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Workplace diversity: Innovation & Performance Conference
The Hon. Dr David Kemp
Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service
Canberra, 10 February 1998
Thank you for that kind introduction and warm welcome.
It is indeed a pleasure to be here, at the first Workplace Diversity Conference. Although the third in this series of conferences, I believe that this conference represents a watershed in the development of equity and diversity policies and practices.
This Conference is a seminal forum for the development, exposure and exchange of ideas and views, of policies and practices, which contribute to building a high performance Public Service through ensuring the effective management of the talents of Australians recruited from the wide diversity of backgrounds that is Australia today. This is an opportunity to consider how to build a more open and a more productive Public Service.
The Government is elevating alongside the concept of equal employment opportunity the more embracing concept of workplace diversity as part of our overall objectives for public sector reform.
The pressures for public sector reform come from two related sources:
- the need to improve Australia's international competitiveness in an increasingly globalised economy; and
- the growing community pressure for better access to improved services at lower cost.
In other words, the Australian Public Service is subject to the same economic, social and technological pressures as other sectors of the Australian economy. Countries are now competing on the quality and efficiency of their governments and public sector as much as on the quality of their private sectors.
The Government is also mindful that Australia is a very democratic country with a strong egalitarian tradition. To maintain and strengthen these traditions, our institutions have to be able to incorporate and to draw on the increasing diversity in our society.
Let me emphasise the continuing crucial importance of what we have referred to over the years as equal employment opportunity. The links between equal employment opportunity and business goals and outcomes are quite clear. They are simple, logical and obvious. Effective high-performing organisations have to be able to access, develop and retain the skills and talents of all Australians. Let me be absolutely categorical: the Government is committed to the maintenance of equal employment opportunity as one of the cornerstones of its public sector reform program. All Australians should have the opportunity to compete for careers in the Australian Public Service without being disadvantaged because of irrelevant factors such as gender, race, ethnicity or disability.
I should also emphasise that the Government sees the prohibition and elimination of employment and workplace discrimination and disadvantage for all Australians as essential to the maintenance of a fair and cohesive society. This principle is clearly enunciated in both the Workplace Relations Act and the Public Service Bill.
The Government is changing the emphasis to workplace diversity, because workplace diversity encompasses, but goes beyond, the Equal Employment Opportunity concept of rectifying disadvantage. Workplace Diversity focuses on the positive contribution that a diverse workforce can make to organisational effectiveness and morale.
In an environment characterised by unrelenting and often unexpected change, the continued success of organisations is dependent upon recognising the importance of developing and utilising the diverse skills of its people. Embracing diversity requires us to recognise the differences both between and within all of us - a diversity which is a source of innovative ideas, creative ways of working and new styles of leadership.
I should take the opportunity to reaffirm the Government's broader commitment to diversity as an important element of its overall social policy. The Prime Minister, John Howard, when launching Multicultural Australia: The Way Forward last December, made it clear that the Government believes: in pro-active embrace of the diversity of our community. We believe in sharing the values and reaping the dividend of our diversity.
There are two aspects to managing diversity within the workplace. The first aspect is to ensure that the interests and concerns of people from diverse backgrounds and with different family and caring responsibilities can be accommodated in the workplace. Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, is to recognise the positive aspects of difference. People from different cultural or linguistic backgrounds will bring different experiences and different viewpoints to the development of policies. People with disabilities are likely to have particular insights into ensuring equal access to client service. Indigenous Australians may be able to bring alternative strategies to effective program delivery.
Above and beyond this, workplace diversity requires us to recognise that all of us have differences in outlook , experience and viewpoint and that workplace structures should harness these differences for addressing the large and complex issues of government.
