Trust: “Our willingness to be vulnerable to the actions of others because we believe that they have good intentions and will behave well towards us” Most Australians would have been dismayed in recent weeks by the exposure of a range of diverse instances of breaches of trust: the Senate inquiry into PwC finds breaches of …
Dr. Bijna Kotak Dasani MBE FRSA For many, being able to have access to a transaction account can be that vital first step toward broader financial inclusion as it allows people to store money, and send and receive payments. The latest figures from The Global Findex Database 2021 show that although 71% of people in …
Dr. Bijna a distinguished former Banker turned Venture Capitalist and Entrepreneur is a highly respected figure for her efforts in leading diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) across the financial services industry. She was appointed Member of The Most Excellent Order Of The British Empire (MBE) by Her Royal Highness Princess Royal, Princess Anne, at a …
Sydney—take a bow! The Valuable 500 has just voted our city the 9th most accessible in the world for people with disabilities. Valuable 500 is an association formed at the World Economic Forum (WEF), Davos in 2019 to which 500 of the world’s most influential CEOs belong and whose objective is to unlock the potential …
Journalist Nick Cater recently penned an article in The Australian which was little more than an all-out attack on workplace DEI programs. According to Mr Cater these programs are calculated to disempower and disadvantage white males in the Australian workforce. The proposition accepted so glibly by Mr. Cater, that without the constraints of DEI policies …
Leading in a diverse workplace It’s a fact that work and the workplace of the 21st century are intrinsically and recognisably different from what they were a few decades ago. Workforces are more diverse and the workplace itself, in many cases, is not a fixed location, but becoming increasingly remote. Moreover, employees are no longer …
A recent ruling of the Victorian court of Appeal in the case of Austin Health v Tsikos marks a significant advance in the appreciation of how unconscious biases can serve to activate and embed discrimination in the workplace. The complainant, Christina Tsikos had been employed as an orthotist/ prosthetist by Austin Health in 2009. The …
The harms of discriminatory hiring practices Discrimination in recruitment is a long-standing problem that adversely affects women and other protected groups, but also ultimately impacts organisations negatively when discrimination results in talented people being overlooked for jobs. Sometimes the discrimination flows from deliberate and conscious decisions to hire only from certain groups or to exclude …
Recently Barnaby Joyce in a radio interview, claimed that incorporating the Voice in the Australian Constitution would be contrary to the principle of equality. It would give special and distinctive status to Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. We disagree with this proposition most emphatically. The stance of Symmetra is that giving a Voice to Indigenous …
As we discussed in our two previous posts, employers, large and small, in Australia must now contend with an entirely new set of legal obligations when trying to render their workplaces free of sexual harassment. Firstly, the principal duty falls squarely on the employer who must act proactively and systematically to take steps to …