At the recent Conferenz HR Leader’s Summit Event in Auckland, intelliHR CEO Rob Bromage facilitated a panel of New Zealand’s leading HR Leaders to discuss their views on leading and engaging a diverse and dynamic workforce.

“Today, we live in both multicultural & multi generational communities and our workplaces not only serve those communities, they also reflect them”.

Rob Bromage led the panel discussion around the importance of inclusion in workplaces. “Put business performance aside, the social responsibility and just the basic humanity of inclusion is everyone’s responsibility”. The discussion prompted the importance and high priority for all organisations to understand diversity and the need to craft a strong workplace culture with a blended workforce.

Here is a glimpse of what the panel had to say:

Mark Carrick – Inclusion Consultant, BNZ

A big focus in the professional environment today is moving from the ‘culture fit’, reason being, you end up with a homogenous workforce with no diversity in thought or creativity. Mark suggests looking at the ‘culture add’ when selecting a candidate. Start with their skills and capabilities and then identify the uniqueness that the candidate can bring to your organisation that you don’t already have.

Molly Workman – Talent & Culture Manager at Lotto NZ

Blend inclusion and diversity with well-being, in doing so you will make your people feel more comfortable. Molly identifies that growing an understanding of how their people are feeling is helping their organisation. They are equipping managers with the skills to not only read feedback they are receiving, but to then have a meaningful conversation with their staff to probe deeper and further support them.

With 50% of the workforce as millennials, age diversity comes to the fore, for Lotto NZ its evolving the workforce for the future, making sure all people feel comfortable with digital transformation. Regarding who is the most digitally savvy, Molly says “you can’t assume who will pick things up quickly” so there is importance not to generalise based on age.

Liz Barton – Chief People and Transformation Officer at Plunket

When looking at the workforce from a diversity perspective, Liz believes that richness of independence of thought is what will help Plunket get to a better place. The challenge is getting the differences in voices in the organisation to come together, storytelling is one way they’ve been able to overcome this.
Technology is critical for us as an organisation, two years ago our nurses didn’t have email addresses, they now have tablets and we expect them to record their visits and do their work and engage with us organisationally with a lot of different apps, so from a diversity perspective it’s been trying to figure out how we equip people with the tools and support different ways for them to work.

Andre Lubbe – Head of Employment Relations Team at Auckland Council

Having an external consideration is important to the diversity found in Auckland. Andre discusses the need to serve and support the direction of one of the most diverse cities in the world, Auckland, with over 100 ethnicities that make it up. The organisation has diversity and inclusion aspirations and is moving to supporting the greater community, with a rich and diverse workforce to provide support and guidance into those diverse communities.

The panel further discussed:

• Maximising cultural diversity in leadership positions,
• Guiding a workforce through digital transformation,
• Effective techniques at the recruitment stage to see more diverse candidates coming through the pipeline,
• Setting voluntary diversity targets in your organisation,
• The biggest challenge when it comes to diversity.

To view the panel discussion, click here.

HR Leaders’ Summit 2018
9 April 2018
Pullman, Auckland

Panelists:
Mark Carrick, Inclusion Consultant, BNZ
Liz Barton, Chief People and Transformation Officer, Plunket
Molly Workman, Talent and Culture Manager, Lotto NZ
André Lubbe, Employment Relations Manager – Human Resources, Auckland Council
Facilitator: Robert Bromage, Chief Executive Officer, intelliHR