Hey folks
Nice to e-meet!
Quick intro: I’m Pam, and over the next few weeks, I’m pulling back the curtain on DEBI, Talent Networking, Career Cushioning, and… other random musings? (I’ll fill you in once my brain catches up ).
Drop a comment if something resonates; honestly, it’ll give me life!
First up, let’s take a deep dive into the world of Diversity, Equity, Belonging, and Inclusion (DEBI) from a Talent lens.
Disclaimer: I’m not a DEBI guru, just wildly passionate. The challenge? Keeping my rambling under 1,000 words.
Globally, and especially here in Australia, we’re reimagining DEBI. Because inclusivity really isn’t just a ‘nice to have’. It’s a need. Thanks, in part, to both growing awareness and a few legislative changes.
Before we jump in, here’s a quick 101 about me:
Profession: Steering the Talent ship at Harrison.ai, an AI Health Tech scale-up with 250+ people globally (including our joint ventures).
Current read: This hilarious take on The Economist’s trial of a 2-day work week (spoiler: it’s a mess).
Fun fact: One glass of wine, and I’m tomato-red.
Hobbies: Hiking up mountains and bringing the Talent and P&C community together via Sydney Talent Meetup (come join us!).
Back to business: DEBI.
Post-COVID, remote and hybrid work has blown hiring horizons wide open, putting diverse talent well within our grasp. Leaders have witnessed the tangible benefits of diverse teams—they’re more innovative, make better decisions (by up to 50%), and they up the profit game.
What’s the Talent realm been up to? We’ve seen an uptake of more inclusive hiring practices in a bid to attract more diverse candidates (examples: revamp of career sites and job adverts for more inclusive language), and we’ve gotten crafty with tools like Applied for blind recruitment. Overall, there’s been a collective push to find ways to reduce unconscious bias in hiring processes (emphasising skills and qualifications over demographic factors) which is great to see.
In Australia, support for DEBI has been supercharged by legislative developments:
- March 2023: By now you’ll have heard – parliament has given the green light to the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment Bill. For companies with 100+ people, it’s all about laying the gender pay equity cards on the table, transparently, for everyone to see by early 2024.
Got some gaps in those stats? Dive deep and figure out the why behind them. You’ll want to be across this plus your company’s plans to meaningfully address any gaps. And, you know, if your pay data is raising a few eyebrows, be sure to plan how you’ll share these details with openness and transparency to your current team and future candidates.
By the way, if you think your company may need help assessing their gender pay gap, I’d recommend visiting this link. It’s a free Pay Gap Preview tool by an awesome Aussie company called equidi (who, coincidentally, happened to win ATC’s Innovation Lab in 2022). Or, visit the take action section of WGEA (it contains a pay gap calculator, communication guides plus loads of great resources for employers).
- From 7th June 2023: No pay secrecy clauses allowed in employment contracts. Talent teams, check your contracts! Especially those in nimble startups. (Take it from someone who’s been there and learnt it the hard way).
In case you’re wondering, at Harrison.ai, here’s a few ways our Talent teams are championing DEBI:
- Inclusive Language: we’ve revised our external communications (careers site, job advert, EVP and more), ensuring it sounds welcoming to everyone. We use free tools like Gender Decoder (it’s great!) to double check our adverts have been written inclusively.
- Gender-based diversity metrics and advocacy: we’ve set goals for gender-based diversity hiring, even if it occasionally extends our hiring timeline. Example: we set a % goal for the number of diverse candidates presented at shortlist stage for Engineering roles.
- Technical/Work Sample Task revision: we’ve adapted these to suit a broader range of candidates. Example: we noticed some candidates were more likely to drop out of our hiring process during our take-home Tech Task stage (especially those with parental responsibilities at home). So we pared back our take-home task requirements, and gave candidates two kinds of Tech Task options to choose from.
- Unconscious Bias Training: we’ve provided on-going training to hiring managers and interviewers to help them recognise and mitigate both unconscious and conscious bias during the hiring process.
- Partnerships: we’ve increased our collaboration with external organisations like Project F to help us review and implement gender-equality best practice across our company, and we’ve sponsored events run by organisations such as Girls in Tech to help us better support and tap into female tech talent communities.
- Structured interviews, diverse interview panels and flexible interview accommodations: we run structured interview processes for all roles and ensure a diverse interview panel composition.
Finally, we’ve revamped our office space to create a more inclusive, accessible, and welcoming environment for those wishing to come in—we added elements like greenery, soft furnishings and gentler lighting. Plus a hanging disco ball. Because why not? #essential
Additionally, we’ve updated our EVP to clearly wave the flexible and remote work flags! Our teams and candidates are sending us virtual high-fives and flowers for this. Not really, but we know they’re happy.
So what’s coming up next? We’ve got articles in the works to help spotlight our team and leadership diversity. Can’t wait
And finally (can I say that twice?), I must say we’re definitely not anywhere near perfect and many of our initiatives are still evolving, but hey, small steps still lead forward.
There are some great events coming up in Sydney that will dig deeper into DEBI. Join us at the Sydney Talent Meetup at Canva offices on 21st November for Building for Inclusivity: How to Support, Attract & Engage Diverse Talent (there’s free pizza too! ). You’ll also want to sit in on the session about WGEA’s new pay gap legislation (featuring Dr Samone McKurdy, Sarah Abbot and Reanna Browne) at the upcoming ATC2023.
Okay, I may have stretched that word count promise a little but DEBI is a mammoth topic!
Keen to dive deeper? Check out the resources below.
And I’d love to know: how is your team making strides in DEBI?
Catch you next week!
Diversity is being invited to the party: inclusion is being asked to dance
An oldie but a goldie! Verna Meyers shares her views on the main barriers to building an inclusive workplace and delves into the importance of recognising one’s own unconscious bias.
Nudge: The Gentle Way to Improve Decisions
This book is a game-changer for decision making! It shows how you can help yourself and others make better unconscious decisions through “nudging”. Rather than mandating or banning certain behaviours, a nudge gently steers individuals towards the most beneficial choice while still maintaining their freedom of choice. Its underlying principles can be applied to everything from parenting to health and of course to how we design our hiring processes or any process/system where we (for example) may want to promote more equitable and inclusive behaviours and decisions.
equidi’s GEM newsletter
equidi is a DEBI game changer. Their monthly newsletter gives great insights into gender pay gap equity, and what you and your company can do to help close the gap. (And yes, there is still very much a gap even in Australia! According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), on average, women in Australia still earn 13% less than men.)
DEI Bites
Another great newsletter to welcome into your inbox. This bi-monthly Project F newsletter provides eye-opening insights into the latest developments across the D&I space, with a focus on Women in Tech.
Creating an accessible and inclusive workplace
This in-depth guide from IncludeAbility gives information for employers on how to create an accessible and inclusive workplace for all, and in particular for people with a disability (almost 1 in 5 people in Australia have a disability). It covers concepts of universal design, job customisation and much more.
