Equity and diversity progress
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Government commitment to equity and diversity
The idea that the public sector needs to reflect the community it serves is enshrined in Chapter 2 of the Public Sector Act 2022. The Act requires prescribed public sector entities to develop a diverse workforce that represents and reflects the diverse views, experiences and backgrounds of the people of Queensland.
The Act also requires entities to:
- actively progress equity and diversity in employment matters for diversity target groups, including conducting annual diversity audits
- actively progress gender pay equity
- demonstrate equal conditions of employment and equality in access to employment opportunities and leadership roles
- foster respectful and inclusive workplace cultures in which all employees feel safe, valued, accepted and supported at work and can participate equally
- create workplaces free from discrimination.
Several data sources are used to measure performance and progress against the intent of the Public Sector Act 2022 including the WfQ survey, MOHRI and equity and diversity audits.
Equity and diversity progress
A range of Queensland public sector initiatives exemplify the commitment of the sector to fostering diverse workforces and safe, respectful and inclusive workplaces. These initiatives vary from modernising workforce policy and directives to improving auditing approaches and building capability and collaboration.
Diversity in action
The Recruitment and selection (Directive 07/23) is a relatively new directive. Under the directive and echoing the Act, principles like equity, diversity, respect, inclusion and cultural safety need to be promoted in recruitment and selection processes.
Primarily, applicants must be eligible to apply—they must have the required licences or permission to work in Australia. An applicant’s ‘suitability’ for a role is based on an assessment of ability and attributes relevant to the position and organisation. There are attributes panels must consider, such as someone’s ability to perform the requirements of the role (for example, their aptitude, skills, qualifications, knowledge, experience and personal qualities).
There are also additional attributes panels may consider, such as how someone may contribute to the organisation’s equity and diversity goals. While the directive includes some attributes that a panel may consider, it is best practice for these to be considered in every process. This is so the sector attracts and secures the best talent, who also reflects the Queensland community.
In reviewing Queensland public sector employment conditions with an inclusion lens, the Public Sector Commission worked with the Office of Industrial Relations, Queensland Treasury, the Department of the Premier and Cabinet and the Office for Women to develop a new Reproductive Health Leave policy.
In May 2024, Government announced the new directive with a new entitlement for Queensland public servants to access 10 days non-cumulative reproductive health leave per year.
The leave can be accessed for a range of reasons:
- IVF and fertility-related treatments
- managing chronic conditions, such as those relating to endometriosis, dysmenorrhea, adenomyosis, polycystic ovary syndrome, and menopause
- reproductive health treatments and procedures such as a hysterectomy or vasectomy
- early prevention screening for reproductive health related issues such as prostrate, cervical and breast cancer screening.
Available from 30 September 2024, the leave aims to improve the lives and working conditions of the sector’s predominantly female workforce and affirm the Queensland Government as an employer of choice. Between 30 September and 31 December 2024:
- 8,542 public sector employees have accessed reproductive health leave.
- 19,590 days have been taken as reproductive health leave.
This workplace entitlement positioned Queensland’s public sector as a global leader in addressing workforce gender-based disparities and reducing the stigma associated with managing the impacts of reproductive health issues in the workplace.
The Public Sector Act 2022 requires all Queensland Government departments, and public sector entities with more than 100 employees (including government owned corporations), to complete an equity and diversity audit. The audit allows organisations to interrogate their data to identify issues and progress relating to equity, diversity, respect and inclusion, enabling a process of annual monitoring and year-on-year comparison.
An organisation's audit reports provide evidence to develop local equity and diversity action plans. These action plans are then published or incorporated within their strategic workforce plans.
The findings and actions also inform workforce planning processes. Selection panels are encouraged to review and refer to local workforce plans during recruitment and selection processes to make data-driven selection decisions that actively improve diversity outcomes in their workplaces.
The Queensland public sector inclusion and diversity community of practice is led from the Public Sector Commission. This community of practice has over 350 members, an active Teams channel and growing online resource hub.
