know if it was some online portal - and we're getting the same applicants we
had like five years ago. And then we decided to employ, retain a you know
recruiting consultant, they widened the net and low and behold the applicants
that we got just, you know, a hundred per cent variance to what we had. So
there's being bold and being creative in the way that we recruit. But then having
targets within that recruitment of like we do want to get 50/50, so until we get
that 50/50 then we'll then we'll appoint. So it's, and yeah, having great visionary
leaders and I'm speaking about Ken Lay here in particular. He's just been
phenomenal in the way that he would actually say we need 50/50 women, and 50 per cent
male and female on this board, and Ambulance Victoria is that. It's one of
the few boards where there's 50 per cent gender. Culturally diversity is getting there,
but the agenda's started, but it's not about - and I do want to point this out, I
remember being at a panel on women's leadership some years ago and a comment
was made like similar to the gentleman who said to a leading feminist on the
panel, "You know, we talk about gender equality and gender equity as a
benchmark, what about cultural diversity and getting that benchmark in as well?"
And she goes, "Well that'll just have to wait, we're doing the gender stuff first..."
And I thought, my god that's what the patriarchy has been telling women for
the last sixty years and we're not not taking it very well. So I think it's
only fair that we approach both together, yeah.
You're trying to
comment Jane? Don't feel you have to...
In terms of things to do,
I'm a great believer lately in something called, from behavioral economics, called
'nudge', 'nudging'. And I think what we have tended to do is over rely on us as
leaders in our capacity to remove the unconscious bias. And so we've all sat
through this unconscious bias training and we've gone thank god for that, now I know about
that and I'm definitely not gonna be biased anymore and it doesn't work like
that, we know that from the research. Actually the research shows if you sit
through training like, that the chances are you're more likely to make biased
decision-making because you have this false confidence that you've sat through
the training. So with behavioral economics it's about saying
look we're all flawed, let's face it, so instead of relying on changing people's
minds, let's change people's change processes and systems. And a classic
example of that is the blind recruitment, and that in itself it doesn't always
work perfectly. There's the research out of Victoria that it depends, you know it's
horses for courses. But the other things that you can do are things like, if you
interview at just before lunch or just before the end of the day, you're more
likely to make biased decisions. There's research that shows this, because you're
hungry and you're tired and you just want to make a decision and get out of
there. And so you can actually diversify the shortlisting by the timing that you
schedule your short list. Another one is 'two in the pool' - this is
from Professor Iris Bohnet - and she found that if you have someone from a
culturally diverse background, just one in your shortlist pool, statistically on
average there's 0 per cent chance they'll get hired. That's whether there's like three
people in that short list or up to 11 people. If you make two, if you
have two culturally diverse candidates in that pool, statistically their
chances of being hired it goes up by 76 per cent. So this is, you can make changes to
systems which sort of nudge you towards less biased decision making.
Can I just
add one thing because I'm a bit conscious that unconscious bias has now
become the new Ewan in this conversation.
(laughter)
I wondered when you were going to jump in.
And given it's one of our products I don't want you to think that it's completely
useless... (laughter) So the great package that ADCQ
offers balances the information about unconscious bias and that kind of a-ha
moment where everyone goes 'oh shit I'm a feminist but I didn't realize that the
doctor was a woman' you know, kind of thing. So we balance the
educative side of it with then the practical side of okay now you know that
you might be a little bit racist, what do you do about it? And it's at a personal
level but also at a systemic level in terms of your workplace practices and
those kind of things, and really just making people think about it. How can we
in the workplace change our systems or, you know, nudge a few things so that
we're less likely to be bias. We can't get rid of it all together but we don't
just go, "Wow you're a little bit racist, thanks for coming, see you later!" (laughter)
We try to work with people. And it's an ongoing process, we can't we can't
just let you out of our training and go "Well you're fixed now everything's good..."
It's part of the equation as I was saying before. So don't hate on unconscious bias
and Ewan too much.
