May 19, 2022 • 24 mins
Diversity, Inclusion and Envelopes, Oh my!
Sharon Carrol speaks about the importance of inclusion in employment and in design, as she discussed her role at Australia Post and her passion for equity.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:16):
Hello and welcome to the Career Path. A recent report
from Sweeney and Vision Australia revealed that 83% of employers
surveyed lacked confidence in hiring someone with a vision impairment.
With this podcast, we hope to delve further into this
issue by speaking to job seekers, employers and employees to
hear their perspectives. Each episode will be available to download
(00:38):
as a podcast, just go to Vision Australia org and
type the career path into the search engine to find
our webpage where you can listen to other episodes and
subscribe to make sure that you don't miss any. Hi,
I'm Belinda Wilson. Today we'll be joined by Sharon Carroll, Equality,
Diversity and inclusion business partner at Australia Post. Thank you
(01:00):
for joining us today, Sharon.
S2 (01:02):
Thank you, Belinda. I'm really pleased to be here.
S1 (01:04):
So for those of us who are not familiar, what
is an equality, diversity and inclusion business partner?
S2 (01:11):
I like to think that it's probably the best job
in that you can possibly have. The role is primarily
focused on making sure that an organisation has fair and
equal employment and participation opportunities for people. So we work
closely with the business to understand what programs of work
are underway to make sure that people who work for
(01:33):
the organisation are represented, whether that's being employed, undertaking training
or career development opportunities, and also making sure that the
work that the business is doing is also focused on
customers from a range of diverse groups as well.
S1 (01:48):
How did you enter the field of equality, diversity and inclusion?
S2 (01:52):
It was quite by accident. I've worked at Australia Post
for 15 years and had been working within the employee
engagement team responsible for the Employee Engagement survey each year,
and I happened to be seated near a very small
group of people who are the diversity team. And there
were just a decision one year that we weren't going
to run the employee survey. So all of a sudden
(02:14):
I had a lot of time on my hands and
volunteered to help out that team. And I've never really left,
to be honest. I settled into the team and have
been there ever since.
S1 (02:24):
So what was your first role at Australia Post?
S2 (02:27):
I was a project coordinator. The organisation had a gosh,
this is going back many years now. The organisation had
a programme of work that was looking at all of
the business processes across the organisation and trying to remove
the silos that were currently at the time in operation.
In the business you had very distinct business areas operating
(02:48):
in isolation and our project was designed to streamline and
share systems and processes across the business. So nothing at
all to do with HR or diversity and inclusion.
S1 (02:58):
Well, so it seems like you've kind of moved through
different areas of Australia Post over the years.
S2 (03:03):
I have, and I think that's one thing I like
about working at Australia Post is that it is an
organisation that is built largely on the relationships that you
have with people across the organisation and there are plenty
of opportunities to move and shift and change direction and think,
you know, when I found myself in HR, I realised
that's what I wanted to do. And then when I
(03:23):
discovered the world of diversity and inclusion, I definitely knew
I'd found what I wanted to be when I grew up.
S1 (03:29):
That's a great way to put it. What improvements in
inclusivity have you seen over your career?
S2 (03:35):
It's really interesting. So I've been in the diversity and
inclusion role now for a total of seven years, and
when I first started in the role, most of my
day to day was spent having conversations with different people
across the business to explain the business case for diversity,
why it mattered and why they should be focused on it.
It's still, at that time, I think, had a number
(03:55):
of different business areas that thought it was kind of
a nice thing to do. They didn't get the numbers
behind why it was not only the right thing to do,
but it was also really good for our business. And
what I've found over the years is that that business
case is well established. People understand it, leaders get it.
And so now we get to do the fun stuff
and that's developing the strategy with the business, identifying what
(04:17):
programs are worker on the go, how your work can
then impact that. So it's no longer just a focus
on recruitment of people with disability in my case, because
at the moment I am specializing in disability and accessibility
at post, but it's about working with the business. So
on any one day I could have a meeting with
our delivery team around the safety of our electric delivery vehicles.
(04:39):
Or I could be talking to our retail network around
an accessibility issue at one of our post offices. The
day can can go in quite a number of different directions.
It's always, always interesting.
S1 (04:50):
So following on from that point, what is Australia Post
policy on inclusivity?
S2 (04:56):
First of all, we have what's called a group diversity
and inclusion policy. That policy document is something that's published
not only internally but on our website, and it's our
statement and our commitment to providing a safe and inclusive
workplace for everyone. It sets out a number of principles
and behavioural expectations that we expect of people and and
also of managers and leaders. We also have like a
(05:19):
lot of organisations, shared values and the values that we
have are trust, inclusivity, empowerment and safety. And think if
you take each of those values and look at those,
they're very relevant to the work that we do. People
need to be able to trust that they can be
themselves at work and trust that the organisation is going
to do the right thing by them. Inclusivity think speaks
(05:40):
for itself. It's not enough to be able to come
to work. You need to feel that you belong and
that you're included and have the same opportunities as everyone else. Empowerment. Empowerment.