The Government sees workplace diversity as one of the central pillars of its agenda for public sector reform. In order to manage effectively in this new environment, the Government needs a high standard of professional advice from the APS. Fundamentally, of course, no government can function without frank and fearless technical policy advice from its public service. But we also need to recognise that high quality and relevant advice can no longer be provided by a static organisational culture or by the cultivation of a single organisational mindset. Rather we need to encourage different outlooks and alternative views. We need creative, innovative advice which enables the Government to manage a dynamic political, social, economic and international environment. This means that you, as public sector managers, need to be able to recognise and to harness all the diversity in background, culture, outlook and experience that is the distinctive hallmark of Australian society.
The Government also wants an Australian Public Service which is able to provide the Australian public - our customers and clients- with the best mix of effective service, value for money and accountability. Here, again, we can no longer continue to operate effectively within static or obsolete paradigms. Our clients are changing. Their outlook is changing, their choices about their working and domestic lives are changing and their views of what government can or should provide are changing. We want to ensure that the Australian Public Service reflects the diversity of the Australian community, and recognises this diversity in developing and implementing its delivery policies and programs.
Finally, the Government wants to see the improvement of organisational and individual performance in the Australian Public Service through the creation of workplaces which can adapt to change and which recognise and reward those staff who are creative and flexible. A more diverse Australian Public Service workforce is central to the achievement of more innovative and productive workplaces. In highly competitive organisations, diversity is a positive. Organisations whose cultures are based on principles of inclusiveness, diversity and equity, where leadership is responsive to different views and assessments, and in which excessive hierarchy does not constrain or dilute alternative views, are more productive and rewarding places to work in.
An important aspect of a more diverse, and therefore a more innovative and effective Australian Public Service, is the implementation of employment policies and practices which help staff better to balance their work and family responsibilities. I recognise that this is a difficult issue. We need the flexibility to accommodate the very people whose diverse views and experiences we may have been missing out on: women, who still bear a large proportion of family caring responsibilities; people from cultures which emphasise caring obligations to extended family members; and men who have chosen to share caring responsibilities. Let me make it quite clear. I don't believe that you can have the benefits of workplace diversity and at the same time maintain work practices which ignore employees' caring obligations. We need to be smarter about the way in which we organise work, allocate responsibilities and structure organisations. This conference will provide some innovative examples of how to ensure workforces can better balance work and family responsibilities.
One of the main purposes of this conference is to encourage you to think about this and other challenges relating to the implementation of workplace diversity, to exchange views with your colleagues and to learn from the examples and experiences of other sectors.
But it is also important to understand the legal and policy framework within which workplace diversity is to be implemented. The Government is deeply disappointed that, as a result of Senate intransigence, Workplace Diversity Programs are unlikely to gain statutory authority under a new Public Service Act in the immediate future. However, as I have made absolutely clear, the pace of public service reform will not be slackened. The pressures for public sector reform will not recede, and the Government will not allow the current Senate obstruction to slow its reforms. As a matter of Government policy, Workplace Diversity Programs will still be implemented in all APS agencies.
The Public Service and Merit Protection Commission (PSMPC) has developed guidelines which set out the minimum administrative requirements with respect to the aims, structure and reporting requirements of an agency's Workplace Diversity Program. It is developing a practitioner's handbook which agencies can draw on in implementing and monitoring these programs. The PSMPC will be working with agencies to develop and implement pilot Workplace Diversity programs.
As a first step in this process, I am pleased to launch this morning the Public Service Commissioner's Managing Diversity Guidelines. This document provides the legal and policy framework for the implementation of agency Workplace Diversity Programs. I commend it to you as the basis for building effective programs that will ensure your Agency embraces the diversity within your workplaces which is a source of innovative ideas, creative ways of working and new styles of leadership.
In concluding, I declare the Workplace Diversity - Innovation and Performance - Conference open, and wish all the participants well in the development and exchange of ideas, policies and practices which contribute to building a high performance, and diverse, Australian Public Service.
Associated speeches
Speech by Helen Williams, Public Service Commissioner - "1997 Equality Awards for Innovative Practice in Equal Employment Opportunity in the Australian Public Service"
Speech by Helen Williams, Public Service Commissioner - "The New Public Service Environment: Challenges and Opportunities"