I should say in your defense that we do unconscious
bias training as well, but so I'm totally there with you. I think it's more
about people think it's a silver bullet and it's not.
We were asked where we're planning this panel not to shy away from controversy,
so I'm glad we're not...
But I want to actually flick to Josh, it's a bit
of segway here Josh and sorry it looked like you were going to say something, so if you
need to jump in at the moment...
I'll be very quick. I know we said we weren't
going to do this but I just feel left out now so...
I think we just need to
be really careful when we're talking about 'diversity hires' that we're not having a
conversation which suggests that they're not merit based. And I think if we're
having non merit-based recruitment decisions, I would probably argue that
that's not very good business sense, we might want to look at that.
Particularly we're talking about boards, hiring people with diverse backgrounds
thoughts, perspectives and experiences in the world is a very purposeful thing. And
so it's about shifting the paradigm about what we mean by merit. And so when
we're talking about people who have really unique perspectives on the world
and something to contribute at the board level, for me that is a merit-based thing
that gets looked at along with obviously a bunch of other things. But I just think
we just need to be careful because there does tend to be, there is conversation
where in particularly in relation to gender, where if a company has
implemented quotas and targets, you do hear this language around
'well she only got the job because of because of those quotas'. Women make up
50% of our society, I think to suggest that there's not a bunch of
amazing skilled women who aren't there based on merit I think is erroneous
as well.
Is there though Josh, is there a danger that,
and I ask as the genuine question, is there a
danger that the diversity of thought argument becomes an excuse not to look
at cultural diversity or gender diversity. You know I've heard
'we've got great diversity of thought in our white
anglo-saxon male cohort' (laughter)
Oh look, I think, I think that's
certainly a risk. The argument would be that the way in which people
move through the world, the more you know, and I hate using the word 'diverse' to
describe people because diverse refers inherently to a mix, but people
who have who come from different backgrounds
do have a different way of moving through the world. So yes you might have
diversity of thought amongst a group of anglo-saxon men, but I think the
scale to which that diversity exists is going to be different to if you have a
mix of gende, of culture, of lived experiences. I think it's particularly at
aboard an executive level but actually at any decision-making level. The more
diverse that mix is, the more ways you can look at a solution or the
more ways you can look at a problem, the better outcome you're going to have
because you're going to have all the options out there on the table. So yeah
absolutely I'm sure there are companies that look at their, you know, primarily
older anglo-saxon male board and go 'yes we're really really diverse diverse of
thought' - I'd probably challenge whether that's necessarily true if they have a
competitor that has genuine diversity of thought.
Thanks Josh. I do want to come
back to you but I just might want to make sure that other people get an
opportunity to ask questions. We've got a gentleman over there.
Yeah. Thank you Peter.
Tasneem, thank you very much, I enjoyed your presentation. Let me start a little
bit broad and then I will narrow down, I won't take a long time Peter. I was
listening to BBC a couple of weeks ago and a professor in UK was asked a
question and about the populist way of life and the rise of populism in the
US and around the world. And then the professor said, the rise of populist
way of life and culture is a big threat or is going to be a big threat to the UK
diversity and inclusion. Oh, I start thinking about it in the way
of Australia. Is our panelists, is that the same way we understand things in
Australia and if that is it, a leader like me, how do I deal with such a situation
that comes international events that might affect our diversity and
inclusion? Thank you.
I might direct that to Tasneem in the first instance given
that you mentioned Tasneem at the beginning.
Yeah, I'm just trying to
understand the breadth of the question. Are you saying, is populism the end of diversity?
No, the gentleman was saying that populism, the rise of populism in the US is going to affect UK
diversity and inclusion. And my question is, is that
the same way for us. Will that rise of populism affect diversity and
inclusion in Australia? And if that is the case, how do you help me as a leader,
to be able practically to manage those international issues that affect our
diversity and inclusion?
And Daniel, I would think that many in the room would
think that populism is a strong force within Australia not just from America
or the UK, and so it is affecting the the discussion and the dialogue on
diversity.
