Category: Diversity & Inclusion

As International Women’s Day (IWD) is marked across the globe today, there is resounding recognition that we still have a long way to go before equality between the genders is a reality. Through IWD celebrations, women and men will be sharing their experiences, supporting their peers, and offering solutions and opportunities on how collectively we can ‘break the bias’ and create gender equality in our professional environments and communities.

Here in Australia, the story is no different. From the Religious Discrimination Laws to the Sexual Harassment issues playing out in Parliament to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) report released this year showing Australia is still battling the gender pay gap, there is a clear and present problem in our country to genuinely embrace gender diversity and equality, and the bias that continues to underpin these stories.  The Australian Council of Professions is calling on Professional Organisations and their member professionals to step forward and lead the way in making change.

Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins’ speeches at the National Press Club on 9 February 2022 highlighted the toxic and debilitating inaction that is plaguing our government when it comes to protecting the rights of women and the vulnerable. Their formidable and fearless addresses could not have been clearer: ‘Act now or face the wrath of the next generation’.

They backed their pledge with the powerful #SafetyRespectEquity message supported by the many other women who have endured bias, discrimination, harassment, discrimination, and violence at the hands of their peers and professional community.

And while ACoP welcomes the milestone achieved last year that all ASX 200 companies have at least one female board member, the celebration of this achievement is diminished by the fact that women still hold only 30% of board positions and just over 43% of ASX 200 companies have not reached even that level of gender participation.

So it’s Time for some Action to #BreaktheBias!

It’s never too late to empower diversity and equality across your professional landscape. As members of an alliance of almost 1 million professionals, we have an immense opportunity – and obligation – to facilitate change in as many ways as possible.

ACoP has shone a spotlight on these issues and facilitated Professional Organisations to be part of change. We recently called for more women on boards, equal pay & closing the gap as well as evidence-based early-learning systems taht foster gender equality.

ACoP will also be holding a Roundtable event in the next couple of months on the issue of ‘Gender Deafness’. So stay tuned as we discuss, debate, and engage in healthy discourse with our member organisations about how to enable change.

We invite professional organisations who are not members of ACoP to join our alliance as we work collectively to uphold the integrity of gender parity and the contribution it makes to Australia’s well-being and prosperity. For more details, ring 1300 664 587 or contact CEO@Professions.org.au.

The Australian Council of Professions (ACoP) supports broad-based diversity and inclusion as one of its key policy and advocacy areas and is delighted that one of our member organisations, the Institute of Management Consultants, is leading the charge with a Women in Consulting webinar.

As the unifying alliance of Professional Associations, we raise the awareness of these issues across our professional members whilst highlighting ways in which diversity, culture and inclusion strategies are being addressed across professions and workplaces.

2021 marks ACoP’s 50^th anniversary and our “Year of the Professions, Professionals and Professionalism“. The issue of gender parity has never been more important and the role that professionals play in enabling change is incredibly critical. So, in conjunction with International Consultants Day on Thursday, 3 June, ACoP is pleased to support the Institute of Management Consultants’ upcoming ‘Women in Consulting’ Webinar which aims to discuss the career journeys of a number of management consultants, exploring how they have navigated their way through their career and learning from their experiences.

“ACoP’s broad-based diversity policy and advocacy area focuses on meaningful and actionable outcomes. Acknowledging professional women leading the way in their chosen field and celebrating their vital contribution in the professions and professionalism signals our commitment to engendering women’s issues across our communities and workplaces.” says ACoP Head of Diversity, Culture and Inclusion Angelina Pillai. 

IMC’s Executive Officer Christine Cox agrees. “International Consultants Day is a wonderful opportunity for our profession to celebrate our achievements and successes and we are delighted to be showcasing the experience of four of our women members to highlight the contributions that management consultants make to social and economic success.”

The Australian Council of Professions supports the reconciliation process with First Nations Peoples and in National Reconciliation Week 2021 calls on its member organisations and their professionals to be exemplars of truth-telling, accountability and responsibility. 

In its 50^th year as the unifying alliance of Professional Associations and celebrating 2021 as the “Year of the Professions, Professionals and Professionalism“, ACoP believes professionals have a core role in taking impactful action to progress the reconciliation journey with and for all Australians. ACoP is committed to supporting Reconciliation Australia’s 20-point Action Plan for Reconciliation in 2021 and will consider the recommended actions in all its decision-making processes.

