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Last updated: 31 December 1997

Changing the APS workforce: A valuing diversity issue

Please note: This document is for reference purposes only and is no longer considered by the APS Commission to be current. It may contain good practice advice and/or advice on the transitional arrangements between the 1922 and 1999 Public Service Acts.

Purpose

This paper expands on issues raised at the workshops sponsored by the Public Service and Merit Protection Commission (PSMPC) on workplace diversity that were held in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra in August 1997. Its purpose is to stimulate further consideration of these issues and their impact on the development, implementation, monitoring and reporting of Workplace Diversity Programs (WDPs).

The paper also draws on material contained in the individual reports of workshop outcomes and published research on workplace diversity.

The workshops were an opportunity for EEO workers from across the APS to reflect on EEO experience to date, to share some of their knowledge and expertise and, in light of government policy, to consider where agencies might go from here.

Your comments on the issues that have been raised either in the workshops or in this paper will assist us in the preparation of good practice guidelines for WDPs.

Background

The Government is committed to public sector reform.

On 5 December 1997, following amendments to the Public Service Bill 1997 in the Senate, the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service, Dr David Kemp, announced that the Bill had been laid aside by the House of Representatives.

In the meantime, the Government will immediately press ahead with the reform process through administrative means. These reforms include the implementation of Workplace Diversity Programs in all APS agencies.

To this end the Public Service Commissioner will be issuing new directions on Government policy and new guidelines under ss.22B(10) of the Public Service Act 1922. These will require agencies to review and enhance their EEO programs to incorporate the concept of workplace diversity.

New workplace diversity framework

Workplace diversity encompasses but goes beyond the traditional concept of EEO. The object is to ensure that the public service makes the fullest possible use of the diverse backgrounds, skills, talents and perspectives of all its people. Implicit in the requirement to develop Workplace Diversity Programs is a recognition of the need to ensure that the APS reflects the composition of the Australian community.

Under the new arrangements, managers will be encouraged to recognise, value and nurture the different skills and competencies of all people through flexible employment practices and to utilise these differences in ways that serve to enhance the performance of their agencies. Diversity is seen as a way of promoting high performance.

Workplace Diversity Programs will build on the current EEO provisions of the Act and Commonwealth anti-discrimination provisions. This involves:

• prohibition of discrimination in appointment, promotion and transfer on the basis of race, colour, sex, sexual preference, age, physical or mental disability, marital status, family responsibilities, pregnancy, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin;
• a requirement that agencies have in place special measures to ensure that women, Indigenous Australians, people of non-English speaking background and physical and mental disability are not disadvantaged in competing for and developing APS careers;
• application of the provisions of the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act 1992, Racial Discrimination Act 1975, Sex Discrimination Act 1984 and Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986 in respect of both direct and indirect discrimination in the workplace;
• application of the anti-discrimination provisions of the Workplace Relations Act 1996; and
• special measures under Public Service Regulation 71B for the recruitment of people with intellectual disabilities under the Intellectual Disability Access Program (IDAP) and for the recruitment of Indigenous Australians under the Aboriginal Cadetship Program, Aboriginal Technical Traineeship Program and Graduate Administrative Assistant Aboriginal Services Program.

Elements of a model of a WDP needs to include 'the business motivations/rationale (including lessening group think, cultural change, service delivery, organisational performance, improved leadership) and focus on how it goes beyond the EEO program framework'. It needs to be tied to government policy...the relevant APS values and codes of ethics...anti-discrimination legislation and Conventions, including the Workplace Relations Act and the proscribed grounds of discrimination itemised there (Burton, 1997:1).

Reporting requirements

Under the current Act , the Public Service Commissioner is required to report annually to the Prime Minister on the operation of the EEO provisions. This report is tabled in Parliament as part of the Public Service Commissioner's Annual Report obligations.

The content of these reports will be revised in order to implement the more comprehensive and at the same time more streamlined diversity reporting arrangements developed as part of the Government's public sector reforms.

Agencies will be required to give the Commissioner information that he or she needs to monitor and report on comparative agency performance against Service-wide equity indicators. This report will also contain a statistical analysis of trends in the size, structure and composition of the APS and examples of good practice diversity initiatives (and poor practices) drawn from across the Service.