Well first thing that comes to mind is having robust mechanisms and
legislations in place to protect the integrity of diversity. And like the
Charter is a classic example of terms and references that bind and protect the
diversity that flourishes within a state. So I think if they exist, if they're
embedded, if they're implemented and respected, they become measures against
which populism can only goes so far. That's my immediate reaction. Again it
depends on how willing organizations are to commit to those charters. If it's a
tick box exercise or is it in fact an exercise that they actually action. So
time will tell.
Thank you for the question. I think it's a great question.
And it's one that at DCA, we've actually been talking about ourselves. And I know
that diversity and inclusion practices in Australia have experienced a rise in
resentment and pushback that comes from popularism. And from my
mind there are two things that leaders can do. And one is
around fact-checking and this is why I love the ABC fact checks,
they're fantastic. They had one this week about, I think it was Muslim workers who
are unemployed and some politician had made a sweeping statement and they went
back and they did all this fact-checking and put it out there. And I think that's
really important.And that's really important because with popularism
people want the sound bite. And that's why Pauline Hanson and people
like that are really popular and Trump because they have the soundbite. And so
we need to, that's why those fact-checking is so important. And the
other thing that I think is really important is explaining to people that
differential treatment doesn't mean that you end up giving unearned
special privileges to people from culturally diverse backgrounds. So there
is a real view out in the popular public that we live and work in a level playing
field. And so if you start changing the system at all, all of a sudden you're
giving these culturally diverse people or women or whatever the group may be
special unearned treatment. And we need to explain to people that the field
isn't level and that's why, that's what we're trying to correct.
Someone I read the other day made this great quote where they said 'for majority
members who are so privileged often equality can feel like oppression...' and I
thought that's so true and that's where populism is coming from.
Just one more
thing on that and on the back of that, I've noticed one of the most effective
ways of countering what you see as this rise of populism and bigotry when it
happens is to call it out when you see it in very strategic ways. So for example,
tabloid TV has frequently been known to have panels of 'experts' discussing a
particular group - be it Indigenous, be it Muslim, be it Asians, without representatives
of those communities on a panel. So call it out. And it happened in a very
strident way to Sunrise when they recently made their
comments about stolen children taken from Indigenous homes and why they
should be taken. No expert analysis at all, just the platform. Because they had
the platform, they make the comments. Calling that out. When Sonia Kruger made
her comments which is now going to to court as well about believing Muslims
should be banned from Australia because she was a mother or something, again she
was called out on that because of bigotry of her comments with no
political expertise, no expertise per se, but all the platform. And I think one of
the greatest contentions of being a minority or being a diverse person is
that lack of platform and agency to articulate your point of view when
you're constantly being negotiated but you're not given a platform to counter
that. So I think that's why independent media, SBS and other opportunities, need
to be leveraged more effectively to be that counter voice.
I want to shift the
discussion just sideways, slightly sideways, and I want to turn to
Josh. Josh I was really intrigued that you're working
with your executive team to promote inclusion within SBS's highly diverse
workforce. So you've already got a highly diverse workforce, that's a given, but you're
actually working on inclusion. And you know, as many in the room know, there's a
there's a major dialogue now, we continue today, there are differences
between inclusion and diversity. So with your highly diverse workforce what are
the achievements and the challenges you've faced in trying to bring about a
more inclusive workforce.
