Hybrid work is a positive for workplace diversity. What effect would a return to the office have?

A recent study from global human services provider APM uncovered biases and barriers faced by people with disabilities in the Australian workforce. Most alarmingly, the difficulties they face when disclosing their disabilities. 58% of Australian workers with disability often feel anxious about disclosing their disability with employers, 39% report poor performance at work due to hiding their disability and 30% have experienced negative consequences post-disclosure or when requesting support in the workplace.

On gender divides, a recent survey by people2people found 40% of people believed they had been discriminated against based on gender at the job interview stage over the past two years.

In last year’s Racism at work study by the Diversity Council of Australia, 88% of people believed racism to be an issue at work and more than 90% suggested organisations need to take better action to address it. Fewer than one-third of those surveyed said their company was proactively preventing racial discrimination in the workplace.

Many Australian employers are aware of the need and benefits of a diverse workforce. Many want to get it right. Many pay lip service to it. But these numbers only scratch the surface.

Getting help

Shaun Pianta is a Paralympian and now works as a disability and inclusion advocate for atWork Australia, a national employment service provider that matches people with disabilities to employment opportunities. Speaking with SmartCompany, he said the pandemic has presented some positives for workers with disabilities. 

Pianta, who first went to atWork Australia for help finding employment before joining the team, said “A lot of employers have had to learn to be more flexible.

“A lot of people have been working from home and a lot of businesses have noticed it can be done. That really is a positive, a good benefit for people with disabilities, who might struggle to be in the workplace five days a  week, and depending on what barriers they have.”

In a tight labour market, where many business owners are complaining about a lack of available help as they have been, services like atWork Australia can be an immense boon for SME leaders.

“atWork Australia can support businesses through all their recruitment needs,” Pianta said. “We can come in and get to know the business, get to know what they’re looking for in an employee. 

“Then we can provide pre-screened candidates, people who we’ve matched the skills that they have to the vacancies that you’re looking for, and we can also support the employer and the employer throughout the beginning of their employment and ongoing for as long as they need. We also offer that ongoing support to make sure it’s a good match for the employer and also to make sure that our clients are getting the support that they need in the workplace as well.”

In 2023, the business case for diversity in the workplace is pretty well understood. Winitha Bonney OAM offered a reminder for those who needed it: it increases employee retention, it increases the bottom line, and, in many industries, it helps meet the changing needs and demands of conscious consumers.”

“It’s really important that we crystalise that,” said Bonney, a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant with a background in business. “Because that then becomes our North Star”. But the beginnings of a proper diversity and inclusion strategy may require a step back from that.

Listening to the community on diversity

The major part many business leaders get wrong is not properly including the community in their discussions, particularly early on, says Bonney. “This work needs to be guided and informed by the community not led by us as leaders of people.”

“There is this sort of imbalance and this abuse of power and privilege to say that we, as people in the majority on the table, know what needs to happen for you in order to create inclusion.

“What leaders must understand is that inclusion starts before the strategy; inclusion starts with your approach to inclusion strategy. It’s all about how you go on that prep journey to produce that work plan.”

Using reconciliation action plans as an example, Bonney says “the template is available or you can go ahead and just write one yourself. But creating a committee, having indigenous culture consultants lead you in that process, paying them for that, is part of that process of getting inclusion.

“If we can get that part, which is ‘how do we approach the business of inclusion?’, that’ll mean there’s a higher success rate of that work being effective’.”

Remote work

Like Pianta, Bonney agrees that many positives have come out of the switch to hybrid and remote work modes over the last few years.

In Bonney’s own experience as a person of colour doing DEI work, Bonney says “the changes with covid has meant that I can sit back and think about how to create that own feeling of safety and belonging for myself.”

Remote work, in many cases, is really important for diverse and underrepresented communities. It adds another thing of which Bonney warns business leaders to be mindful: location bias.

“We know with a lot of POC, they tend to be first generation Australians, and travelling for work can be really difficult because you don’t have those support networks around you, and so, we can also say the same for those who come from different community groups, having the option, inclusion; we call it location bias.”

So, if we have a head office that’s located in Melbourne, and the cost of living is really high in Melbourne, then we’re excluding people that live in remote and regional communities, which could mean people that are asylum seekers, refugees, newly arrived immigrants, indigenous Australians, and people whose community and support network is there, and so we’re excluding them from the opportunity of doing that work in the organisation. And then also from a workforce perspective, that’s when you tend to see, people that work in that office usually reflects the demographic of that workplace.

Much of this becomes hyper-relevant as certain businesses return to a physical presence requirements that look more familiar to the pre-covid world.

“That’s a thing I’m hearing about a lot,” said Bonney. “How can we bring people back into the office? My question is: Why?”

Many managers’ rationale is that they want to create culture. “I don’t think creating a culture is justifiable,” Bonney said. “For example, people who are neurodivergent, or have accessibility requirements, their preference might actually be to work at home.”

“If you have a remote-based work environment, then you create external events? They might not want to come. So how are you going to create a sense of culture for those individuals? Are you going to force them to come work in the office or come to those external environments?”

Bonney urges business leaders to “ask yourself if you’re misusing power and privilege. If you’re dictating the terms of how you expect people to work and show up.”

“Essentially, are we stripping people’s sense of agency?”

“I’m a big believer in autonomy, and people having their own sense of agency. This whole conversation around inclusion, well-being, culture? It’s almost like organisations taking all of that responsibility and agency and saying ‘We’re going to create that for you’.”

“Organisations are taking a really short-term approach to this and they really need to think very deeply about it because this all creates a culture. A culture of control.”

Pianta’s overall outlook for the year is positive. “I think coming out of the pandemic, we’ve been really successful, we’ve been able to place many of our clients into work.”

This article was part of a feature series on workplace and employment trends to support our Smart50 Workplaces 2023 program, developed in partnership with Employment Hero.

Download the ‘What are great employers doing differently in 2023?’ report to look at current trends in the employment landscape and best practices from Smart50 Workplaces Top Performers.