You want to make sure. Everyone is empowered to do
their job to to thrive and enjoy what they're doing.
And of course, safety. You want everyone to feel safe
and respected. It's not just physical safety. It's around people
(06:01):
safe to be themselves at work.
S1 (06:03):
And it sounds like those values aren't for separate values,
but more of interactive values. Is that the case?
S2 (06:11):
They are. In fact, you quite often hear across the
organization people say they're the ties that bind us. So
they're very much taken as a set of values and
we bring those to life across the organization through sharing
employee stories. So each year there are a range of
employees who volunteer their time to film their own ties.
S1 (06:31):
Story Going back to the recruitment process, how does Australia
Post make adjustments during the recruitment process?
S2 (06:38):
We have an accessibility and inclusion plan which has been
developed with employees who have disability and business leaders. It's
approved by the board of directors and it's also registered
with the Human Rights Commission. And one of the actions
that we had in that plan, which I'm very happy
to say we've completed, is to become a disability confident recruiter.
And what that involves is a program that's run by
(07:00):
the Australian Network on Disability and what that involved was
us working with the Australian Network on Disability to review
our recruitment process end to end from the time we
write up a job ad to the time we're onboarding
an employee. And we worked through all of the process
to identify where were there unintended but systemic barriers in
(07:21):
our process for candidates with disability. And the goal of
that is to remove those which we've now successfully done
to make sure that if a candidate with disability is
coming through that recruitment process, that they have a really
positive experience. Part of that review identified a need to
ask about adjustments more than once. So historically, we would
(07:41):
ask at the very start of the process where we
would ask a candidate to complete an application form. We'd
ask them once and be done with it. What we've
now done is we ask that question at three different
points during the recruitment process. And what we've found, looking
at the data, is that most of the candidates are
actually choosing to identify as having disability or requiring a
(08:03):
workplace adjustment. The third time that we ask the question.
So I'm making some assumptions here, but I do suspect
and I hope that they have had a good experience
and they do realise we're asking that question for the
right reason.
S1 (08:16):
Yeah, I think one of the concerns that people also
have is when they're asked to do a medical check,
maybe they feel that that's a way that people get
screened out. So how do you guys approach medical checks?
S2 (08:27):
This is one of the reasons we really encourage applicants
to identify. We've now set in place a series of
scripts and guidelines for the physicians and GP's who are
undertaking the pre-employment medical. So if we have a candidate
who has identified as having disability or needing an adjustment
for the medical, because that is one of the points
where we ask that question that assessing GP is then
(08:50):
sent a series of instructions where we basically guide them
to focus on what the candidate can do with adjustments
rather than them doing the stock standard medical assessment and saying, well,
this person can't do that. What we then expect from
that pre-employment medical is this person is able to effectively
do the job with the following adjustments.
S1 (09:11):
You were talking about making adjustments during the recruitment process.
I understand this is a really individualized process, but can
you give an example of something that you may do
during the recruitment process?
S2 (09:21):
I would have to say overwhelmingly the most common adjustments
we have are making sure that we have Auslan interpreters
for candidates who are deaf. We employ a lot of
people who are deaf at Australia Post and that's probably
our most common request for an adjustment. So the talent
acquisition team who are responsible for this process, they have
a list of, I guess go to interpreters that they
(09:43):
can reach out to. But importantly, there's a handover point.
Once a candidate comes through our recruitment process, that gets
to a point where the talent acquisition consultant hands over
that candidate for any type of assessments that are needed.
For instance, driving assessment for someone who's applied for a
van role, for instance. And so what we do now
is we have quite a few nifty things in place
(10:04):
which the team responsible for doing. The assessments have come
up with themselves where they use technology, they key in
the the driving route into a GPS or a smartphone
that's mounted on the dash. They also go through the
driving assessment with the Auslan interpreter before they get into
the van, because once they're in the van, there's only
allowed to be the assessor and the driver. And we've
(10:25):
found that that has improved the driving assessments for candidates
who are deaf.
S1 (10:29):
And you found this process through trial and error, or
how did you find out this worked?
S2 (10:34):
We've had a lot of conversations over the last particularly
over the last 12 to 18 months, where we've spent
quite a lot of time with teams who can directly
impact the employment of people with disability, where we've had
conversations around what an adjustment is and really starting to.
Educate them that when we're talking about adjustments, we're not
always talking about things that cost a lot of money
(10:56):
or technology that quite often there's a workaround and there's
something very simple that you can put in place and
agree with the person and think coming out of those conversations,
it's helped the team members who are responsible with recruitment
and assessments. It's helped them be a little more confident
and comfortable in talking to those candidates around what adjustments
do you need so that we can do this effectively.
(11:17):
And I think coming out of those conversations, they're coming
up with very straightforward and simple workarounds.
S1 (11:23):
Well, I don't think there'll be a lot of our
listeners that would be applying for for a driving job.
But in what ways? We maybe one day with self
driving cars or something. We can be applying for those jobs.
You never know. We never know. Can Australia post support
employees with disabilities on the job as well?
