The department celebrates its diverse workforce and affirms the right to equality and fairness for all team members. We take pride in building a workplace culture of flexibility, inclusion and respect, where individual differences are valued and people can perform at their best.

Staff-led networks

The department is proud to have a number of staff-led networks, which are open for all staff to join. These networks are formed and managed by our people for our people and provide advice to the leadership team, peer support and increase awareness about different topics. It’s a great way to meet new people and support one another with shared experiences. Our networks include:

• Aboriginal Staff Network
• African-Australian Network
• Autism Success Network
• Emerging Professionals Network
• Enablers Network for disability inclusion
• Gender Equality Network for Everyone (GENE)
• Pride Network for LGBTIQ+ inclusion
• Women of Colour Network.

Our diversity and inclusion progress

Highlights from 2019-20 include:

• meeting the department’s target of 50 per cent women in executive positions
• undertaking a Gender Audit in March 2020 to help identify areas for improvement and better pathways for leadership
• celebrating International Women’s Day with an engaging panel discussion of women leaders and entrepreneurs led by our gender equality network
• publishing guides to support gender affirmation for trans and gender diverse team members, their managers and teams
• offering online awareness training to all team members around LGBTI inclusion, disability confidence and multicultural awareness, as well as piloting virtual multicultural inclusion training
• completing benchmarking to further inform our LGBTIQ Inclusion Strategy
• delivering the DJSIR Pride Festival in June 2020, with a week of activities celebrating LGBTIQ culture led by the Pride Network
• acknowledging and celebrating a range of significant diversity dates, including National Reconciliation Week which saw over 200 staff attending a thought-provoking online panel discussion around the Victorian treaty process as well as online Indigenous cooking demonstrations
• the refresh of our Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2019-2022
• the launch of our Aboriginal Recruitment and Career Development Strategy 2020-23.

Disability Inclusion Action Plan

In December 2019 the department refreshed its Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2019-2022 DJPR Disability Inclusion Action Plan (PDF 1883.19 KB) | Word version DJPR Disability Inclusion Action Plan (DOCX 52.66 KB). The three goals of the plan are:

1. People with disability have access to information, services and facilities
2. Strategies are in place to increase the employment and retention of people with disability to achieve the department’s six per cent employment target by 2020
3. We model positive attitudes and best practice to include people with disability.

Progress against the goals of our plan in 2019-20 included:

• partnering with the Australian Network on Disability to provide internships for students with a disability, mentoring for jobseekers with a disability, and online awareness training for DJSIR team members
• our Stepping Into Program for interns with disability continued to grow, with 14 placements confirmed for Winter 2020
• in the 2020 PACE Mentoring Program, eight DJSIR mentors are working with jobseekers with disability
• a suite of online training is available to all staff, including disability confidence training for managers, team members and recruitment professionals, and training to upskill team members to create more accessible content.
• our induction guides have been refreshed to promote greater accessibility
• our staff-led Enablers Network has grown rapidly, from four members when it started in November 2019 to over 40 members in June 2020
• the DJSIR Enablers have presented to departmental groups and the Executive Board to raise awareness, share lived experience, and provide the department with recommendations to help us reach shared goals for disability inclusion.

The department is continuing to work towards its six per cent employment target, with people with disability comprising four per cent of respondents in the last People Matter Survey in May 2019.

LGBTIQ workplace inclusion

DJSIR strives to have a workforce that reflects our diverse community and is inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, intersex, queer and questioning (LGBTIQ) people. For more information about our work in this area visit our LGBTIQ workplace inclusion page.

Aboriginal Recruitment and Career Development Strategy

The strategy has been developed with four key focus areas:

• Attraction, Recruitment and Retention
• Cultural Safety
• Development and Succession Planning
• Executive Leadership, Accountability and Monitoring.

Within these four domains, the strategy sets out several priority actions and outcomes that will guide our department towards meeting an overall target of 2% Aboriginal employment by 2023.

Aboriginal Recruitment and Career Development Strategy 2020-23

If you would like to know more about the department and its Aboriginal Recruitment and Career Development Strategy, please email aed@ecodev.vic.gov.au or call 03 9651 9999