Yes so look I mean I think calling out
straight away. As as I mentioned before, you know we have we have a whole bunch
of radio programs, over 65 in different languages. So, you know, I think it's fair
to call out and and I have sometimes referred to it as you know, SBS is like
having the cheat codes on for diversity because obviously you can't have an
Arabic 24 radio channel unless the broadcastes speak Arabic. And so there's
a kind of product reason, you know, a pessimistic person might say that
there's a product reason why we have a highly diverse workforce. But we also
have 50/50 male/female, our top 100 leaders 53 per cent of them are women, our board is
50/50, our executive team is 40/60. You know, that's not a product, that's not
a product based statistic and so I think I think we have made really really
purposeful efforts to talk about inclusion within the workplace. And as you say,
diversity and inclusion are are really really different concepts but
even for people who really care, genuinely care about this as a subject
matter, the topic of inclusion can be can be quite confusing, and I'll give
you an example. Who here in the room would say that they are an inclusive
person? Of those of you who didn't put your hand up, who instinctively went to put
their hand up and then thought this sounds like a trick question? (laughter)
Probably the rest of you. When we talk about, when we talk about our own
inclusiveness but we're actually referring to is is our ability to either
tolerate others or hopefully, more optimistically, our ability to accept
others. Of course the difference between inclusion and acceptance is
acceptance is within you right, and lives up here. So you think to yourself,
I'm a really inclusive, or I'm a really accepting person, and I don't care I'm happy
to work with X Y Z and and I think it I think it's really great that we've got a
culturally diverse workforce. The problem is if I'm someone who comes into a
workplace and my lived experience has been one where I have felt excluded in
the past, how on earth do I know that you're an accepting person inside of
your head. And if no one says anything to me and if there aren't visible signs,
verbal cues, if the executive teams and leaders aren't out there actively
talking about and promoting the fact that they care about this, that this is a
value that they live by and they're taking action on it - then I have no
idea. So you might very well be sitting there thinking I'm super inclusive and
this is a really inclusive workplace but your lived experience might be very very
different from the person next to you because it's all up, it's all up in here.
So I think the work that we've been doing has really been, you know, with our
executive team has been an education journey around saying yeah we get it we
all care about diversity and inclusion. I mean, if you're working at SBS and you
don't care about diversity I'd probably question if you're in the right job
right. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we fully
understand and appreciate what it is to build an inclusive culture.
So and I've forgotten the question I'm sorry (laughter)
Yeah I guess I was
particularly interested in I know that you've had great achievements in that
space, but how some of the internal challenges perhaps if you are able to
share them without betraying too many confidences...
and yes now I remember I where I was going... So look I think the
education piece is is absolutely one. Getting people to actually understand
and appreciate when we talk about inclusion, I mean it's a bit of a
buzzword, what are we actually referring to in terms of what do we want them to
do? But challenges are, you know, we talk about people bringing their
authentic self to work, you know, and what do you do if someone's authentic self is
a jerk? What do you if someone wants to bring their
religion and their culture to work, and it happens to be hostile to the LGBT
colleagues that they're sitting next to? How do you create a culture where there
is space for all those people to exist and work together and have kind
of mutual respect for one another. And I'd say that certainly for us the
foundation work around getting to to the work we're doing in inclusion was
ensuring that we had really really strong grassroots built values, that we
spent a really long time refreshing and building and everyone in the
organization was involved in. Because ultimately that becomes a kind of behavioral
markers that you bring behavior back to and you anchor what's acceptable in the
workplace. So you know, I think when we say bring your us authentic self
to work, there is a kind of caveat around that. Which is, bring your authentic self
to work - caveat - but act in accordance to our values. And I think, you know, our role
as an employer is not to thought police people, people can obviously think
whatever they like, but in a workplace they can't do whatever they like.
We probably got time for just one more question, and then - yep, Elijah.
Thank you very much. My question, possibly Tasneem you can take the first lead and then it
will follow. We talk about diversity and inclusion and often in the media
and society we find people who are advocates for diversity and inclusion are
those who find themselves either that be a community or themself, a
victim of exclusion. And that has created a sense of which people are saying it
is them and us. That means, those are people were seeking diversity we don't
belong to them. It creates that sense of division and also it's shifted the
thinking - it become unconscious bias and tokenistic in the system. Now, what can we
do, what strategy can you give us or what advice would you give us, to
bridge that thinking and the line which has been drawn to make sure diversity
and inclusion is a unified desire for all of us
It's like a philosophical twist. I would say diversity inclusion is is about
providing opportunities and platforms, I like platforms, for voices which are
otherwise underrepresented. So it's not at the, you know, expense
of all voices. So my diverse voice being part of this panel doesn't
mean I overtake it. It's about having an having an equal footing in a
conversation that includes me. That it includes my perspective and includes
that view. So I think a lot of it has to do with the intention that underpins
your involvement in it. So if you're getting on the diversity and inclusion
bandwagon because you want to take over, that's really that's not how
it works. You're not actually going to undermine the cause, you're not going to
progress it for everybody, you're only going to turn yourself into a pariah. But
if you're actually in it because you want to make sure that your voice is
represented, then I think that's sustainable. So it's to do with your
intention, and it's about, you know, you're working in tandem with other
people so they're there to check each other, and check you're
on the same page. So intentions, and checking your intentions are essential.