S2 (11:41):
I think sometimes, and I fall into that trap myself.
When you think of Australia Post, you think of the
postie out on the street or the truck driver or
the van driver, and it's actually a business that has
so many diverse roles across it. I would encourage everyone
listening today to go onto our website, which is accessible,
go on to our website and go to W-w-what was
(12:03):
post forward slash jobs. And what we've now done there
is we've profiled all the different types of jobs across
all the different business areas. And you could actually hear
from people who work here and work in those roles.
You can read about what's involved in those roles. You
can set up job alerts based on location or job
(12:25):
type that you're interested in. So you have roles ranging
from working within one of our customer contact centres. All
of our contact centres are Australian based. Most of them
are within metropolitan areas. So you can work in a
customer consultant role within there which is answering questions from
where is my parcel to people complaining around. My parcel
(12:45):
hasn't been delivered and a card's been left on my doorstep.
You could work in a professional role like a lot
of large organisations where a corporate. So we have professional
roles ranging from human resources, marketing, procurement, legal, you know,
could go on finance. So a range of roles which
again you can always find those on the jobs page
of our website. You could also look at working in
(13:08):
some type of retail support role. So we have quite
a large network of retail shops. We have a strong
administrative team that sit behind the scenes to support our
retail team. You might look at working in digital and technology.
I'm actually really excited. In January we've just announced a
newly created role, which is the accessibility lead within our
(13:28):
customer experience and digital team. So it's quite a mouthful.
But in essence this role, the person who has taken
up this role and I might add, has disability himself.
He's charged with making sure that we embed accessibility and
universal design principles into the design of new products and services.
And when we're reviewing or refreshing products or services, taking
(13:48):
another look at them to apply those principles, I could
go on forever. There are so many different types of
roles available.
S1 (13:55):
Well, what sounds amazing here is that you're you're building
accessibility from the inception rather than an add on afterwards. Yes.
S2 (14:03):
And think a lot of our work over the last
12 months in particular has been, you know, after our
experience of becoming a disability, confident recruiter and all of
a sudden being shown all of these unintended barriers in
our recruitment process, which we were fairly confident with going
into the review, it led us to start to look
at all of our other systems and processes within the business.
(14:25):
So we've just completed quite a major programme of work
to review all of our IT systems within the business
to undertake a gap analysis so that we can identify
where our internal systems are not accessible. So, you know,
you want to make sure that if you've got someone
with disability that they can apply for their leave using
the IT system that we have in place and so forth.
(14:47):
So we're just waiting on the results of that review.
But that's definitely going to inform our work over the
next few years in that space.
S1 (14:54):
So in addition to the IT systems, can you give
an example of something else you maybe had to adjust
because of vision impairment?
S2 (15:01):
Oh yes. Within our retail network we have a piece
of work underway at the moment called Post Plus, where
we are completely overhauling our point of sale software. And
what we're doing is making sure that there are a
range of functions available so that our team members with
low vision can actually increase font size and color. Contrast
(15:22):
that it is compatible with adaptive technology. There are a
few other technical things that go on in there, but
basically it's recognizing that we ourselves know we've got an
aging workforce as well. So it's going to have a
benefit for everybody as they're aging to be able to
adjust your color and your font sizes on your screen
at the counter.
S1 (15:40):
So what advice do you have for people who are
vision impaired or blind and want to work for Australia?
Post I would.
S2 (15:46):
Definitely say when you are applying for a role with us,
I would. To please speak up and let us know
if you require any adjustments because we are asking for
a reason and we want you to have a positive
experience throughout our recruitment process. So I would encourage anyone
listening to make sure that they do let us know
of what those adjustments are and not think we're asking
(16:08):
for the wrong reasons. And I'm sure I can imagine
people would be hesitant to tick the box, as they say,
but please don't be. We want to know in the
background if you do advise us that you have disability,
that sets off a whole series of activities in the
background where we monitor and track and make sure that
that applicant does not stall at any of the stages
within our recruitment process. That sets off a flag that
(16:31):
allows our talent acquisition consultants to reach out directly and
to make sure that you're not stuck at a certain
stage and haven't come across a new barrier that we're
not yet aware of. So I would really encourage people
to apply and to let us know of any adjustments
they require.
S1 (16:45):
So it sounds like you actively want to recruit people
with a disability.
S2 (16:49):
We really do. We currently have, I guess, officially recorded 5.7%
of our workforce have identified in their own diversity profile
that they have disability. Now, I know of many other
people who work at Australia Post who haven't updated their
diversity profile and have disability and they haven't needed to
because they haven't required adjustments. But guess the better view
(17:12):
of our workforce that we can have means that I'm
in a position working within disability and accessibility to say
that I need more money to invest in career development opportunities,
more money to invest in our employee network. Accessibility matters
because we're representing a larger number of our workforce. So yes,
there's definitely a huge appetite at Australia Post and we
(17:33):
are very keen to see more applicants with disability.
S1 (17:36):
It's just really refreshing to hear an employer speak so
openly about inclusivity. Unfortunately, not every employer is like that.