The changing workforce

Australia is one of the most multicultural societies in the world; our workforce reflects this. There has been a marked increase in the number of women in the total Australian workforce over the last three decades from 36% in 1978 to 44% in 1997; almost 50% of employees in the public service today are women. Australia's workforce is also characterised by:

• increasing numbers of two-parent families with both parents in paid work;
• a significant number of women as the primary income earners in families;
• more men sharing the responsibility of child care; and
• an increasing number of employees with other carer responsibilities and the expectation that these responsibilities will increase as the population ages.

The profile for those born between 1960 and 1980 is different in a number of respects and will have ramifications for the future of the public sector: a 25-year old woman today is more likely to have a university degree than a 40-year old man; they use technologies with simple sophistication; and the extinction of the concept of a 'job for life' and a more entrepreneurial approach to work has given them 'a leaner and meaner work ethic'. In the new workplace environment, young people's understanding of contract and project-based employment 'will come into its own'. ...in this time of meta-change, diversity and tolerance of difference are increasingly recognised as essential ingredients to succeed in corporate Australia'. These people, the so-called generation X-ers, are the new workforce (Macken, 1997: 2-3).

Failure to adequately accommodate the needs of a changing workforce could adversely affect the public service's ability to attract and retain good staff in today's labour market. Human resource management policies and practices must also change. Managers will be required to think more broadly in terms of support for, and integration of work and personal life-style needs, of their employees.

As well as declining APS staff numbers (about 8% over the last ten years), the nature of work itself is changing largely in response to the introduction of new technologies and wide-spread multiskilling. These factors have significantly affected the types of jobs performed by public servants and have resulted in a decline in the number of ASO 1-2 staff and a proportionately greater number of staff at higher classifications. It is becoming harder for young people under the age of 25 to enter the APS.

The notion of a 'job-for-life' has gone; agencies are downsizing, delayering and are required to 'do more with less'. There is increasing pressure to find innovative solutions to these challenges and ensure that as a result of restructuring, agencies do not lose quality people from the EEO groups and continue to attract new talent into the Service.

Valuing diversity

What does diversity mean within an organisational setting? How is it different from EEO?

As well as the widely recognised ethnicity and gender variables of diversity, there are other kinds of diversity that have important implications for the workplace. They include for instance, (dis)ability, family structure, religious beliefs, education, work experience, work styles, and sexual orientation. Each of these potentially overlapping identity group memberships can affect an employee's attitudes and behaviours in the workplace, as well as influence his or her ability to work well with other organisational members.

HR management systems traditionally have fostered workplace 'homogenisation'. Examples are recruiting practices that emphasise hiring people from sources that have historically been reliable; selection practices that stress choosing candidates similar to those who have been successful; training programs that foster uniform ways of thinking; and policies that limit flexibility in addressing employees' unique needs. The tendency has been for managers to select, promote and evaluate people in terms of the degree to which they are like their own image. Selection and promotion systems have traditionally favoured employees who fit well with the characteristics of a dominant culture.

Too much similarity in workplace environments that are experiencing rapid change has been shown to be detrimental to the organisation's ability to adapt to change or to respond to the changing expectations of the workforce. Many of these organisations are learning to recognise the value of differences in their staff profiles as well as similarities and are seeking to adopt a more strategic and inclusive approach to the management of their people resource. HR policies that support diversity can help the culture continually to adapt in response to new environmental demands. These policies are critical for attracting, selecting, motivating, developing and retaining a highly skilled, diverse group of employees (Kossak and Lobel: 3).

Recurring themes in the debates on EEO and diversity are:

• 'valuing diversity' derives from a different philosophical perspective 'diversity' is focused on the individual and is driven from the top levels of the organisation;
• EEO is group-based and emanates from the employees;
• diversity takes a broader view of EEO adding, for example, differing skills, family structures, educational levels, ages, cultural and social backgrounds to the more common interpretation which in Australia has focussed mainly on the four EEO groups;
• in the managing diversity approach to HR management, the efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation depends on drawing from the most 'diverse' possible range of skills and viewpoints;
• the traditional EEO approach has tended to ignore the enormous diversity in EEO groups based on, for example, such differences as gender, class, education, and occupation;
• conversely, too often perceived differences are exaggerated when in reality there are many more attributes that are shared than there are differences;
• diversity is primarily a business issue and management responsibility rather than a social or political imperative - while once the talk was of 'social justice', now it is more likely to be of 'efficient business practices';
• a shift in perception and treatment couched in the language of 'business' does not mean that we lose sight of our commitment to EEO as social justice;
• adoption of language and strategies more attuned to the business case for diversity are recognised as a more effective communication strategy to achieve EEO goals; and
• diversity refocusses on EEO issues and single issue-based groups such as people with family responsibilities rather than on identity-based groups.

