The Strategy contemplates a holistic approach to achieving an inclusive workplace environment. Whilst individual action plans contain focused strategies to address any equity imbalances, the following guiding principles, enablers and self-directive actions will help us achieve equitable employment opportunities and outcomes for all employees, in the areas of:
- Attraction and recruitment
- Safety and respect
- Employee experience
- Management capability
- Community and visibility
- Measurement and accountability.
Attraction and recruitment
Embracing and fully utilising the community we serve as we continue to grow as a state.
Guiding principles
- We promote and market DPC as an Employer of Choice and a great place to work.
- We develop and implement best practice contemporary recruitment practices that allow us to attract the widest pool of people from diverse backgrounds.
- We have fair and transparent recruitment processes that help to improve the representation of people from diverse backgrounds who are historically under-represented or under-utilised.
- We have a business practice where all roles can be worked flexibly, helping us to attract and retain diverse talent.
Organisational enablers
- Enhance our public image through recruitment and social media platforms, highlighting the benefits of working at DPC to a more diverse cohort of candidates (for example Job Sharing and All Roles Flex).
- Target recruitment of under-represented communities and promotion of pathways from education to employment.
- Support the active engagement and recruitment of people with disability through building strong partnerships with local disability employment providers.
- Integrate a ‘fast track’ recruitment process for people with disability.
Individual – self-directed actions
DPC recruitment and communications teams to enhance our employee brand via various communication channels.
Hiring managers to work with recruitment teams to look at targeted approaches to recruiting more diverse candidates where there is a gap or imbalance.
Hiring managers to consider how a job can be conducted flexibly (e.g. part-time, job share, flexible start and finish times and remote work).
Directors to be provided dashboard diversity data (on request) from P&C to inform targeted recruitment.
Ensure shortlisting (for executive positions) and interview panels have diverse representation (including gender, age and CALD) where possible.
Lead responsibility
P&C and hiring managers.
Outcomes
Full implementation of Diversity and Inclusion Action Plans (Year 1).
Safety and respect
Creating a safe, friendly, respectful and inclusive environment for all employees.
Guiding principles
- We care about and treat each other with dignity and respect.
- We aim to remove any barriers to inclusion through the creation of a trusting and supportive environment.
- We understand our role and responsibility to create an inclusive and equitable environment free from discrimination and sexual harassment through education and raising awareness.
Organisational enablers
- Provide a safe, fair and inclusive work environment by clear messaging, visibility and action from executives and directors.
- Eliminate all forms of discrimination, sexual harassment, racism, homophobia, and sexism (including covert or systemic) in the workplace through education programs.
- Support managers and employees to call out inappropriate behaviour when they see it.
- Implement peer support programs to support the mental health and wellbeing of employees.
- Establish forums and safe spaces for people to share information about their lived experience of diversity, inclusion and equity.
- Continue to promote and build trust in complaints handling procedures.
- Sign up to the Australian Human Rights Commission’s ‘Racism. It Stops with Me’ campaign.
Individual – self-directed actions
Employees to promote and model inclusive behaviours.
Employees to seek learning opportunities to broaden their understanding of the unique and various challenges experienced by diverse communities.
Seek to harness the benefits of a diverse and inclusive workforce through valuing diverse ideas and opinions.
Managers to support diversity and inclusion learning and development opportunities with the aim of enhancing employees’ broader knowledge, skills and experience.
Managers to encourage their employees to actively participate in activities, networking or events outside their area of expertise or comfort, to enhance their broader learning opportunities and increase competency in managing and working with diversity.
Lead responsibility
All employees.
Outcomes
Identifying any key employment and cultural issues for all key priority areas, for example, disability (Year 2).
Employee experience
We provide an exemplar employee experience including equitable access to employment opportunities and outcomes.
Guiding principles
- Our culture and environment is one where people feel respected and valued.
- We have a shared sense of purpose and belonging.
- We aim to make people feel comfortable and confident to share information and ideas that will help to improve our corporate knowledge and add value to our service and delivery.