Why do you think some organisations may be afraid to
speak about inclusivity?
S2 (17:50):
I think there is. This is kind of, I guess, generalizing,
but but I do believe that there is a fear
of saying the wrong thing and perhaps offending someone. When
we first formed our Employee Network Accessibility Matters, we were
having conversations around this topic. And what the team members
were telling me was that the absolute worst thing you
(18:11):
can do is ignore something that is so obvious in
the room because it just makes them feel uncomfortable. So
we've actually worked with employees in that network to actually
develop a series of kind of humorous look at having
conversations around disability in the workforce. And we use that
with our people, leaders, our managers and supervisors to try
and guess, make them feel a little bit more comfortable
(18:32):
about starting that conversation. But I do appreciate not every
business has a dedicated diversity and inclusion partner. Quite often
you might find, particularly with smaller businesses, the team are
incredibly stretched on on compliance driven matters, you know, employee relations,
managing harassment, discrimination and bullying. You know, so I guess
finding the time for some teams within smaller businesses to
(18:55):
dedicate to this could be challenging as well. And if
you're not educating and helping people within the organisation feel
comfortable about having these conversations, then that fear will remain.
S1 (19:05):
So what advice would you have for other employers in
terms of being inclusive? What resources are there for them?
S2 (19:12):
Yeah. So Australia Post, as I mentioned earlier, we are
a member of the Australian Network on Disability and that
provides us with an opportunity to connect with other employers,
reach out for expert advice and consultation, but that is
a fee based organisation. So again, I appreciate that not
every employer is going to have the money to be
able to afford a membership like that. But I would
(19:33):
encourage you, there is a new website that you can
go to called include Ability Gov. It's been developed by
the Australian Human Rights Commission and what they did, they
formed what's called an employer network forum. So Australia Post
and other employers joined together to share resources, practical tips
(19:53):
and guides, and they've now made all of that freely
available on their website, not just for employers, for people
looking for work as well. There's a range of resources
available on that website.
S1 (20:03):
Sounds like a really great resource for everyone. What ways
does Australia Post work to improve their services to the
vision impaired and blind community?
S2 (20:11):
We're doing a range of things at the moment. One
of the things we did recently was we were refreshing
our parcel satchels, our packaging and so what we did
for the first time was actually undertake a print accessibility
check on that. And what that came back and told
us was that the font was too small. It was used,
we'd used a very pale light grey colour and that
(20:33):
it was very hard for people with low vision to
be able to read that packaging, which included terms and
conditions and delivery times. So we were then able to
go back and redesign that packaging so that it is
something that someone with low vision could more easily read.
We've also done some work with Vision Australia around understanding.
Ending safety issues and concerns customers who are blind or
(20:54):
low vision had with the introduction of our electric delivery vehicles.
We call them adverse, and you've probably seen them on
the footpath. They're like a three wheeler with a little
roof on the top and a little trolley behind it.
That enables our posties to deliver more than letters and
small parcels. They can deliver some slightly larger parcels. Obviously
they're wonderful for the environment, but they're very quiet. So
(21:16):
we ran a focus group with Vision Australia to try
and understand what we can do, not only to make
the vehicles themselves a little safer, make a little bit
of noise, but also what we should be doing in
terms of training our posties. So, you know, making sure
that they don't hug the fence side of the footpath.
If they see any customer on the footpath making sure
(21:37):
they go either onto the road or onto that curbside.
So they're the types of things that we're doing. As
I mentioned earlier, that new role, which is called accessibility,
lead in customer experience and digital massive portfolio of work.
But what they're doing at the moment is trying to
have a look at all of our products and services
and what we can be doing to make sure that
they're more accessible.
S1 (21:57):
That's great to hear. Just in terms of the future,
what do you hope to happen with Australia Post and
with your role in particular?
S2 (22:05):
With my role in particular mean Love what I do,
I would obviously love to see that the organisation gets
to a point where it doesn't need someone like me
to be driving this piece of work. I would love
to see this role expand. I think we could actually
have a team of people working on this stuff, but
I would love to see that accessibility is considered first
(22:25):
and foremost. Concepts like universal design are just they're not
even things we have to talk about. Anyone starting a
new project would know that that's something that has to
be up front and considered at the start of what
they're doing, Whatever that is. That's where I would love
to see us get to.
S1 (22:39):
Well, thank you very much. And one more time for
anyone who's interested in applying for a job at Australia Post,
what is the website.
S2 (22:47):
WW W Aussie post.com/jobs.
S1 (22:53):
Well thank you very much Sharon It has been an
amazing time speaking with you and hearing about all the
great things that Australia Post is doing. Thank you so
much for joining us on the career path.
S2 (23:03):
Thank you for having me, Belinda And again, listeners, please
go online and apply for a job with us.
S1 (23:10):
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(23:32):
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(23:54):
network and Twitter.com Simba Radio Network. Thanks for traveling with
us along the career path.