Questions

1. Can we identify a set of core principles with respect to workplace diversity that should guide all agencies?

2. Do you see the diversity approach to EEO as being at odds with the traditional EEO focus on designated groups?

3. What lessons are there from our experience with EEO programs to date which should guide us as we begin to adopt a new approach?

4. What about people with disabilities? Are there any positive things happening in this area? What should agencies be doing in this area to ensure that people with disabilities have an equal opportunity to gain employment in the public service and advance their careers?

Managing diversity

Changing the culture

The Public Service values are expressions of core cultural competencies needed to create the distinctive culture and ethos of the new APS. The challenge for agencies will be to infuse these cultural values into their organisations through their Workplace Diversity Programs.

Under the existing regime, there has been a tendency for agencies to treat their EEO programs as an 'add-on' human resource activity. In those organisations that have developed successful workplace diversity initiatives, the programs are not tacked on the side of the organisation, nor are the best examples of these programs necessarily run by a separate human resource area. Managing diversity is a proactive and systemic process which is integrated throughout the organisation and is inclusive of all individuals and all groups. Diversity is about the culture of the organisationit penetrates all areas.

There are no 'quick fixes' when it comes to changing the culture of an organisation. All HR practitioners agree that it will require:

• strong leadership and commitment from the top;
• an investment in training and skills development in valuing and managing diversity;
• effective consultation and good communications; and
• effective means of measurement based on a realistic set of indicators of performance.

Cultural audits can be used to gain substantive evidence for the aspects of an organisational culture which support or inhibit equitable employment relations. The information collected provides benchmarks against which change can be measured (Hall, 1995:14-15).

The government is committed to improving the performance of the APS and the level and quality of services through better leadership, people management and a more creative workforce. The strategies and actions that agencies adopt in their WDPs will be different depending on business circumstances, their staff needs, and on how narrowly or widely they define diversity.

Workplace diversity programs will need to give attention to barriers to employment equity such as:

• bias in HRM systems performance review, job classification, merit selections and promotions;
• lack of demographic diversity in decision-making fora and on selection committees;
• poor management practice and associated policy implementation gaps;
• the lower quality of decision-making that emerges from people consulting only with people with similar backgrounds and experience to themselves;
• the pressures for 'newcomers' to conform with local expectations at the expense of enhanced quality of outcomes; and
• work-family policy initiatives. (Burton, 1997:4)

To enable employees to contribute effectively, workplaces will need to become more flexible and responsive to individual needs. 'Flexibility' is about making necessary adjustments and individualising treatment of the workforce. This may involve for example changing an employee's work hours to accommodate a child care schedule, or rewarding someone with time off rather than money, or redesigning a job to fit an individual's competencies as well as the organisation's requirements.

Organisations will need to select and train people who value diversity, who are flexible and who can help workers manage their work and personal life conflicts. The focus should be on getting the work done, rather than how or where it is done. Flexibility is mutual in the sense that both employee and employer will need to discuss and negotiate how to meet their respective needs.

Agencies need to adopt a comprehensive view of both diversity and work/personal life issues. It will involve the:

• development of policies and programs with employees to address work and personal life issues and training for managers in relation to policies and programs;
• a statement of senior management commitment which is communicated by the agency head and included in the agency's mission statement;
• appropriate training to ensure managers understand and value diversity and know how initiatives link to their business objectives; and
• systems of reward that are linked to employee feedback on management supportiveness with recognition provided for creative solutions.

Questions

5. What can organisations do to help managers and employees achieve a more diverse workforce? What are the barriers and what do they need to learn to do differently?

6. What should agencies be doing to enhance the upward mobility of members of non-dominant cultural groups and people with disabilities? What obstacles prevent this mobility?

7. What current HR systems, practices and policies present obstacles to fully developing and utilising a diverse workforce?

8. How do agencies maintain the diversity of their workforce when required to downsize?

Team-based work

If managing diversity is planning and implementing organisational systems and practices to manage people so that the potential advantages of diversity are maximised while the potential disadvantages are minimised, then teams represent one such system that can be used to successfully manage diversity to meet this goal. Benefits to be derived from the variety of different perspectives of people working together include better decision-making, more creativity or innovation and more effective problem-solving. Diversity issues are central to the functioning and effectiveness of teamwork.

