Australian Workplace Diversity

Australian Workplace Diversity

Australia is a vibrant and multi-cultural country. Almost 7 million people have migrated to Australia since 1945. The diversity of society is one of the greatest strengths of Australia. 

Australian Human Rights Commission (2014) indicates that about one in four of Australians were born overseas. In the year of 2013, overseas migration represented 60% of Australia's population growth. 

Today we are going to talk about cultural diversity in Australian workplace. Most of people would accept cultural diversity as part of daily life. Diversity at workplace is about capturing talent, boosting innovation and encouraging productivity. 

Current state of diversity in Australian workplace

Auastralia post (2016) pointed out their most significant diversity in the office, which contains gender, aborigional and Torres Strait Islander Australians, disabled, culturally and linguistically diverse.

Organisations which are able to manage their cultural diversity, is more likely to reduce staff turnover cost, and minimise legal and compliance risks.
Luckily, Australia has national and state laws that cover equal employment oppournity and anti-discrimination in workplace. By putting effective anti-discrimination and anti-harrassment procedures in place in business, you could improve productivity and increase efficiency.

Having co-workers from Culturally and Linguistically Diversity backgrounds is known as a CALD workplace.  This includes workplace that have people from different countries or different areas in Australia, have different cultural backgrounds,  speak different language and follow different religions.

5 Advantages of embracing diversity in workplace

1. Understand Australia's multi-cultural consumers

Having well embraced cultural diversity in workplace would largely improve understanding of customer base. Employees from wide range of cultural backgrounds comes a greater understanding of customers' poins of view. The higher the diversity, the more likely client needs would be empathise.

2. Better customer service 

    Their language and cultral skills. For instance, Australian banks and business often employ people who speak Mandarin in Chinatown branches to provide better service to consumers from Asian backgrounds. It works in insurance and retail organisation as well.

3. Improves employee performance

Employees are more likely to feel comfortable and happy in an environment where inclusivity is a priority. Equality in the workplace is important for encouraging workers from all backgrounds to feel confident in their ability and achieve their best. The higher the team morale, the more productive employees are.

4. Expand internationally to overseas markets

Having employees who knows the business background of the oversea market your organisation is going to expand to is great help. The benefits of diverse teams and multi cultural identities have been measured in a number of international studies which have found that diverse teams are better able

to solve complex problems, exhibit a higher level of creativity and a broader thought

process. These benefits are measurable- research has found diverse work teams, properly managed and trained, produce results six times higher than homogenous teams.

5.  Increased productivity

Diversity offers different ways of thinking. As long as employees are comfortable speaking with co-workers and express their own ideas, then collaboration and teamwork thrive. It’s also been shown that more diverse brands have higher levels of morale, which in turn leads to greater productivity and employee satisfaction.

Only by well embracing diversity in our workplace can we get best of the benefits. To embrace diversity, organisations is suggested to do following: (Business, 2016)
Develop workplace policies and training that promote cross-cultural awareness, hold lunches and events that celebrate workplace diversity and encourage employees to share their cultures and experiences. Set up mentoring arrangements that match employees from different backgrounds to encourage open communication. Also find out when significant cultural and religious events and days are on.

References: 
AU post 2016, Diversity and Inclusion, Annual Report 2016, viewd 8th Oct 2017, from:
https://auspost.com.au/content/dam/auspost_corp/media/documents/diversity-and-inclusion-annual-report-2016.pdf

Australian Human Rights Commitsion 2014, Face the facts: Cultural Diversity, Australian Human Rights Commision, viewed 8th Oct 2017, from:
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/face-facts-cultural-diversity

Business 2016, Employee People from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse backgrounds, Australian Goverment, viewed 8th Oct 2017, from:
https://www.business.gov.au/Info/Run/Employ-people/Employ-people-from-Culturally-and-Linguistically-Diverse-backgrounds

3 common issues you might face in Navitas Professional IT Services

Good afternoon customers of Navitas Professional,

This week's blog is going to talk about 3 common issues you might face while using the IT consultation services provided by Navitas Professional IT Services. 

Issue 1: It could be really hard to let IT consulation know our/our customer's company operation in detail

Sometimes it is hard to express our feelings or thoughts to our friends or familys even we tried very hard. It is absolutely harder when you trying to explain daily operation process in detail to Navitas Professional IT Services for IT consultation. It is more than 1 GB of information required to be told. 

As we all know, the design of company internal software and application is totally based on knowing the daily operation process of the company. Any lack or mis-understanding of this information could lead to something wrong during the design process, which would took lots of money to be fixed. 

So, what shall we do to ensure the correct and full information is transferred to our IT consultant at Navitas?

Solution: Ask us 

Navitas provides extra services for companies who didn't document or record their operation process. We would send our observers to your field for over a week to observe you/your customer's daily operation process. On your request, interviews or anonymous questionnaire would be arranged to your staffs to make correction on information and documentation. 

Issue 2: Is our/our customer's privacy is well protected by Navitas?

Have you ever concerned on the leak of privacy from Navitas IT Professional Services? Worrying that the secrect infromation leaked to your competitors and reduce your customers. 

Solution: Promises

Navitas Professional IT Services signed contract with all our customers. In the policy illustrated in the contract, any leak of customers' privacy would lead to law enforcement. Navitas would not take the risk of the decline of cutomer reputation. Navitas is one of the consultant companies in market who values market reputation more than anything else. You don't need solution because this is an issue that don't even to be worried about.

Issue 3: What if the advice from Navitas is not the best for us?

What if other consultant could provide better advice and suggestions to us?

Solution: Quality ensure

Navitas has the highest customer rates since the company has build in 1950s. Navitas Professional Service is the consultant with longest history throughout whole Tasmania, with most of experiences and local company. 

Thank you for reading this week's Navitas Article. Hope we've fixed some of your questions or concerns!

Workplace Discrimination Topic2 Act 18

Navitas Professional Services is about to offering us staff a multiple discrimination awareness training session for all areas of the organisation. Every person at workplace could possibly be discriminated by their attributes such as age, race, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy or religion and more. Today I'm gonna talk about myselves experience on workplace discrimination.

I have been discriminated before at my previous workplace, which is located in Marget, Tas. In that factory, all the full times job position are occupied by local citizen. All other staffs, who is from different countries other than Australia are having casual position in factory. The factory manager would always let casual staff go home first and leave full time staff stay at factory and continue to work. One day, we heard that after we casual staffs left, the factory manager turned the machine speed slower for full time staff. We get very angry because how long did you work means exactly how much money you are going to get. We have same hourly salary rate, but casual working in higher speed and work harder and full time working in slower speed.

The way how the factory treated full time position and casual position differently seems like workplace discrimination for all casual staff. I was very disappointed and angry at that time. But I didn't really do anything about this to stop it. What I did is that I quit the job. It was a solution for me, but not for casual staffs who still work in that factory. I was ignoring the discrimination by walking away instead of stopping it entirely.

If I were facing discrimination at workplace again, I would report it to Fairwork, Australian government and headquarters of factory to stop it entirely. It is important to let the factory manager know that what he did is a workplace discrimination, and it is wrong.

Above is my own experience in dealing with workplace discrimination. If you are facing it, report it and let other people know. Solve the problem instead of running away from it.