Hello and welcome to the Career Path. A recent report
from Sweeney and Vision Australia revealed that 83% of employers
surveyed lacked confidence in hiring someone with a vision impairment.
With this podcast, we hope to delve further into this
issue by speaking to job seekers, employers and employees to
hear their perspectives. Each episode will be available to download
(00:38):
as a podcast, just go to Vision Australia org and
type the career path into the search engine to find
our webpage where you can listen to other episodes and
subscribe to make sure that you don't miss any. Hi,
I'm Belinda Wilson. Today we'll be joined by Sharon Carroll, Equality,
Diversity and inclusion business partner at Australia Post. Thank you
(01:00):
for joining us today, Sharon.
S2 (01:02):
Thank you, Belinda. I'm really pleased to be here.
S1 (01:04):
So for those of us who are not familiar, what
is an equality, diversity and inclusion business partner?
S2 (01:11):
I like to think that it's probably the best job
in that you can possibly have. The role is primarily
focused on making sure that an organisation has fair and
equal employment and participation opportunities for people. So we work
closely with the business to understand what programs of work
are underway to make sure that people who work for
(01:33):
the organisation are represented, whether that's being employed, undertaking training
or career development opportunities, and also making sure that the
work that the business is doing is also focused on
customers from a range of diverse groups as well.
S1 (01:48):
How did you enter the field of equality, diversity and inclusion?
S2 (01:52):
It was quite by accident. I've worked at Australia Post
for 15 years and had been working within the employee
engagement team responsible for the Employee Engagement survey each year,
and I happened to be seated near a very small
group of people who are the diversity team. And there
were just a decision one year that we weren't going
to run the employee survey. So all of a sudden
(02:14):
I had a lot of time on my hands and
volunteered to help out that team. And I've never really left,
to be honest. I settled into the team and have
been there ever since.
S1 (02:24):
So what was your first role at Australia Post?
S2 (02:27):
I was a project coordinator. The organisation had a gosh,
this is going back many years now. The organisation had
a programme of work that was looking at all of
the business processes across the organisation and trying to remove
the silos that were currently at the time in operation.
In the business you had very distinct business areas operating
(02:48):
in isolation and our project was designed to streamline and
share systems and processes across the business. So nothing at
all to do with HR or diversity and inclusion.
S1 (02:58):
Well, so it seems like you've kind of moved through
different areas of Australia Post over the years.
S2 (03:03):
I have, and I think that's one thing I like
about working at Australia Post is that it is an
organisation that is built largely on the relationships that you
have with people across the organisation and there are plenty
of opportunities to move and shift and change direction and think,
you know, when I found myself in HR, I realised
that's what I wanted to do. And then when I
(03:23):
discovered the world of diversity and inclusion, I definitely knew
I'd found what I wanted to be when I grew up.
S1 (03:29):
That's a great way to put it. What improvements in
inclusivity have you seen over your career?
S2 (03:35):
It's really interesting. So I've been in the diversity and
inclusion role now for a total of seven years, and
when I first started in the role, most of my
day to day was spent having conversations with different people
across the business to explain the business case for diversity,
why it mattered and why they should be focused on it.
It's still, at that time, I think, had a number
(03:55):
of different business areas that thought it was kind of
a nice thing to do. They didn't get the numbers
behind why it was not only the right thing to do,
but it was also really good for our business. And
what I've found over the years is that that business
case is well established. People understand it, leaders get it.
And so now we get to do the fun stuff
and that's developing the strategy with the business, identifying what
(04:17):
programs are worker on the go, how your work can
then impact that. So it's no longer just a focus
on recruitment of people with disability in my case, because
at the moment I am specializing in disability and accessibility
at post, but it's about working with the business. So
on any one day I could have a meeting with
our delivery team around the safety of our electric delivery vehicles.
(04:39):
Or I could be talking to our retail network around
an accessibility issue at one of our post offices. The
day can can go in quite a number of different directions.
It's always, always interesting.
S1 (04:50):
So following on from that point, what is Australia Post
policy on inclusivity?
S2 (04:56):
First of all, we have what's called a group diversity
and inclusion policy. That policy document is something that's published
not only internally but on our website, and it's our
statement and our commitment to providing a safe and inclusive
workplace for everyone. It sets out a number of principles
and behavioural expectations that we expect of people and and
also of managers and leaders. We also have like a
(05:19):
lot of organisations, shared values and the values that we
have are trust, inclusivity, empowerment and safety. And think if
you take each of those values and look at those,
they're very relevant to the work that we do. People
need to be able to trust that they can be
themselves at work and trust that the organisation is going
to do the right thing by them. Inclusivity think speaks
(05:40):
for itself. It's not enough to be able to come
to work. You need to feel that you belong and
that you're included and have the same opportunities as everyone else. Empowerment. Empowerment.
You want to make sure. Everyone is empowered to do
their job to to thrive and enjoy what they're doing.
And of course, safety. You want everyone to feel safe
and respected. It's not just physical safety. It's around people
(06:01):
safe to be themselves at work.