In their article on capitalising on the benefits of diversity through workteams, Thompson and Gooler (1996) describe how workteams are an integral part of restructuring and redesigning of work in organisations. As products and technology become more complex, what once could have been done by one person may now require the expertise of several people.

Increasing task interdependency also has an impact on coordination, communication and cooperation.

The nature of workteams are changing due in part to changing workforce demographics but also 'due to the frequent use of workteams, such as cross-functional teams and self-managed teams, as a tool for restructuring organisations to be more competitive'. They may comprise people from different functional areas of the organisation and individuals external to the organisation. The increasing emphasis on client satisfaction is leading organisations to view the establishment of alliances with their clients to ensure that services are appropriate and are delivered effectively.

Other ways in which teams are different today concern how long individuals are assigned to teams which varies significantly depending on the project/task. Where and how teams meet is also changingthe ability to connect computers makes it possible to connect individuals in different geographic locations. Other technologies (eg. faxes and email) make instant communication possible and modems and portable computers enable access to electronic office files regardless of physical location (eg. at home or on the road). In an attempt to be more flexible and adaptable to change, organisations are granting an increased amount of autonomy and responsibility to teams.

In order to maximise the benefits and minimise the disadvantages, teams must be effectively managed. Thompson and Gooler attach particular importance to a supportive organisational context within which diverse teams must operate. A team's effectiveness can be measured in terms of both organisational outcomes and individual team-related outcomes (eg. job satisfaction, cohesiveness, as well as motivation and commitment to remain on the team).

Thompson and Gooler conclude that there is a need for more research on questions of how diversity impacts on team functioning over time, what leadership skills are required to lead diverse teams and how contextual factors in organisations impact on diverse teams. It is to be expected that agencies' experiences with such teams over time and exchanges of these experiences will help to build the essential body of knowledge needed to understand what contributes to the effectiveness of diverse workteams.

Redefining leadership

Successful teamwork will require more imaginative leadership, a different management style and a greater degree of risk management. Organisational change teamwork and flatter structuresrequires what organisational theorists describe as 'transformational leadership'.

The Government has indicated a commitment to public sector leadership of the highest quality. Leadership will be critical in the transition to a more diverse workforce. It will require new management skills, including an appreciation of the value of diversity and an ability to manage the process of bringing together a variety of people who think and act in potentially conflicting ways. New style managers will need to be competent in leading, coaching, communicating, networking and negotiating to manage effectively in these more fluid situations.

'Learning to manage diversity is a change process, and the managers involved are change agents' (Thomas, Jr, 1990: 116).

Agencies need to attain a critical mass of diversity within their organisations - not a token presence. Only then will traditional thinking change and become more reflective of today's society.

The profile at the top of the organisation must also diversify. Selecting someone outside the stereotype can be an important first step in the process of changing traditional management thinking. Agencies that recognise leadership diversity as a core business issue are more likely to progress to the next step of achieving diversity at all levels of the workforce.

The main challenges in managing a diverse workforce are:

• understanding how to use the strengths found in diversity;
• being able to exercise flexible approaches to managing people, for example, by leading, coaching, and mentoring;
• providing employees with the opportunity to participate in planning, problem-solving, designing and other activities relating to change; being able to create working conditions that are conducive to optimal performance, including conditions to assist staff to balance their work and home responsibilities; and establishing appropriate reward systems that recognise innovation and achievements.

Question

9. Organisations traditionally have tended to choose executives who are demographically similar to the existing management team. When management teams are homogeneous, their interpretation of the external environment also tends to be homogeneous. How do we achieve a more diverse profile at the top?

Creating family-friendly workplaces

The Government is committed to the establishment of family-friendly workplaces. Reconciliation of work and family responsibilities will involve an ongoing commitment also from employers and employees.

Public sector and workplace reform provide the framework for a more flexible approach to finding solutions to changes which are beneficial both to the employee and employer. Agencies have included or are in the process of including flexible work conditions in their workplace agreements, for example, in the areas of leave arrangements, flexitime, hours of work, part-time employment, and home-based work. A responsibility rests with individual managers to ensure that access to these provisions is fairly applied in accordance with individual need and that it takes into account organisational circumstances.