- We actively pursue ways to bring out the best in our people.
- Our policies and practices are accessible, flexible, equitable and inclusive of all people.
Organisational enablers
- Continue to revise and strengthen DPC policies to ensure diversity, inclusion and equity outcomes are embedded and make these accessible and visible to staff.
- Look for new ways to embed flexibility within the organisation (working anytime, anywhere).
- Develop a campaign to increase confidence in sharing personal ‘diversity’ information to help better understand our employees.
- Identify key issues in employment for our diverse communities through focus groups, branch and team conversation and the annual People Matter Survey.
- Celebrate, promote and reinforce our achievements in fostering equity outcomes.
- Support and sustain employee reference groups, committees and networks.
- Explore the interaction between different diversity groups (intersectionality), for example, gender, ethnicity and age together.
- Embed ‘achievement relative to opportunity’ in the performance management process, so that people who work part-time due to parental or carer responsibilities are rewarded for their quality of output in the time allocated.
Individual – self-directed actions
- Look for opportunities to promote, embed and reward inclusive practices
- Attend at least one diversity and inclusion event throughout the year.
- Engage the Senior Adviser, Diversity & Inclusion for advice on strategies and inclusive events.
- Managers to support their staff in actively contributing to more inclusive practices across DPC (including flexibility).
- Managers to implement at least one strategy or action a year that addresses any equity issues or imbalances in their work area, identified in their annual People Matter Survey results.
Lead responsibility
P&C, all employees.
Outcomes
- Building employee comfort and confidence to share information about themselves (for example, people with a disability) that will help to benefit the employee experience and improve corporate knowledge (Year 1).
- A heightened and raised consciousness in diversity, inclusion and equity principles and issues (Year 2).
- Culture surveys showing that employees believe DPC is a genuinely inclusive and equitable environment and that this contributes to our success (Year 3).
- A reinvigorated and re-energised focus and shared sense of purpose (Year 3).
Management capability
Inclusive leadership and competency in working with and managing diversity is seen as a key management skill.
Guiding principles
- We recognise the importance of diversity, inclusion and equity principles that allow us to be better managers and make better decisions.
- We develop our leaders’ competency to work with and manage diversity.
- We examine, reflect and change any structural barriers in our employment practices that are not equitable.
- We recognise that inclusive leadership is a key management skill.
- We use this strategy and individual inclusion plans as a resource for learning and adaptive change, building our confidence and competency.
Organisational enablers
- Provide a suite of targeted diversity and inclusion programs that allow managers to understand their role in creating a diverse and inclusive environment.
- Build confidence and competency of managers to manage and work with diversity, including developing inclusive leadership skills.
- Identify and address unconscious bias practices.
- Provide intranet resources that provide practical information on diversity and inclusion practices.
- Implement succession planning that anticipate changes in employee circumstances.
- Provide targeted training to support employee mental health and wellbeing, including mental health awareness, family violence and cultural safety training.
- Develop a sector wide cultural competency online training package.
- Conduct annual Victorian Public Service (VPS) gender summit.
Individual – self-directed actions
- Managers to engage with DPC learning and development opportunities and ensure equitable distribution of learning opportunities and career advancement for their team members.
- Managers to build their team’s competency in increasing diversity conscious practices and minimising practices that may lead to unconscious bias or exclusion.
- Managers to improve knowledge, skills and behaviours when using diversity, inclusion and equity as enablers for high performance, to solve big challenges and achieve success.
- Managers to incorporate diversity and inclusion guiding principles in their branch planning and ensure multiple perspectives in decision making.
- Managers to be aware of the availability of flexible working arrangements, consider all requests fairly and equitably, and ensure employees are supported in their request and uptake of these arrangements where appropriate.
Lead responsibility
P&C and managers.
Outcomes
- Review and/or strengthening of existing strategies to improve performance or the development of more sophisticated strategies for areas where there is stagnation (Year 1).
- Improved narrative and rationale for the work and anticipated outcomes (Year 2).
