Asked one of the journalists in my very first meeting with them when I started at Private Media back in August 2021.
The question was pretty confronting… but I’m getting used to this while working with journalists :)
However, I could understand where it came from, as at the time I was the only female (and youngest and only ethnic) member of the Private Media leadership team and board.
This week is International Women’s Day and whilst I am hesitant to pile on to the IWD flood of content – it would be weird to pass the day without some sort of acknowledgement!
So rather than posting something token, I wanted to attempt to answer the second part of that journalist’s question:
“So are you just a diversity hire… or are you going to be given the power to bring change?”
Unnamed Private Media journo
Over the past 18 months, we have achieved some progress. We have:
- Added a female member to the Board and are close to adding a second non-exec female;
- Implemented a plan to bring gender parity to our senior management team;
- Promoted 15 staff, 10 of whom identify as women, 2 as non-binary;
- Supported flexible work arrangements for 28% of staff through either flexible hours for child caring needs or part-time roles/ job share;
- Increased parental leave entitlements, removed primary and non-primary distinctions and made it a KPI that men take their full parental leave entitlement (or more);
- Hired a candidate who was expecting a child and had to take parental leave at the worst timing for their role, because we believe in making talent decisions for the long-term and not discriminating against pregnancy;
- Implemented quotas in our recruitment process so that DEI candidates make up at least 50% of final shortlists;
- Rolled out standardised “Juniversary” annual reviews that include industry salary benchmarking, so that progression is not driven by who shouts the loudest or agitates the most, but is based on a formal process to ensure decisions are based on merit and are considered across the group all at the same time;
- Run company-wide training on diversity, inclusion and psychological safety (x2);
- Audited & are building more diversity in our contributor lists;
- And we are working on a partnership with Media Diversity Australia and MumbleMe to grow our pipeline for DEI candidates
Acknowledging and celebrating progress is good (and key to my own mental health at work!) but it does not undermine that we know that there is still much work to do.
We do not have the diverse representation internally or publishing-wise that we would like. There are diversity blindspots and micro-aggressions we need to continually address. We need to strengthen our psychologically safe infrastructure.
So that is why, in 2023, one of our strategic priorities is to “Champion inclusivity” – because building a truly inclusive work environment is a non-negotiable to us achieving our long-term goals as a business.