ACoP Head of Diversity, Culture and Inclusion, Angelina Pillai, says, “ACoP’s broad-based diversity policy and advocacy area focuses on enabling tangible outcomes. As professionals, we often know what the issues and problems are in our communities or workplaces, but perhaps lack the confidence, knowledge or the tools to be able to take concrete action. Reconciliation Australia’s 20-point action plan provides simple yet meaningful guidance in which professionals can be respectful advocates of change.  From making reconciliation part of your workplace culture or consciously calling out racism, there are multiple ways in which each and every one of us can play an important and powerful part in fostering cultural inclusion now and into the future.”

This Reconciliation is a prerequisite to ethically and responsibly exploring all sources of knowledge – including the ancient wisdom of indigenous Australians – to solve current day problems. In doing this, professionals can show leadership in the process of reconciliation.

ACoP President Klaus Veil adds “The principles underpinning a just and equitable Australia that reaches its best potential and those of a professional giving best advice have similar roots. The work on our ‘Integrated Continuous Learning Strategy for a Fair and Prosperous Australia‘ that we started in November 2019 and our Professionalism and Ethics advocacy both resonate well with the 20-point Action Plan.”

If you would like more information, please contact us on 1300 664 587 or CEO@Professions.org.au

There are so many facets to diversity. Diversity is a broad-based area that comprises of gender, LGBTIQA+, race, ethnicity, migration status, age and disability to name a few. In the context of International Womens Day 2021, we asked Angelina Pillai, CEO of the Association of Consulting Architects, to share with us her reflections on these challenges.

“Knowing what diversity means is one thing. Knowing how to address diversity is another. And that is what inclusion is. The ‘how’. How are we, you and the wider professions, addressing these issues and embedding diversity and inclusive culture principles in your workplaces, in your teams and as part of your professional duty?

My first anthropology assignment at Adelaide University back in 1990 was to critically analyse Sherry Ortner’s feminist literature asking the question, ‘Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?’ (1974). Once I recovered from the mild conniption that I suffered as a fresh international student from Malaysia where critically analysing anything, let alone an expert who has spent the best part of their life researching their work was considered an academic crime; I realised that there was more to this than I wanted to believe at the time.

There is so much to unpack here, but I won’t go into the details of her work, as I don’t recall being overly affected by those findings then and I would much rather forget the miserable mark I suffered in 1990 as a result of not ‘critically analysing’ anything in that piece. And secretly, I thought things would be different when I hit middle-age. Then I hit middle-age and reflected on my own upbringing in an International Women’s Day message on the importance of seeing strong women leaders in public life, and the need to push for basic human rights for all, not just women. Similarly, my International Men’s Day reflections spoke to a similar theme.

But decades on, the story is still the same and the pendulum of culture has not really swung. Sherry Ortner may have written about the nature-culture dichotomy in an era when women as a class were struggling for recognition and validation of their differences, however, the issues around gender, inclusivity, equality, equity, diversity and respect are rife now more so than ever. Women are still nowhere near where we should be with representation at the board table, community leadership, workforce participation, politics and the never-ending saga of the gender pay gap, to name but a few battles we face.

The recent alleged cases plaguing Parliament are just the tip of the iceberg and as we examine the unimaginable inequalities that have been haunting women, we unravel a compelling feature of our society that needs urgent action. I will refrain from regurgitating the plethora of these news and media stories on gender pay gap, sexual harassment and injustices of women’s rights as there are too many to cite. But are these matters of plain ignorance, blatant or unconscious biases, discrimination, lack of professional integrity and ethics or just bad luck? One could argue that they are a combination of all and then some…”

Over the course of the coming months, ACoP through its Diversity, Culture and Inclusion Portfolio Committee will be working with thought leaders and experts in discussing, debating and delivering outcomes across the range of diversity, culture and inclusion principles. Part of this initiative will see a series of Round-Tables and panel discussions that are aimed at ensuring diversity, culture and inclusion are at the forefront of professional practice as we dissect these policy and advocacy areas to establish the core priorities in support of this agenda.

For more details on the work of our Diversity, Culture and Inclusion Portfolio Committee please contact us on 1300 664 587 or CEO@Professioms.org.au.