A number of workshop participants thought that diversity standards should be part of managers' performance agreements and that achievement of diversity outcomes should be linked to the agencies' reward systems.

In her paper, Burton argues that work/family policy needs to be regarded as a dynamic and long-term problem-solving process. Managers need to be held accountable for their responsiveness to work/family issues as they affect men and women at work. They must also actively encourage rather than discourage, implicitly or explicitly, men to take leave to care for family members and to work flexibly in order to be freer to assume daily carer responsibilities. She saw a need for a more detailed examination of the assessment of the performance of women with family responsibilities, since research evidence suggests a pervasive bias operates against them.

Despite the many statements of policy support for family-friendly workplaces, there is a perception that workplaces are becoming less friendly. Studies show a growing number of employees believe their ability to balance work and family demands has declined and those employees who are working longer and who have dependent children or relatives are less satisfied about this balance (Probert (1997): 25).

There is also evidence to show that full-time working hours are on the rise and increasing numbers of employees feel they are obliged to work harder and faster as well as longer. 'Flexibility' in the workforce may not always be progressive and if not managed properly could have an adverse impact on employees with family commitments. There is a myriad of provisions now that alter the standard hours workedfor example, increased/decreased span of work, increased ordinary hours of work, longer shifts, and staggered shifts. These are matters which will need to be properly managed in the context of agencies' WDPs. Managers will need to be aware of the impact of these and other changes on their staff and, in consultation with them, adopt appropriate measures to ensure that staff are able to effectively achieve a balance between the needs of work and family. Such measures recognise that without a good employer-employee relationship, employee loyalty and morale are likely to suffer and will impact adversely on performance.

Adoption of family-friendly policies and practices have achieved substantial savings, financial and otherwise through, for example, reduced turnover and absenteeism compared with the costs to an organisation of recruiting and training a replacement for professional, technical and managerial staff (Burton, 1997: 13-14).

Some HR practitioners are saying that organisations need to go beyond 'family-friendly' to think more broadly in terms of work and personal life integration. Agencies should be including in their thinking the needs of other groups such as those with domestic partners and single employees. People who achieve a balance in their work and commitments outside work are more likely to be effective at work.

Key EEO data should include indicators of cultural change such as: family-friendly practices; accommodation to different leave patterns of people from different cultural backgrounds; take-up rate of parental leave by men; promotion rates of part-time staff; patterns of staff development opportunities provided; and employees' assessments of responsiveness of organisation to their requirements for comfortable workplaces (Burton, 1997: 7).

Question

10. Are there any particular workplace policies or practices which adversely impact on people's ability to balance their work and family responsibilities?

A managing diversity strategy

An analysis of the environmental drivers (eg. technological advances, stakeholder pressures, labour market composition, quality focus, legal and government forces) will help an organisation determine its objectives for a managing diversity strategy. In other words, managing diversity is assumed to be an integral part of the process of achieving business objectives. Different objectives imply that different policy areas will be emphasised. For example, if the objective is greater teamwork among diverse group members then reward systems need to promote collaboration and sharing of information. Jobs would need to be restructured to encourage members to see the achievement of their own tasks as tightly coupled with those of their co-workers (Kossak and Lobel, 1996: 16).

Alternately, if the desired objectives were to manage diversity to improve marketing to non-traditional markets, HR practices would be redesigned to recruit and retain an employee population that mirrors the market.

A managing diversity strategy can impact on all HR policy areasfor example, recruiting and selection, development and motivation (including adapting mentoring, training and development, performance appraisal, and rewards to better fit with the complexities of changing demographics).

In her report to the PSMPC, Burton draws on empirical data to show that diversity in the workforce, non-discriminatory employment practices and equitable human resource management policies lead to more competitive organisational performance. Implementing family-friendly practices also makes good business senseimproved employee morale leads to increased performance and efficiency.

In a country as culturally and linguistically diverse as Australia, public servants are aware of the greater effectiveness of customer service delivery with a more representative workforce. State government departments and authorities have, for some years, been required to develop Ethnic Affairs Policy Statements (NSW) or Multicultural Management Commitment Plans (SA) setting out the service delivery efforts taken to be more responsive to ethnic communities' needs (Burton, 1997: 8).

The demands created by Australia's diverse community will add to the impetus for the development of skills in managing and taking strategic advantage of a culturally diverse workforce.

