Australian organisations and businesses are failing to capitalise on the cultural diversity of their workforce by not measuring it properly, researchers say.
A new report from Diversity Council Australia and the University of Sydney Business School released on Tuesday urges companies to adopt a broader, standardised approach to measuring and reporting cultural diversity.
Simply asking staff “where are you from?” no longer fully captures Australia’s diverse cultural fabric in 2021, the report says.
Instead of single questions centred around umbrella terms, the report recommends Australian organisations use five main measures to assess someone's cultural diversity: their cultural background, the languages they speak, their country of birth, their religion, and their ‘global experience’, such as whether they have lived overseas for extended periods of time.
Report co-author, University of Sydney researcher Dimitria Groutis, said cultural diversity in Australian workforces has been ill-defined for too long.
Report co-author Dimitria Groutis Source: SBS News/Bernadette Clarke
“We really wanted to get clarification around the definition of cultural diversity and also establish standardised measures that can be implemented in a meaningful but also accurate and simple way without losing the complexity of what cultural diversity is,” she told SBS News.
Almost half of all Australians were either born overseas or are second-generation Australians, according to the 2016 Census.
The researchers say without an accurate way to measure who’s in the workforce, it's difficult to capitalise on the unique capabilities and skills a culturally diverse one can contribute.
Diversity Council Australia CEO Lisa Annese said there are many advantages to having a culturally diverse workforce and failing to understand the nuances is a missed business opportunity.
“If you have a diverse and inclusive workforce, that workforce is going to be much more likely to be productive, be engaged, be innovative, solve problems better and reduce risks - and that's really great for business,” she said.
“We also know that creativity and problem solving will mean you are more likely to be effective with broader markets, which will make you more profitable. If you extend that into your strategic imprint as an organisation then it will prepare you to be a workplace and an organisation of the future.”
The report, ten years in the making, was based on consultation with 300 practitioners and a pilot survey of 1,200 employees.
Immunologist Kumi de Silva Source: SBS News/Bernadette Clarke
One of those consulted was immunologist Kumi de Silva, who said she hopes organisations across the country follow the new recommendations.
“We all have many layers [of diversity], based on our families, the community we live in, the places we've worked either internationally or within Australia, the languages we speak, and so the experiences we bring are very different,” she said.
“Just recording country of birth and the main languages we speak is not nuanced enough.”
