Hello and welcome back to another UWA podcast. My name is Jane and today we are once again joined by Mary Gurgone. Now today, we are talking about the candidate experience through the lens of diversity and inclusion. So without further ado welcome back Mary Gurgone. >> It's a pleasure Jane. >> [LAUGH] it's a pleasure to have you. Mary, do you mind telling us just a little bit about your work in diversity and inclusivity? You're from a migrant background yourself I understand. So some of your involvement in this kind of came from your own personal experiences. >> Certainly and also as I've worked in government, I had a whole career in government. I was in a managerial executive role and also I have run in the last 10 to 12 years a national consultancy of my own, which had a very strong focus on diversity and cultural issues. So, I suppose I've been person doing selecting a lot of the time. >> Mm-hm. >> I've also been the person going for jobs a lot of the time. >> [LAUGH] sure. >> And also I've been involved in developing policy and monitoring its effectiveness in organizations a lot of the time. So there's been all those kinds of experiences. >> Yeah, great. So let's talk about the recruitment process because I guess for most people the recruitment process can be very daunting experience across the board. But for people from a different cultural or linguistic background it's surely even more difficult. Can you share some insight into this experience? >> Well certainly, I think that when you look different, you often are very much excluded. And it's no use saying that it only happens to others in other places, in Western Australia I saw a really wonderful research by a researcher that actually looked at three different groups of people. This was probably now going back to 15, 20 years or something. Looked at the three different groups of people who all had very good English skills because obviously we all know we're told if you don't speak English, well, clearly that's your problem [INAUDIBLE]. >> Yeah, yeah. With these other factors. [INAUDIBLE] that were good English skills, one was from the area [INAUDIBLE] and then Africans from dark in areas and then some people from background who were visually different in their dress. >> Mm-hm. >> And what happened from that was then to see how their job seeking went, they had all been in Western Australia for between five to ten years and they weren't seeking jobs. So what they found was that the people who dressed differently [INAUDIBLE] background was seen to be much more the enemy keeping in mind the hang-ups about Muslims, even though their English skills was actually the highest of the three groups. And then there's ones who found the second greatest difficulty in finding jobs was dark skinned African. And the third group was the people of [INAUDIBLE] background, who had probably the least level of English of them all. >> Mm-hm. >> So I think when people say it's language, it isn't necessarily a language but I think that tells its own story, doesn't it? >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Who is that group that is hated the most and the other is that what you can see like you can see dress and you can see-. My experience when I was in [INAUDIBLE] is probably the most relevant here because if I was looking after a school that looked after the language access and equity groups. I had a lot of interviews for a very wide selection of different people and I often had to do so with human resource people also being part of the selection panel. And I just found it really, really interesting that firstly, a lot of Muslims would choose not to wear the hijabs even though they would wear the hijabs once they actually had a job. And they saw who I was because for me, a hijab is not what I'm employing [CROSSTALK]. >> Yeah. >> So that was interesting that the people themselves trying to change themselves. And the other part is the human resources attitude. I always remember this interview with an American guy, right? Who did the thing that Americans do where they often in an interview, they're taught to say all positive stuff and to be very self aggrandizing. And we Australians, we like to pretend we're humble while we're saying good things about it. >> Yeah, don't want to get a big hair, don't [INAUDIBLE] myself too much, tall poppy syndrome as they say. >> Exactly and this [INAUDIBLE], he was anti this person simply because of that. And at the same lot of interviews, we had a couple of Asian women who did the exact opposite so basically they waited till they were asked a question before they would say something positive about themselves. And only extremely carefully and very quietly, the exact opposite. And this HR guy had real hang ups about both those types as far as excluding them from consideration. >> Sure, he probably just wanted someone to come in and sound and look exactly like him. >> Yeah, yeah that really unless they were sounded Aussie and they behaved Aussie and they looked Aussie and I don't think he was a nasty person, he wasn't trying to be nasty at all. >> Mm-hm. >> It was just that the bragging got under his skin and the quiet just didn't fit in his mind. >> Yeah. >> I'm giving those examples because I think that when you talk about, what is it, what are the insights? The insights are that it's not enough to have policies and practices written up and we had lots of them in tough, let me tell you [LAUGH]. >> Yeah. >> There're lots of policies and practices, you've got to have procedures and you've got to have the right people on the panel. We will question what the status quo is including why do you want to exclude this person and what do they have less or more of than this other person that you recommend? Because without meaning to we all have a tendency, don't we? So [CROSSTALK] my tendency is to question and to look for the best person looking at the skills which we work out beforehand not afterwards. Once we've excluded certain people and if that skill wasn't on there when we wrote up this thing, then I say why? I think it's important that we consider those issues if we really want to make a difference, yeah? >> Yeah, absolutely. Because again, also there is the example of research that has found that people with non Anglo or English sounding names irrespective of how they look or their proficiency in English can still be overlooked in that short listing process. >> Absolutely and if you've got a woman's name and you go for an engineering job in a mining company, the same thing has been found. That they will be the first ones excluded even though they have had fantastic assessments all through the university and practical as well as theoretical, they still get excluded. >> Yeah, and beyond having English as a second language because I guess most of us would understand that people with English as a second language may struggle with language proficiency. But I guess problems go beyond language proficiency sometimes within organizations. Can you tell us a little bit more about some of the cultural issues