Broadening employee involvement in the design and delivery of services to the Australian community allows organisations to increase their capacity to tap into many segments of their market base either here in Australia or abroad and enhance their responsiveness to their clientele.

Burton's report contains examples from the literature of the added value provided by a diverse workforce through identification of business opportunities that would otherwise have been missed. One of the sources she quotes is a law firm, Dewey and Levin, whose changed demographic composition enabled it to expand its notion of relevant employment issues for women and so affected the kinds of cases the firm thought it should take on.

Burton argues that the same principle applies to government services. Workplace Diversity Programs complement policy initiatives directed towards equitable access to government services. The Workplace Diversity Programs are built, in part, on a recognition that service provision to the community is enhanced by the involvement of all sections of the community in service delivery. The argument that women and other under-represented groups need to be involved in policy development and decision-making for even more effective service delivery is made as well (Burton, 1997: 11).

Examples of indicators of effective integration of Workplace Diversity Programs into business planning are, for example, demonstrated by the scope of integration into: strategic planning (goals, indicators, evaluation processes); quality activity; HRM review processes, structural reorganisation; and the extent of availability of expert advice and guidance (from specialists with resources to keep up-to-date) (Burton, 1997: 7).

Questions

11. In terms of organisational policy and planning, where do you see WDPs fitting in?

12. Should responsible agencies require suppliers of programs or services to the Commonwealth to provide output and outcome information against which their performance with respect to workplace diversity objectives can be assessed?

13. What are the workplace diversity issues that are likely to be relevant in delivering a better service to the agencies' clients?

Training and skills development

The changing workforce highlights the need for an expanded role for training and development to meet organisational and individual needs. Training helps organisations to deal with the complex issues they face today:

• it helps to integrate the new mix of employees into the organisational culture;
• it is seen as a key method for eliminating artificial barriers to individual development and capabilities;
• it improves the perception of fairness if everyone is given equal opportunities to gain the knowledge and skills to be effective in the workplace; and
• as agencies confront issues of downsizing and restructuring, training is emerging as a key to survival as well as to professional development.

New approaches to training are focussed on meeting the needs and challenges of a more diverse workforce. The critical issue for agencies will be how best to use training as a way of reaching their diversity objectives.

Agencies may need to consider leadership training programs which include advice and training to assist managers to attain a new set of managerial competencies, including change management skills. Such training could be used to guide their understanding of diversity issues and help them recognise and address problems and establish effective complaint mechanisms.

Cross-cultural training has been widely accepted as a necessary strategy in dealing with diversity. However, in this highly sensitive area poorly developed programs can reinforce ethnic stereotypes with quite negative consequences (Antonios, 1996). Such programs should only be undertaken by properly qualified people. Antonios argues strongly for developing models of best practice and establishing an accreditation and registration system for trainers to improve the effectiveness of these programs.

All staff must be made aware of what is deemed unacceptable behaviour in the workplace and the consequence if they breach the equal employment opportunity and anti-discrimination legislation; managers must understand that any actions by them which are in breach of the legislation are attributable to the employer.

Jeffrey Pfeffer writes of the tendency to introduce work practices where the benefits are measurable and immediate without attending to the less readily measurable long-term costs and disadvantages. The benefits of training and development are longer-term but are often the first things to be cut during times of financial pressure. Pfeffer provides many instances of companies who compete effectively through investing in people for the longer-term in ways that their competitors do not (Burton, 1997:11).

Question

14. How do agencies best utilise the talents of the older members of workforce while not frustrating the aspirations of the younger generation?

Measurement and accountability framework

New reporting arrangements

In summary:

• the Commissioner will issue directions and guidelines on diversity in employment which will prescribe the framework for Workplace Diversity Programs;
• agencies are to develop and implement their own WDPs, including objectives and performance measures, which are to be tailored to the particular circumstances of their own workforce but are consistent with the Commissioner's directions and guidelines;
• agencies will report against a set of agency-specific performance indicators to their Ministers on outcomes of their WDPs as part of their annual reporting process;
• the Commissioner is to monitor the profile of the APS as a whole and report annually on the comparative effectiveness of agencies' WDPs in a State of the Service Report;
• the Commissioner will investigate and report on individual Workplace Diversity Programs if it appears that agencies are failing to uphold the values and principles regarding employment equity, diversity and family-friendly initiatives; and
• the Commissioner will conduct a Service-wide appraisal of the impact of the workplace relations and administrative reforms on employment equity in the APS after a three-year period and report to the Prime Minister.