S1 (06:03):
And it sounds like those values aren't for separate values,
but more of interactive values. Is that the case?
S2 (06:11):
They are. In fact, you quite often hear across the
organization people say they're the ties that bind us. So
they're very much taken as a set of values and
we bring those to life across the organization through sharing
employee stories. So each year there are a range of
employees who volunteer their time to film their own ties.
S1 (06:31):
Story Going back to the recruitment process, how does Australia
Post make adjustments during the recruitment process?
S2 (06:38):
We have an accessibility and inclusion plan which has been
developed with employees who have disability and business leaders. It's
approved by the board of directors and it's also registered
with the Human Rights Commission. And one of the actions
that we had in that plan, which I'm very happy
to say we've completed, is to become a disability confident recruiter.
And what that involves is a program that's run by
(07:00):
the Australian Network on Disability and what that involved was
us working with the Australian Network on Disability to review
our recruitment process end to end from the time we
write up a job ad to the time we're onboarding
an employee. And we worked through all of the process
to identify where were there unintended but systemic barriers in
(07:21):
our process for candidates with disability. And the goal of
that is to remove those which we've now successfully done
to make sure that if a candidate with disability is
coming through that recruitment process, that they have a really
positive experience. Part of that review identified a need to
ask about adjustments more than once. So historically, we would
(07:41):
ask at the very start of the process where we
would ask a candidate to complete an application form. We'd
ask them once and be done with it. What we've
now done is we ask that question at three different
points during the recruitment process. And what we've found, looking
at the data, is that most of the candidates are
actually choosing to identify as having disability or requiring a
(08:03):
workplace adjustment. The third time that we ask the question.
So I'm making some assumptions here, but I do suspect
and I hope that they have had a good experience
and they do realise we're asking that question for the
right reason.
S1 (08:16):
Yeah, I think one of the concerns that people also
have is when they're asked to do a medical check,
maybe they feel that that's a way that people get
screened out. So how do you guys approach medical checks?
S2 (08:27):
This is one of the reasons we really encourage applicants
to identify. We've now set in place a series of
scripts and guidelines for the physicians and GP's who are
undertaking the pre-employment medical. So if we have a candidate
who has identified as having disability or needing an adjustment
for the medical, because that is one of the points
where we ask that question that assessing GP is then
(08:50):
sent a series of instructions where we basically guide them
to focus on what the candidate can do with adjustments
rather than them doing the stock standard medical assessment and saying, well,
this person can't do that. What we then expect from
that pre-employment medical is this person is able to effectively
do the job with the following adjustments.
S1 (09:11):
You were talking about making adjustments during the recruitment process.
I understand this is a really individualized process, but can
you give an example of something that you may do
during the recruitment process?
S2 (09:21):
I would have to say overwhelmingly the most common adjustments
we have are making sure that we have Auslan interpreters
for candidates who are deaf. We employ a lot of
people who are deaf at Australia Post and that's probably
our most common request for an adjustment. So the talent
acquisition team who are responsible for this process, they have
a list of, I guess go to interpreters that they
(09:43):
can reach out to. But importantly, there's a handover point.
Once a candidate comes through our recruitment process, that gets
to a point where the talent acquisition consultant hands over
that candidate for any type of assessments that are needed.
For instance, driving assessment for someone who's applied for a
van role, for instance. And so what we do now
is we have quite a few nifty things in place
(10:04):
which the team responsible for doing. The assessments have come
up with themselves where they use technology, they key in
the the driving route into a GPS or a smartphone
that's mounted on the dash. They also go through the
driving assessment with the Auslan interpreter before they get into
the van, because once they're in the van, there's only
allowed to be the assessor and the driver. And we've
(10:25):
found that that has improved the driving assessments for candidates
who are deaf.
S1 (10:29):
And you found this process through trial and error, or
how did you find out this worked?
S2 (10:34):
We've had a lot of conversations over the last particularly
over the last 12 to 18 months, where we've spent
quite a lot of time with teams who can directly
impact the employment of people with disability, where we've had
conversations around what an adjustment is and really starting to.
Educate them that when we're talking about adjustments, we're not
always talking about things that cost a lot of money
(10:56):
or technology that quite often there's a workaround and there's
something very simple that you can put in place and
agree with the person and think coming out of those conversations,
it's helped the team members who are responsible with recruitment
and assessments. It's helped them be a little more confident
and comfortable in talking to those candidates around what adjustments
do you need so that we can do this effectively.
(11:17):
And I think coming out of those conversations, they're coming
up with very straightforward and simple workarounds.
S1 (11:23):
Well, I don't think there'll be a lot of our
listeners that would be applying for for a driving job.
But in what ways? We maybe one day with self
driving cars or something. We can be applying for those jobs.
You never know. We never know. Can Australia post support
employees with disabilities on the job as well?
S2 (11:41):
I think sometimes, and I fall into that trap myself.