that may come up? >> Yes, certainly. I think that a practical example of the way that I could see in the public service where we think the service has got all these policies and procedures and everything is right. But I noted even in the public service situation, I had a group of migrants who have were well qualified from their own countries and we're doing the adult migrant program with us. So I chose a group of them who were well suited to go into the public service to try. And sit in the public service sort of test and to go through a normal interview and they just didn't get through. Because their claim was their accent was incomprehensible, that they wouldn't be able to do the job blah blah blah blah. So I took another approach where I said, okay, as part of their course, I would like them to do a little bit of experience. But we give them to you free of charge, just so that they can have experience working in your workplace. And a job trying to fill they did about a month of work as part of their core. Those people who were tried out on the job, nearly all of them landed up getting the job that they went for. >> That interesting. >> So, when you talk about culture, the culture is not only the culture of the person who has got, if you like, a culture. That's the culture of the person who we think hasn't got a culture that is the Aussie who is doing the selecting. >> Yes. >> They may say, I don't understand them when in reality, you know how come people can understand their friends who come from. And yet they can't understand someone in an interview that you could be partly because they used to be the accent. But part of it is the attitude of my God, I can't understand this person getting freezing a little bit and saying look, I couldn't deal with this on it. >> Yes, this would be too hard, this would be too hard. >> Whereas I think when you've seen that these migrants work so hard, the things that the average adi says look it's five o'clock, it's time for me to go. They say, what can I do, how can I help, when do you need this done by? And they pull out every stop because they have come halfway around the world to make a success and they aren't going to give up easy. They are going to work their butts off to make it work right. Now I'm not saying every single one, but certainly that is the majority. And one of the cultural things is the lack of cultural awareness of workplace in which they work. The other part is the person who comes in with their culture T like the American, the American didn't necessarily understand but in Australia you have to. >> Sort of dull it down a little bit. >> Sort of drop in without hitting people over the head about how good you are at that sort of thing, which is not part of the American view because in the American perspective it's fine. I mean, we are a weird mob in the sense that one of our big days, we celebrate ANZAC was not necessarily a winning day for us at all. And then in aged care for example where we see a lot of really good people not getting opportunities because of their culture and so on. What to do with the fact that a lot of people will ask a question with Aussie slang. And they don't realize that the other person who does speak English doesn't understand Aussie slang. So they might say see you in five and and the person is thinking, what do they mean? But because they don't have the confidence in their culture, they may not be allowed to ask questions of their boss. And say yes sir, no sir, three bags just politely say yes, and consequently they get blamed. Like I've seen people being told, look, you've got to meet me at such and such places as a person's first day at work, and that huge aged care site. And meet me at such and such a place in five and the person is looking everywhere to find this place has no idea where to go. [LAUGH] And when they do ask someone the person says, look, I'm in a hurry, I haven't got time, because they don't realize that it's their first day, it's that sort of thing. When you talk about culture really not one sided, it's called the coin if that makes sense. >> Of course because no one is I guess the bass culture, it's not like my culture is the normal culture and everyone else is different that's not how that works. >> Exactly, and I mean look for people like me the joy of the cappuccino strip and Italian food being good instead of when I went to school it was the exact, yeah one of those green things. >> So let's talk I guess it's pretty self explanatory but negative experiences in recruitment must be very disheartening for people. What is the knock on, what are some of the impacts that you've seen as a consequence of these negative recruitment experiences? >> Huge losses of excellent people from areas where we have a dire need like one big area that I worked in a lot. When I was in the papers I was director of the whole sort of access and equity area and one of them was the adult migrant English program. And one of the good things that the federal government does when the adult migrant. English program is an excellent program run funded by the government at the federal level, they collect data around you know everybody. So we had lots of data and seemed to be using this data, so I thought well let's try using it. So I actually looked at what were the backgrounds and qualifications of these people everywhere were shortages and nursing was one of them at that time. And it's becoming that way again, by the looks of them. So I saw so many of them with health backgrounds, either nursing and or health related and aged care was desperate. So I started actually trying to see how we could bring those together. >> And yeah, and actually helped to transition people into work as opposed to saying, no, your qualifications don't match the ones that we made here. So you have to start from scratch. >> Exactly, so actually using that experience that I had in the public service with the aged care sector. So giving them a course in nursing for example, but rather than them having to do all the course. Being able to do recognition of prior learning for the knowledge they had and focusing more strongly on those areas where they had greater need. Such as language and culture and then also giving them a lengthy work experience period. So they could actually prove themselves on the job, which is what they're good at, their good at proving themselves on the job. They're not necessarily going to compete very well when you have to interview them where they're speaking in a language which may be their second or third language. >> So I guess taking that into consideration, we'd say that there is a number of converging trends these days in employment and recruiting looking for diversity and inclusion. And I guess we've talked about creating a candidate centric recruitment experience. What would be your advice to organizations to listeners out there who are wishing they want to respond to these trends of diversity and inclusion and focus on the candidate, what would you say? >> The first thing is that the fact that