BSBDIV501(BSB50215) Presentation 1

BSBDIV501 DIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE PRESENTATION 1

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

At the end of this lesson you will be able to:

• Locate and review your workplace diversity policy

• Determine diversity policy application to work context

• Ensure diversity policy is understood and implemented

• Provide feedback and suggestions for improvement

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FINDING LOCATION OF DIVERSITY POLICIES IN ORGANISATIONS

• You will need to locate your organisations diversity policy through the

following sources:

• Intranet- a business’s computer network that uses share information,

operational systems, or computing services within an organisation. Most

organisations will use the intranet to store information for staff to

access policies and procedures.

• Policies and procedures manual- clarify what your organisation

wants to do and how to do it. Policies are clear, simple statements of

how your organisation intends to conduct its services, actions or

business. They provide a set of guiding principles to help with decision

making.

• Staff handbooks-employee manual or staff handbook, is a book

given to employees by an employer. Usually, the employee handbook

contains information about company policies and procedures.

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IMPLEMENT DIVERSITY POLICY• Australia is largely a multicultural society, below is a table which

demonstrate the top 10 birth locations of the Australian population –

consider the diversity of employees in your workplaceCountry of Birth Persons Proportion of all overseas

bornMedian age Sex ratio

‘000 % Years

United Kingdom 1101.0 20.8 54 101.7

New Zealand 483.4 9.1 40 102.8

China 319.0 6. 35 79.8

India 295.4 5.6 31 125.2

Italy 185.4 3.5 68 104.7

Vietnam 185. 3.5 43 84.6

Philippines 171.2 3.2 39 60.6

South Africa 145.7 2.8 39 96.9

Malaysia 116.2 2.2 39 83.5

Germany 108.0 2.0 62 90.6

Born elsewhere overseas 2183.8 41.2 44 95.6

Total overseas born 5294.2 100 45 96.1

Excludes Special Administrative Regions and Taiwan Province.

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LOCATE AND REVIEW YOUR WORKPLACE DIVERSITY POLICY

• A Diversity Policy is an important document

• It provides the framework for managing diversity and making

diversity based decisions,

• Expresses the stated value of diversity the organisation holds

• To make intelligent applications of the workplace diversity policy a

person needs to have effective analytical skills

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LOCATE AND REVIEW YOUR WORKPLACE DIVERSITY POLICY• Workplace diversity relates to any form of difference, such as:

• Diversity also relates to other areas in which people are different, such as

educational level, life experience, work experience and socio-economic

background

• Workplace diversity involves recognising the value of individual differences and

managing these in the workplace

• Your diversity policy can be found in many places including: operations

manuals, policy and procedure manuals, intranet or by asking a supervisor

• Ability, aptitude and disability• Age• Culture• Ethnicity• Gender• Language • Marital status

• Family arrangements• Nationality• Personality• Race• Religion• Sexuality

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The key Diversity legislation in Australia is the Anti-discrimination

legislation which follows the federal Acts. These include:

Sex and Age Discrimination

Amendment Act 2011

Disability Discrimination and

Other Human Rights Legislation Amendment

Act 2009

Fair Work Act 2009

Work Healthy & Safety Act 2011

Disability Discrimination

Amendment Act 2005

Equal Opportunity for Women in the

Workplace Act 1999

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity

Commission Act 1986

Racial Discrimination Amendment Act 1980

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• Together, they prohibit discrimination on the basis of:

Sexual preference

Political opinion

Race and ethnicity Sex

Social origin

Trade union activities Religion

Parental status

Family responsibilit

y

Irrelevant medical record Age Breastfe

eding

Marital status

Nationality

Gender Colour

Carer status

Disability

Irrelevant criminal history

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DETERMINE DIVERSITY POLICY APPLICATION TO WORK CONTEXTTo maintain competitive advantage in a global economy organisation’s need to

capture ideas and information from a diverse workforce. Benefits of workforce

diversity can include:

• Lower recruitment and training costs – employees feel welcome and stay

longer in their employment, poor management is associated with increased

staff turnover and absenteeism

• Encourages new ways to approach challenges, innovative suggestions and

decisions, creative problem solving processes, increased flexibility and market

responsiveness

• Diverse teams may produce better decisions, engage in more robust debate,

and generate more and better ideas than teams of people with similar

backgrounds

• A multicultural workforce can provide access to new markets and help develop

internationally successful products and services

• The value of a diverse workforce lies in how effectively it is managed

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ENSURE DIVERSITY POLICY IS UNDERSTOOD AND IMPLEMENTED

• To gain many of the advantages of a diverse workforce, it’s

necessary to promote the organisation’s diversity to internal and

external audiences

Internal means of promotion include:• Business meetings• Newsletters• Bulletins• Staff meetings• Staff updates• Staff training• Staff induction

External means of promotion include:• Conferences and seminars• Professional networks• Organisation website• Social media• Branding and image

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• There are several

benefits for

promoting

organisational

workforce

diversity:

Benefits

To enhance and

organization's reputation and image

To attract quality

candidates

To expand market

growth and develop new

marketsTo get new ideas from your diverse

workforce to enhance products

and services

To improve relationships with suppliers and providers

To contribute to your

organisation’s competitive advantage

To compete in a global

market

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ENSURE DIVERSITY POLICY IS UNDERSTOOD AND IMPLEMENTEDDisability refers to:

• Total or partial loss of the person’s bodily or mental functions

• Total or partial loss of a part of the body

• The presence in the body of organisms causing disease or illness

• The presences in the body of organisms capable of causing disease or

illness

• The malfunction, malformation or disfigurement of a part of the

person’s body

• A disorder or malfunction that results in the person learning from a

person without the disorder or malfunction

• A disorder, illness or disease that affects a person’s thought

processes, perception of reality, emotions or judgment or that results

in disturbed behaviour

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Family Responsibilities

• Means responsibilities of the person to care for or support:

• A dependent child of the person

• Any other immediate family member who is in need of care

and support

• ‘Dependent child’ means a child who is wholly or substantially

dependent on the person

• ‘Immediate family member’ include:

• A spouse of the person

• An adult child, parent, grandparent, grandchild or sibling of

the person or of a spouse of the person

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Gender and Sex

Sometimes it is hard to understand exactly what is meant by the

term gender, and how it differs from the closely related term sex

• Sex refers to the biological and physiological characteristics

that define men and women

• Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours,

activities, and attributes that a given society considers

appropriate for men and women

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Irrelevant Criminal Record

• The relevance of a job applicant’s or employee’s criminal record

should be assessed on a case-by-case basis against the inherent

requirements of the work he or she would be required to do and

the circumstances in which it has to be carried out

• A criminal record should not generally be an absolute bar to

employment of a person

• Only where the nature of the offence indicates a real likelihood of

re-offending, or where there is a genuine need for someone not to

have a criminal record, should a criminal record be relevant to a

person’s employment or their ability to access a service

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Parental Status

• Parental status means the status of being a parent or childless

• A parent can include a step-parent, adoptive parent and foster

parent

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It is important to

manage diversity

effectively to reap its

benefits.

Embracing everyone’s

differences, whilst

creating a common

team culture takes a

conscious decision

and a commitment to

maintaining focus on

non-discriminatory

actions.

Poorly managed diversity

Well managed diversity

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Understanding discrimination is crucial to Diversity Best Practice.

Discrimination can be overt or covert. Neither are acceptable.

• Overt Discrimination: clear, direct discrimination on the grounds

of race, sex, parental status etc.

• Covert discrimination: more subtle and difficult to spot. Basing

employment decisions on:

• Characteristics of some members of disadvantaged groups

• Characteristics that are incorrectly or unfairly associated with

people of a particular group (stereotyping)

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Direct Discrimination

Under the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 direct discrimination occurs if

a person treats, or proposes to treat, someone unfavourably because

of a personal characteristic that is protected by law

Direct discrimination can be either overt or covert

• Over direct discrimination: a clear statement of refusal to hire

from a disadvantaged group

• Covert direct discrimination: a consistent failure to hire from a

disadvantaged group

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ENSURE DIVERSITY POLICY IS UNDERSTOOD AND IMPLEMENTEDIndirect Discrimination

• Under the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 Indirect discrimination will occur

where a person imposes, or proposes to impose, a requirement,

condition or practice that has, or is likely to have, the effect of

disadvantaging people with a protected attribute, and that is not

reasonable.

• Indirect discrimination occurs when policies or practices appear on the

surface to be neutral, but when applied in the work environment have

an adverse effect on a disadvantaged group

Indirect discrimination is often less obvious

• Sometimes a policy, rule or practice seems fair because it applies to

everyone equally, but a closer look shows that some people are being

treated unfairly, some people or groups of people, are unable or less

able to comply with the rule or are disadvantaged because of it

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Systemic Discrimination

• Is left behind when the obvious types of discrimination have been

removed from policies and procedures

• The longstanding direct and indirect discrimination embedded in

the culture of the organisation

• Needs to be identified and removed by individual managers by

applying policies fairly

• Involves a pattern or practice, policy, or class case where the

alleged discrimination has a broad impact on the industry,

profession, company or geographic area

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PROVIDE FEEDBACK AND SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT

Feedback provides opportunities to clarify expectations, adjust goal

difficulty, and gain recognition. It's important to provide benchmark

opportunities or targets, so individuals can determine for themselves

how they're doing.

These regular progress reports, which measure specific success along

the way, are particularly important where it's going to take a long

time to reach a goal.

In these cases, break down the goals into smaller chunks, and link

feedback to these intermediate milestones.

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How does workplace diversity fit into the wider organisation

Workplace diversity principles should be integrated with and

underpin all aspects of human resource management, such as

planning, selection and recruitment, performance appraisal, training

and development, occupational health and safety and workplace

relations. For example, an agency's certified agreement and AWAs

should reinforce its commitment to diversity and should incorporate

flexible working conditions to allow employees to balance their work

and other responsibilities.

Workplace diversity strategies help to build the organisation's

relationship with:The community

Enhance the contribution of its employees

Improve the quality of its programs,

products and service

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PROVIDE FEEDBACK AND SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENTProviding feedback is an important but often under-utilised aspect of

employee motivation and development. Particularly in Australian business

culture, sensitivities over giving and receiving either praise or criticism

have often inhibited managers from providing sufficient feedback.

To be most effective, feedback is provided with reference to established

performance expectations or goals. Without feedback, an employee may

remain unaware of how their behaviour meets or falls short of

performance expectations, and they are unlikely to make changes.

Positive feedback, which identifies and recognises specific good work and

high levels of achievement, is a powerful motivational tool, particularly

when it is well timed and provided genuinely and sincerely. Being specific

and descriptive with positive feedback provides clarity in promoting

desired behaviours or achievements and communicates the sincerity of

your appreciation.

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Feedback

Formal

Performance reviews

Sandwich method

Team updates

Casual feedback

Informal

Peer to peer

One-on-one sessions

Compliments

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PRESENTATION SUMMARY

Now that you have completed this presentation you will know about:

• Locate and review your workplace diversity policy

• Determine diversity policy application to work context

• Ensure diversity policy is understood and implemented

• Provide feedback and suggestions for improvement

Education

BSBDIV501(BSB50215) Presentation 1