It's a great seway. We have almost run out of time.
I'm going to lead in, to invite all of the panel members, and I might - I know
you don't want to dominate the discussion Tasneem - but I might give you
the courtesy of finishing, having the last word. But before we do I'll start
with Makayla and then move around the panel. I know the panel have had an
opportunity to, and some of them, many times for many months have had
an opportunity to look at the Multicultural Charter. And I think that
philosophical question that Elijah asks leads well into what are some
practical ways that we can bring this Charter to life in our everyday and our
workplaces?
Thanks Peter. I think we all have a role to play in
this and as Josh was alluding to before inclusion is an active process so we
can't just assume we have a charter we're all going to be inclusive and
diverse and accepting of other cultures. So we each as individuals need to take
an active role in pushing that forward and modeling that behavior in our
workplace, in our in our personal lives, challenging the people if we hear or see
behaviors that are incongruent with our values statement which is essentially
what the Charter is. So don't be ambivalent and don't just be a bystander.
I'd say wherever possible take that opportunity to give a voice to the
conversation about diversity and inclusion and really be active
champions for diversity and inclusion.
Thanks Mackayla - Josh?
I think from a business
perspective if there's one thing, one language that all businesses speak
it's in dollars. And I think the
amount of research, compelling research, that is repeatable over and over
and over and over again is that diversity and inclusion in combination
enhance business performance. So whether you're in a leadership position or not,
I would suggest that that is really compelling. I can't think of a business
owner who wouldn't want to see their business performance
increase. The other really practical thing - this might sound really
really controversial - is if you've actually, if you have a board or an
executive team who've seen all the data and actually make an active decision
that this is not important to us, then I guess you know my
controversial suggestion would be perhaps you vote with your feet - because
you know, I think particularly now in terms of particularly in the
digital age, you know the talent wars are on, and for a lot of businesses if they
don't if they don't get on board they're going to find themselves falling behind
not only financially but also from a talent perspective as well.
My suggestion goes to your question actually which is about building
belonging in connection. And I think that one of the most powerful things we can
all do particularly if you're someone like me who comes from an Anglo Celtic
cultural background, is look to build connections with people on a day to
day basis. And that is, step outside your comfort zone and connect with
someone who's from a different cultural background to your own because
we all have affinity bias and our natural predisposition is to default to
'people like me' and so we need to each of us make a conscious effort to do that.
And for those of you who are leaders in the room, I'd encourage you to think
about the +1 pledge, which is where you think about who are your prodigies and
have you got a prodigy who is from a cultural background different to your
own? That's the first question. And the second question is what have you done
for that protege in the last six months? How many important influential
introductions have you made? How many important client engagements or projects
have you got them on board to? So they're the two things that I'd suggest.
Okay.
Really simply, if you're going to enact, or participate in any diversity and
inclusive practices and programs ,make sure that you have people of diversity
included at the center of that decision making. Not as an afterthought, not after
the function, don't invite them to the launch, make sure they're embedded in
what you do because that will make it sustainable and not tokenistic.
Thanks Tasneem. Ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately that's
all we have time for this part of this afternoon. Can I ask you to join me in
thanking our panel members - Mackayla Jeffries, Joshua Griffin, Dr Jane O'Leary and Tasneem Chopra.
(audience applause)
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