We extend our thanks to our Bureau colleagues for their invaluable contributions to developing our Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Action Plan and their commitment to our organisation’s success. This plan is the result of extensive consultations, co-designing actions, and establishing partnerships to deliver initiatives and track progress.

We have sought to understand and support our unique and diverse workforce, and the consultation process included analysing workforce composition, trends across the employee life cycle, APS Census results, equality performance indicators, current D&I programs, and extensive feedback from over 300 colleagues about their experiences and ideas.

A working group with broad representation across business groups, role classifications, and employee diversity networks then used this baseline and feedback to agree on priorities and co-design initiatives. The Executive Team has provided further feedback and have endorsed the action plan, demonstrating their commitment and support to drive meaningful change.

What we heard

We gathered hundreds of ideas to improve experiences, finding common ground to ensure all colleagues feel included. Key themes include treating everyone with respect, strong team connections, flexible and supportive ways of working, and transparent opportunities for development and progression. Colleagues from diverse backgrounds shared further invaluable insights. Here are the key themes that emerged.

D&I commitment

Demonstrating a commitment to D&I through regular communication about why it is important to the organisation.

A holistic view

Leveraging the many ways we can be successful together with a focus on performance outcomes, regardless of how we achieve them. We are all unique with diverse identities, backgrounds, lived experiences, perspectives and strengths. When we understand the diversity in our teams and the dynamic nature of people's full lives, we can explore ways to support all colleagues to fully participate and bring their best to collaborate and meet work goals.

Managing for inclusion

Valuing traits of curiosity, empathy, cultural awareness, and humility. Encourage learning from constructive debates and exposure to diverse views and talents. Notice the distribution of participation in collaborations and be alert to who is showcased and celebrated. A lot of subtle things can happen to make someone who has something unique and helpful to contribute at work be limited in how they can do that. This can create a reinforcing cycle that hinders their performance and development.

Equal access to opportunities

Untapping the unique strengths of each team member so they can have opportunities to develop and progress. This involves understanding and addressing demographic tendencies in our ways of working that create artificial barriers for some groups. It also means encouraging employees to advocate for themselves in a way that is mutually beneficial for them and the organisation.