A diagrammatic representation of the reporting framework is illustrated below. It shows the links between various elements of the monitoring and reporting system for Workplace Diversity Programs and the types of performance information required for accountability purposes.

A current issue of concern which could continue to adversely impact on reporting is the significant data gap in the areas of ethnicity, Aboriginality and, in particular, disability. A threshold priority for the PSMPC will be to work with agencies to emphasis the importance of having accurate diversity data and to help people to feel comfortable about self identification. The Commission will be looking in particular at the methods used by those agencies which have been successful in lifting their level of diversity reporting.

There is also a need to provide clear, workable definitions for the EEO groups, particularly with regard to ethnicity and disability. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), in consultation with agencies, is doing significant work on defining appropriate standards in these areas.

Measuring progress and success

Measurement and evaluation are two frequently debated issues in connection with EEO and diversity programs. Performance information is vital in this processit is evidence about performance which the organisation collects, monitors, and uses systematically to measure progress towards achieving its objectives and identify where improvements can to be made.

Performance information is important, not as an end in itself, but in the way that it can help us meet the challenges of, amongst other things, new methods of program provision and service delivery (Barrett ,1996: 7).

Measurement is essentially a comparative process requiring both baseline data of the current conditions against which the agency can measure any change and the setting of clear and realistic objectives of what an agency seeks to achieve.

Measurable objectives are a critical element in workplace diversity planning because they give the organisation something to strive for and a benchmark against which to measure success. The agency's objectives should be realistic and attainable and tailored to its individual needs and circumstances.

The workshops identified several sources of baseline information which agencies could obtain:

• current EEO staffing profile based on the central collection by the PSMPC of data for permanent staff in the Continuous Record of Personnel (CRP);
• personnel records of EEO complaints and grievances;
• staff turnover and absenteeism statistics; and
• results of recent staff surveys and focus groups.

An analysis of the information derived from these sources can shed light on factors relevant to diversity and help agencies identify possible areas where improvements should be made.

Measuring the extent to which an agencies' workplace diversity strategies and actions have been successful in achieving change is not easy, particularly when the change is behavioural or cultural. In her paper, Burton provides a range of indicators that could be used by agencies:

• use of indicators of cultural change: eg. family-friendly practices, accommodation to different leave patterns of people from different cultural backgrounds; take-up rate of parental leave by men; promotion rates of part-time staff; patterns of staff development opportunities provided; employees' assessments of responsiveness of the organisation to their requirements for comfortable workplaces; and
• use of indicators of effective integration of Workplace Diversity Programs into business planning: eg. demonstrated by scope of integration into:
  • strategic planning (goals, indicators, evaluation processes);
  • quality activity;
  • into HRM review processes;
  • into structural reorganisation; and
  • ready availability of expert advice and guidance (from specialists with resources to keep up-to-date).

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) also has produced a list of the main issues for agencies in connection with the collection of performance information (ANAO, 1996: 1-3), namely:

• to provide sufficient information to enable a proper assessment to be made of performance (it should not be confined to those items that are easy to measure);
• to ensure that performance information is balanced - often information is biased towards measures of process or activities at the expense of assessments of effectiveness or biased to the short term at the expense of long-term issues;
• to obtain performance information which is reliable and valid and measures something that is significant;
• to identify the appropriate level of disaggregation of information in order for it to be useful; and
• to undertake a systematic approach to comparisons of performancestandards, targets, benchmarks and comparisons over time are necessary if performance information is to be useful both for performance improvement and accountability.

The PSMPC proposes to include a combination of quantitative and qualitative indicators of performance in guidelines which agencies can use, depending on their particular circumstances, to monitor the effectiveness and outcomes of their WDPs. These measures will be provided as examples to stimulate innovative approaches to assessing performance, not to regulate process.

Measurement needs to be an integral part of your diversity process, not just a check up at the end of a program. Gathering data and setting criteria are critical aspects of your early planning...each check up should give feedback that continues to shape future plans, so that evaluation is integrated into your ongoing diversity process (Gardenswartz and Rowe, 1996).

Question

15. In your view what, level of support and assistance should PSMPC provide to agencies? Should this assistance be with high-level processes such as planning, implementation and evaluation of the program's operation or should it focus on the improvement of specific strategies?