When you think of Australia Post, you think of the
postie out on the street or the truck driver or
the van driver, and it's actually a business that has
so many diverse roles across it. I would encourage everyone
listening today to go onto our website, which is accessible,
go on to our website and go to W-w-what was
(12:03):
post forward slash jobs. And what we've now done there
is we've profiled all the different types of jobs across
all the different business areas. And you could actually hear
from people who work here and work in those roles.
You can read about what's involved in those roles. You
can set up job alerts based on location or job
(12:25):
type that you're interested in. So you have roles ranging
from working within one of our customer contact centres. All
of our contact centres are Australian based. Most of them
are within metropolitan areas. So you can work in a
customer consultant role within there which is answering questions from
where is my parcel to people complaining around. My parcel
(12:45):
hasn't been delivered and a card's been left on my doorstep.
You could work in a professional role like a lot
of large organisations where a corporate. So we have professional
roles ranging from human resources, marketing, procurement, legal, you know,
could go on finance. So a range of roles which
again you can always find those on the jobs page
of our website. You could also look at working in
(13:08):
some type of retail support role. So we have quite
a large network of retail shops. We have a strong
administrative team that sit behind the scenes to support our
retail team. You might look at working in digital and technology.
I'm actually really excited. In January we've just announced a
newly created role, which is the accessibility lead within our
(13:28):
customer experience and digital team. So it's quite a mouthful.
But in essence this role, the person who has taken
up this role and I might add, has disability himself.
He's charged with making sure that we embed accessibility and
universal design principles into the design of new products and services.
And when we're reviewing or refreshing products or services, taking
(13:48):
another look at them to apply those principles, I could
go on forever. There are so many different types of
roles available.
S1 (13:55):
Well, what sounds amazing here is that you're you're building
accessibility from the inception rather than an add on afterwards. Yes.
S2 (14:03):
And think a lot of our work over the last
12 months in particular has been, you know, after our
experience of becoming a disability, confident recruiter and all of
a sudden being shown all of these unintended barriers in
our recruitment process, which we were fairly confident with going
into the review, it led us to start to look
at all of our other systems and processes within the business.
(14:25):
So we've just completed quite a major programme of work
to review all of our IT systems within the business
to undertake a gap analysis so that we can identify
where our internal systems are not accessible. So, you know,
you want to make sure that if you've got someone
with disability that they can apply for their leave using
the IT system that we have in place and so forth.
(14:47):
So we're just waiting on the results of that review.
But that's definitely going to inform our work over the
next few years in that space.
S1 (14:54):
So in addition to the IT systems, can you give
an example of something else you maybe had to adjust
because of vision impairment?
S2 (15:01):
Oh yes. Within our retail network we have a piece
of work underway at the moment called Post Plus, where
we are completely overhauling our point of sale software. And
what we're doing is making sure that there are a
range of functions available so that our team members with
low vision can actually increase font size and color. Contrast
(15:22):
that it is compatible with adaptive technology. There are a
few other technical things that go on in there, but
basically it's recognizing that we ourselves know we've got an
aging workforce as well. So it's going to have a
benefit for everybody as they're aging to be able to
adjust your color and your font sizes on your screen
at the counter.
S1 (15:40):
So what advice do you have for people who are
vision impaired or blind and want to work for Australia?
Post I would.
S2 (15:46):
Definitely say when you are applying for a role with us,
I would. To please speak up and let us know
if you require any adjustments because we are asking for
a reason and we want you to have a positive
experience throughout our recruitment process. So I would encourage anyone
listening to make sure that they do let us know
of what those adjustments are and not think we're asking
(16:08):
for the wrong reasons. And I'm sure I can imagine
people would be hesitant to tick the box, as they say,
but please don't be. We want to know in the
background if you do advise us that you have disability,
that sets off a whole series of activities in the
background where we monitor and track and make sure that
that applicant does not stall at any of the stages
within our recruitment process. That sets off a flag that
(16:31):
allows our talent acquisition consultants to reach out directly and
to make sure that you're not stuck at a certain
stage and haven't come across a new barrier that we're
not yet aware of. So I would really encourage people
to apply and to let us know of any adjustments
they require.
S1 (16:45):
So it sounds like you actively want to recruit people
with a disability.
S2 (16:49):
We really do. We currently have, I guess, officially recorded 5.7%
of our workforce have identified in their own diversity profile
that they have disability. Now, I know of many other
people who work at Australia Post who haven't updated their
diversity profile and have disability and they haven't needed to
because they haven't required adjustments. But guess the better view
(17:12):
of our workforce that we can have means that I'm
in a position working within disability and accessibility to say
that I need more money to invest in career development opportunities,
more money to invest in our employee network. Accessibility matters
because we're representing a larger number of our workforce. So yes,
there's definitely a huge appetite at Australia Post and we
(17:33):
are very keen to see more applicants with disability.
S1 (17:36):
It's just really refreshing to hear an employer speak so
openly about inclusivity. Unfortunately, not every employer is like that.
Why do you think some organisations may be afraid to
speak about inclusivity?