- Increased competency in managing diversity and inclusion practices (increasing diversity conscious practices) (Year 2).
- Inclusive leadership is seen as a key management skill (Year 3)
- Demonstrate proficiency and competency in working with and managing diversity (Year 3).
Community and visibility
DPC is an undisputed leader in Diversity and Inclusion practice.
Guiding principles
- We aim to set the benchmark for inclusive practices across the Victorian Public Sector. VPS.
- We all play a part in contributing to work that helps the government achieve its strategic policy objectives and its vision of inclusion, for the benefit of the Victorian community.
- We promote and encourage the participation of our diverse communities to ensure that our service and delivery reaches all Victorians, including providing a voice at our events and forums.
- We engage suppliers and corporate partners who are genuinely committed to inclusive practices.
Organisational enablers
- Actively promote DPC as a welcoming and inclusive environment in our recruitment and marketing campaigns.
- Raise public image as an organisation that is genuinely inclusive and engages with its diverse communities.
- Take lead role in diversity and inclusion initiatives across the sector, including the VPS Pride Network, Enablers Network, Disability Steering Committee, Male Champions of Change, Gender Auditing Pilot Project and the Workplace Equality and Respect Program.
- Support the Secretary as a Male Champion of Change.
- Support executive sponsors to drive diversity and inclusion plans and deliver on the work.
- Use key research publications and subject matter experts from peak agencies to inform diversity and inclusion work at DPC.
Individual – self-directed actions
- Executive officer or nominee to lead on (at least) one action a year from this strategy.
- Executive officer to communicate about inclusive practices or engage in one diversity and inclusion event or learning opportunity at DPC, at least once a year.
- Branch Directors to engage P&C to present on latest diversity and inclusion initiatives and practices to their work area (including the roll-out of this strategy), or to look at targeted diversity and inclusion training for their work area that addresses any equity issues from their People Matter Survey results.
- Branches to communicate and share good news stories on the staff Intranet.
- Ensure when engaging corporate partners, that they are committed and active in their efforts to create an inclusive and equitable workplace.
Lead responsibility
Executive officers, P&C.
Outcomes
- Our Diversity and Inclusion plans and practices are exemplar (Year 3).
- DPC is continually cited as an undisputed leader in accessibility and inclusion by reputation and is an undisputed employer of choice (Year 3)
Measurement and accountability
An evidence based approach to inform best practice.
Guiding principles
- DPC will continue to improve our diversity and inclusion performance by consistent and frequent analysis of its workforce data and employment policies and practices
- DPC will continue to assess diversity and inclusion strategies (to measure their effectiveness) and key recommendations to inform, prioritise, further resource, improve or sustain our organisation’s performance.
- There is clear leadership accountability and responsibility to drive change.
Organisational enablers
- Establish an accurate workplace profile across all diversity priority areas.
- Establish a campaign to encourage employees to share and update personal ’diversity’ information in the Employee Self Service payroll system to improve the capture of workforce metrics.
- Establish longitudinal data to measure our performance over time
- Compile succinct annual performance reports and dashboard data for each priority area.
- Provide high level recommendations to executive sponsors in each priority area to inform, prioritise further resource, improve or sustain our diversity and inclusion performance.
- Include diversity and inclusion indicators in the performance plans of all executive officers.
- Consider the establishment of KPIs for executive officers to address any equity gaps and imbalances.
Individual – self-directed actions
- Executive officers to identify equity gaps in their portfolio and develop strategy and action plans to redress any imbalances.
- Managers to work with the Senior Adviser, Diversity & Inclusion (P&C) to assist in understanding which diversity and inclusion strategies are effective and result in successful outcomes that also considers the branches’ or work areas context and challenges.
- Leaders to focus on at least one action a year in the Strategy that will have a significant impact on their local work area, for example, active recruitment strategies to attract more diverse talent or workplace culture initiatives.
Lead responsibility
P&C, executive officers.
Outcomes
Understanding and confirming the effect of strategies that contribute to a successful outcome (Year 2)
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