Service-wide performance information

To prepare the State of the Service Report on Workplace Diversity Programs, the PSMPC will draw on two main sources of performance informationstatistical data on APS staff which is stored in the Consolidated Record of Personnel (CRP) and qualitative information which it will be obtain from the results of a survey of a representative sample of employers and employees from across the APS.

The extent of commitment to workplace diversity across the APS can be assessed through a process of annual self-evaluation by each agency in respect of:

• its workplace diversity policy statement;
• allocation of resources and personnel;
• training activity (in relation to diversity issues);
• adequacy of implementation planning;
• employee consultation and involvement;
• integration into agency strategic planning and directions; and
• inclusion in performance agreements.

A major challenge in assessing organisational approaches to equity and diversity in the APS is the fact that the provision of EEO details, except for gender, is voluntary.

Whole-of-Service performance information includes a range of key statistical data (see inset in the diagram labelled 'HR data'). The Commissioner's State of the Service Report will draw on this data (and on qualitative information provided in agencies' annual reports) to:

• provide an analysis of the career status of APS employees on the basis of gender, Aboriginality, race, ethnicity, and physical and mental disability;
• assess the impact by gender of work practices;
• illustrate good practices, identifying agencies which perform well and why.
• women's representation at senior levels; extent of women's clustering in/dispersal out of some occupational areas and particular classification levels; salary data and performance pay data;
• identification of the points in upward movements at which women begin to lag behind their male peers. The agency needs to establish the relative rates of progression of men and women from the feeder groups and, where the rates are dissimilar, focus on what is happening at these points, to establish the nature of the barrier (for example, competencies or organisational dynamics?) and to devise appropriate strategies to clear the way for women's progress;
• distribution of people with disabilities across occupational areas and at each classification level; and
• distribution of the designated groups across occupational areas and at each classification level (noting in particular the extent of clustering in/dispersal out of some occupational areas and at particular classification levels).

It is envisaged that this data collection will be supplemented from time to time by more detailed studies and evaluations of emerging issues and concerns which impact upon fairness and diversity in the APS.

Questions

16. How do we monitor the impact of new workplace agreements (particularly AWAs) and greater flexibility in employee's pay and conditions to ensure they do not have results that are detrimental to some groups of employees?

17. How do you measure the contribution of a diverse workforce to the achievement of improved performance?

18. What kind of assistance will agencies require to evaluate their programs?

19. How do you measure a program that seeks to increase the diversity of the workforce when early efforts to implement programs are not necessarily going to produce measurable results?

20. How do we deal with issues of under-reporting?

References

Antonios, Z., 'Capitalising on diversity', Canberra Bulletin of Public Administration, no.82, December 1996.

Barrett, P., 'Performance standards and evaluation', Australian Journal of Public Administration, v.56(3), September 1997.

Barrett, Pat (1997) 'Performance standards and evaluation: address to the National IPAA Conference 20-22 November 1996, Melbourne' Australian Journal of Public Administration Vol.56 No.3 (September 1997) pp.96-105.

Burton, C. (1997) 'Workplace Diversity Programs: a report to the Public Service and Merit Protection Commission'.

Gardenswartz, L. and Rowe, A. 'Diversity Q&A: measuring diversity program effectiveness', http://www.shrm.org/diversity/members/articles/0397g.htm

Kossek, Ellen E. and Lobel, Sharon A. (Eds), Managing diversity: human resource strategies for transforming the workplace.Oxford, Blackwell Publishers, 1996.

Macken, J., 'The baby boom is over: Generation X files for a piece of the action', Australian Financial Review, October 11-12, 1997.

Performance information principles: lessons learned. Australian National Audit Office, December 1996.

Probert, B. (1997) 'Long day's journey leaves workers jaded'. The Age, Monday 27 October.

Thompson, D. E. & Gooler, L. E. (1996), 'Capitalizing on the benefits of diversity through workteams' in Managing diversity: human resource strategies for transforming the workplace, Oxford, Blackwell Publishers, 1996.

Towards a more diverse workforce in the APS: the Public Service Commissioner's Annual Report 1996?97 on Equal Employment Opportunity, PSMPC, Canberra.

How can I give my views?

If you would like to comment on the issues or questions raised in this paper or other issues that you think are important to the creation of a diverse workforce, you can fax your comments to Values, Conduct & Diversity Team on (02) 6202 3706.

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