This community of practice connects public sector employees with universities, peak bodies and consultancies to foster constructive and practical discussion on topics related to building safe, respectful and inclusive sector workplaces. From time to time, members collaborate to address cross-sector issues.
Membership includes sector workforce inclusion and diversity practitioners, other human resources practitioners, safety personnel, and social policy, communications and change professionals interested in or working on issues related to workforce diversity, equity, respect and inclusion.
Case study: Diversity in action
The Queensland Fire Department (QFD) developed the Everyday Respect Framework: Driving respect and inclusion across the entire QFD, to create a safe, capable and inclusive workforce every day.
The Framework is supported by two main components: the Everyday Respect Council, which provides strategic direction to QFD on inclusion policies and programs and is supported by four initial Communities of Inclusion groups: Gender; First Nations peoples; People with a Disability; and Regional and Remote. Other Communities of Inclusion may follow once these four communities are well established.
The Communities of Inclusion are comprised of employees with shared lived experiences, who support the Council to promote and deliver respect and inclusion across the QFD.
The second key component of the Framework is the Courageous Respect Everyday leadership program, which emphasises the importance of leadership in fostering an inclusive culture and aims to embed a mindset that supports behaviour and culture change in leadership at all levels.
While it can be a challenge to coordinate the voices and efforts of the workforce into actionable initiatives that meaningfully impact workplace culture, the Framework has been designed to support, monitor, and empower inclusion efforts, providing the opportunity for cultural reform that is not simply symbolic, but that will deliver systemic and sustainable change for the entire QFD.
Focus on diversity target groups
Diversity targets
The Queensland public sector is committed to achieving the following diversity targets by 2026:
- 4% who are Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples
- 12% people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
- 12% people living with disability
- 50% women in leadership.
While progress toward the diversity targets is measured using the MOHRI workforce data collection, the WfQ survey is also an important source of insights.
MOHRI workforce data is primarily collected during onboarding and can be updated through the sector’s various payroll systems. WfQ is anonymous and collected once a year. For some diversity cohorts, there are much higher response rates and sharing about diversity in WfQ than in the MOHRI collection.
This may be due to the sector’s investment in WfQ including messaging about sharing individual’s diversity in tandem with a commitment to analyse the employment experience. Employees may also have different perceptions about the confidentiality of each collection and a higher confidence in sharing this information through the WfQ anonymous survey.
Workplace inclusion strategies
The Queensland public sector Inclusion and diversity strategy 2021-2025 1.9 MB) provides guidance and an encouragement to agencies to develop their own, agency specific strategies. Local plans remove or address barriers and improve conditions. This strategy ends in 2025. The Public Sector Commission has commenced engagement with stakeholders across the sector in the development of a new inclusion and diversity strategy.
Experiences of diverse employees
Employee engagement is an important predictor of work performance and commitment. When segmented across cohorts, it is also an indicator of the employment experience of different groups of people. Understanding this is an important metric to understand the extent to which the work environment is respectful and inclusive.
The WfQ employee survey captures engagement data and includes five different concepts:
- pride: I am proud to tell others I work for my organisation
- recommendation: I would recommend my organisation as a great place to work
- inspiration: my organisation inspires me to do the best in my job
- motivation: my organisation motivates me to help it achieve its objectives
- personal attachment: I feel strong personal attachment to my organisation.
The 2024 WfQ survey also included an additional set of questions about the extent to which people from diversity cohorts feel safe, respected and included in their workplace.
Feeling safe, respected and included are important determinants of employee engagement and are basic hygiene factors in the employment experience. If people don’t feel safe, respected and included they will not feel engaged, and their performance and commitment will be negatively impacted.
The questions included in the 2024 survey were as follows:
- safe: as an employee of [insert agency name here] organisation, I feel safe at work
- respected: as an employee of [insert agency name here] organisation, I feel respected at work
- included: as an employee of [insert agency name here] organisation, I feel included at work.