EEO Brain Gain - Interview with Susan Biggs, Senior Crown Entities Advisor
November 2005
The Muldoonian wisdom was that New Zealand’s brain-drain to Australia raised the average IQ of both countries. But with the appointment of Australian Susan Biggs as Senior Advisor Crown Entities in the Human Rights Commission, New Zealand is upping its Equality Quotient with a reverse trans-Tasman brain-drain into the EEO Sector. The inverted flow looks like Australia’s loss and New Zealand’s brain-gain.
Biggs will be advising Crown Entities on their good employer and EEO policies. Biggs has been poached from Australia’s Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) where she was Deputy Director for four years. In the New Zealand EEO Sector she joins Australian Philippa Hall, Director of the Department of Labour’s Pay and Employment Equity Unit, who was formerly Deputy Director General of the New South Wales Department for Women.
During her years at EOWA, Biggs worked with up to 3,000 private, education and non-profit sector employers to develop workplace EEO Programmes for women, and has also had extensive experience in the same field as a private consultant. She owned and managed her own business of 50 staff and is a mother of two boys, giving her ample direct experience in managing many different types of flexible work arrangements and family friendly programmes. She has also co-authored a book Time On, Time Out: Flexible Working Solutions to Keep Your Life in Balance.
An interview with Susan Biggs
Taking the reins as HRC’s Senior Advisor Crown Entities, Susan Biggs immediately started answering the tough EEO questions, such as how compliance with new statutory obligations can be streamlined and responsive - and most importantly…
Who’s better, Australia or New Zealand?
Gee, that’s a bit loaded. It’s really different, so it’s hard to say who’s better or worse. Australia’s doing some really good things in terms of the Equal Opportunities for Women in the Workplace Act. That legislation has been there since 1985, and by now companies are pretty used to the fact that they have to report about what they’re doing in terms of EEO for women. They take it for granted - it’s not a particularly big deal to them. There are some companies doing some fabulous leading-edge stuff. But if you look at who’s in senior positions, although Australia is doing marginally better in the private sector for women, we’re not doing as well in the public sector as New Zealand. Four of your top people here are women, and that’s pretty impressive.
The rest of the diversity area is not done so well in Australia, particularly in the private sector although there are some requirements in the public sector. Certainly in terms of the way you’ve gone ahead with indigenous people here, New Zealand is ahead of Australia. Our indigenous people are still waiting for the Prime Minister to say sorry.
Won’t this process just mean more bureaucracy and compliance costs?
If organisations streamlined HR systems to make sure they are complying with the good employer principle, then they’d have less bureaucracy and fewer costs, because they would be more likely to attract great people to the job and keep those people. Excellent workplaces are workplaces that have excellent relationships and these are the organisations that thrive. Recruitment costs reduce, legal costs reduce, occupational health and safety costs reduce. And far from being more bureaucratic, having a Good Employer programme and making it available to staff means everyone knows what to expect.
We will be giving employers a framework they can use and asking them to review their current HR strategies through an EEO perspective. We’ll be asking them if their HR systems are helping them make the most of their workforce, and the diversity of their employees. If they have a good employer policy with an EEO programme in place, then this compliance process should make what they’re doing easier, not more difficult. Of course the policy and programme in itself is not going to change workplaces significantly unless there is the leadership to truly advocate for, and demand that the organisation becomes a good employer.
What do you know? You’re Australian.
I definitely don’t want to be seen as some outsider breezing in and telling people what to do. I really want people to know that I’m listening, hearing what they’re saying, and learning from them – and providing advice where appropriate. We’re currently very focused on consulting Crown Entities and incorporating their needs into the process.
Why do we even need to do this anyway?
In the skill shortage environment that we’re in, you have to make sure you’ve got great good-employer practices if you want to get the best person and keep them. Considering how diverse the population is becoming, if you want to service customers and clients in the best way it’s often good to employ people they can relate to, and who have a good understanding of different communities.
Are you a know-it-all?
I’m always prepared for surprises. What we found in Australia is that some of the most male-dominated organisations - like mining companies - were doing some of the most innovative work. We also found that often the smaller companies, particularly family-owned type companies, were not doing terribly well, though you might think that being small enough and family-oriented, they could implement things quite easily.
I believe you don’t need to treat people the same to get equal outcomes. The diversity of the population requires a diverse approach to their needs and requirements – one size does not fit all.
EEO Brain-Gain: What the new rules say:
From the 2006/07 year Crown Entities are required to ‘operate a personnel policy that complies with the principle of being a good employer; and make that policy (including the equal employment oppor-tunities programme) available to its employees; and ensure its compliance with that policy (including its EEO programme) and report in its annual report on the extent of its compliance.’ [Crown Entities Act 2004 Part 3 s 118]
Crown Entities’ Annual Reports must also contain ‘information on compliance with its obligation to be a good employer (including its equal employment opportunities prog-ramme)’. [Crown Entities Act 2004 Part 4 s 151 (g)]
In June 2004, Cabinet agreed that ‘the EEO Commissioner, in consultation with the State Services Commission, Ministry of Education, other monitoring departments (and where relevant, the Pay and Employment Equity Unit in the Department of Labour) be invited to prepare guidance for departments and Crown Entities to help ensure State sector consistency and good practice on EEO’.