S2 (17:50):
I think there is. This is kind of, I guess, generalizing,
but but I do believe that there is a fear
of saying the wrong thing and perhaps offending someone. When
we first formed our Employee Network Accessibility Matters, we were
having conversations around this topic. And what the team members
were telling me was that the absolute worst thing you
(18:11):
can do is ignore something that is so obvious in
the room because it just makes them feel uncomfortable. So
we've actually worked with employees in that network to actually
develop a series of kind of humorous look at having
conversations around disability in the workforce. And we use that
with our people, leaders, our managers and supervisors to try
and guess, make them feel a little bit more comfortable
(18:32):
about starting that conversation. But I do appreciate not every
business has a dedicated diversity and inclusion partner. Quite often
you might find, particularly with smaller businesses, the team are
incredibly stretched on on compliance driven matters, you know, employee relations,
managing harassment, discrimination and bullying. You know, so I guess
finding the time for some teams within smaller businesses to
(18:55):
dedicate to this could be challenging as well. And if
you're not educating and helping people within the organisation feel
comfortable about having these conversations, then that fear will remain.
S1 (19:05):
So what advice would you have for other employers in
terms of being inclusive? What resources are there for them?
S2 (19:12):
Yeah. So Australia Post, as I mentioned earlier, we are
a member of the Australian Network on Disability and that
provides us with an opportunity to connect with other employers,
reach out for expert advice and consultation, but that is
a fee based organisation. So again, I appreciate that not
every employer is going to have the money to be
able to afford a membership like that. But I would
(19:33):
encourage you, there is a new website that you can
go to called include Ability Gov. It's been developed by
the Australian Human Rights Commission and what they did, they
formed what's called an employer network forum. So Australia Post
and other employers joined together to share resources, practical tips
(19:53):
and guides, and they've now made all of that freely
available on their website, not just for employers, for people
looking for work as well. There's a range of resources
available on that website.
S1 (20:03):
Sounds like a really great resource for everyone. What ways
does Australia Post work to improve their services to the
vision impaired and blind community?
S2 (20:11):
We're doing a range of things at the moment. One
of the things we did recently was we were refreshing
our parcel satchels, our packaging and so what we did
for the first time was actually undertake a print accessibility
check on that. And what that came back and told
us was that the font was too small. It was used,
we'd used a very pale light grey colour and that
(20:33):
it was very hard for people with low vision to
be able to read that packaging, which included terms and
conditions and delivery times. So we were then able to
go back and redesign that packaging so that it is
something that someone with low vision could more easily read.
We've also done some work with Vision Australia around understanding.
Ending safety issues and concerns customers who are blind or
(20:54):
low vision had with the introduction of our electric delivery vehicles.
We call them adverse, and you've probably seen them on
the footpath. They're like a three wheeler with a little
roof on the top and a little trolley behind it.
That enables our posties to deliver more than letters and
small parcels. They can deliver some slightly larger parcels. Obviously
they're wonderful for the environment, but they're very quiet. So
(21:16):
we ran a focus group with Vision Australia to try
and understand what we can do, not only to make
the vehicles themselves a little safer, make a little bit
of noise, but also what we should be doing in
terms of training our posties. So, you know, making sure
that they don't hug the fence side of the footpath.
If they see any customer on the footpath making sure
(21:37):
they go either onto the road or onto that curbside.
So they're the types of things that we're doing. As
I mentioned earlier, that new role, which is called accessibility,
lead in customer experience and digital massive portfolio of work.
But what they're doing at the moment is trying to
have a look at all of our products and services
and what we can be doing to make sure that
they're more accessible.
S1 (21:57):
That's great to hear. Just in terms of the future,
what do you hope to happen with Australia Post and
with your role in particular?
S2 (22:05):
With my role in particular mean Love what I do,
I would obviously love to see that the organisation gets
to a point where it doesn't need someone like me
to be driving this piece of work. I would love
to see this role expand. I think we could actually
have a team of people working on this stuff, but
I would love to see that accessibility is considered first
(22:25):
and foremost. Concepts like universal design are just they're not
even things we have to talk about. Anyone starting a
new project would know that that's something that has to
be up front and considered at the start of what
they're doing, Whatever that is. That's where I would love
to see us get to.
S1 (22:39):
Well, thank you very much. And one more time for
anyone who's interested in applying for a job at Australia Post,
what is the website.
S2 (22:47):
WW W Aussie post.com/jobs.
S1 (22:53):
Well thank you very much Sharon It has been an
amazing time speaking with you and hearing about all the
great things that Australia Post is doing. Thank you so
much for joining us on the career path.
S2 (23:03):
Thank you for having me, Belinda And again, listeners, please
go online and apply for a job with us.
S1 (23:10):
The conversation doesn't have to stop here. Share this podcast
episode on social media and start a conversation with your friends,
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You can provide feedback through the email Career podcast at
Vision Australia Walk the Career Path podcast series is available
to download via our website. Just go to Vision Australia
(23:32):
org and type the career path into the search field
to find our webpage where you can listen to other
episodes benefit from a range of resources and subscribe to
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(23:54):
network and Twitter.com Simba Radio Network. Thanks for traveling with
us along the career path.
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