they want to do it is the first step. I guess if they want to do it, they really have to not only look at good practice, but changed minds and hearts of decision makers in the organization. So they really have to have some really good examples of what in their particular industry. How changing has made a real difference to organization, abc and. The UK. Or E C E F in the U S. Or a place that they feel they can relate to. Even Australia wide Victoria's some excellent examples and like we can relate to the examples that we can relate to. That will change their minds and hearts of decision makers. People in the board. People in senior executives. So while you're developing the policies and practices that will make a difference, one of the things that is fundamental in this area is not to write beautiful policy. Which is so beautiful because we're so good at doing that and leaving it on the shelf because anytime anyone comes to audit us we take out the policy and we say here's our beautiful policy. >> We have covered all the bases. We have one of course. >> Exactly, the policy must be accompanied with good practices, good procedures and measuring how you make a difference. I think if you've got those the hearts and minds being done at the same time as good practice which includes obviously the policies and procedures being written of course but they aren't necessarily the only way to be honest if you change minds and hearts of people. If they really care and that they can see it makes a difference and they can see that the boss thinks it makes a difference more or less what is written. We know isn't always people don't care. So it's equally important to do the things that their minds and hearts at the same time as policy and practice and most of all monitoring during the change process. >> Yeah you're saying and collecting actual data on whether these. >> Exactly, [INAUDIBLE] which doesn't look at only the things that are easy to look at like how many women are in the organization that, what are they paid? What levels are they are going a little bit deeper. >> So can you give us some examples of organizations that are implementing positive initiatives? >> I think if we look around us, if we look at any of the reports that are written, they will show really good examples. There's banks that do good things, there's universities that do good things. I think it would be unfair to start naming one or two because there's good things rather than one organization being the ideal it is, this organization is doing well in this particular context. Often an organization that is doing well for five years while they've got a CEO who cares can become an absolute disaster of a change in leadership. Who have done a lot of work with defense for example, and I've seen the huge impact made when they had a minister and a person in charge of defense, they're both really wanted to make a difference around women's issues because they saw the impact that it was having by not looking at that issue. But once that became part say what happens is things go back the leaders not pushing, especially a large organization where you've got that many people, people go back to what they're accustomed. >> Yes, and I think, I guess in that situation it's as simple as that kind of slippery slope of not holding people accountable for language or micro aggressions or things like that. So it doesn't have to just be all of a sudden, the organization hates women and were overtly sexist. It's more just the erosion of those values that in time can really change the sentiment and the feeling of the organization in relation to those things. >> Exactly, right. Because you can have a beautiful policy and practice. But if every time that a woman speaks up in a meeting, nobody as you've I'm sure you've heard this said, nobody takes any notice. And the same idea comes from somebody else that somebody else who happens to be male. It's given the credit for that idea, It's subtle and the woman, if she raises this issue may be seem to be petty of course. >> So do you think there is a positive trend happening with diversity and inclusion? I guess both locally and globally? >> There is definitely raised awareness. If we look at black lives matter while it wasn't a workplace issue on the one hand it was and another because it was a policeman and for him, that's his place of work. So I do think that there is definitely a raised awareness, awareness is the first step to change though. It's not the changes it. And so some places some change will happen, then things go back a bit, then something else happens. But each step has to be if there was a way that we could have ongoing leadership organizations, that is the most fundamental thing. And one of the problems that we encounter is the constant changes because it is now seem to be good for CEOs to change regularly and for boards to be changed regularly. I'm not suggesting it shouldn't, by the way, I'm not trying to say that you definitely shouldn't. But what I am saying is that it actually has a negative impact on significant meaningful change of which diversity and inclusion is one meaningful change. Yeah, I'm not sure. I think there is change, but it's not all lightness is no. >> So if you're saying once again of how to implement ongoing change, it's remembering those values and sticking to them and reminding irrespective of whether it's on brand or not knowing that within an organization that just because you feel like something has been achieved doesn't mean you can drop your garden. As you're saying the defense, we always need to be holding people accountable and ourselves accountable for our attitudes towards people and having a willingness to continue changing and evolving. >> Yeah, I think also in the selection of leaders, if you're going to change leaders, which obviously has to happen at some stage. If you truly believe that this is an important issue, then you really have to also select based on values and ethics and culture. If those things are irrelevant or you have to do is prove that you can make money or that you can make sure your workforce behaves itself if nothing else is counted except for that at an interview. Also for the only way you measure it is through interview, it really is a problem. >> But in those instances then those organizations aren't going to read the benefits of having a diverse and inclusive workplace. >> Absolutely, a good point. >> That is all we have time for today Mary, but thank you so so much, once again for chatting to us today, it has been as always extremely insightful. And I think hopeful, even though, as we say, these trends come and go and depending on what's in vogue, what sort of social issue is in vogue? It does seem to be that, as you said, for people who have their heart in their head, in these causes, there always will be pushed so long as we have the capacity to I guess, take these movements implement them and then stick to our guns. >> Yeah, that's a good summary. Especially around the importance of sticking to our guns. It's not a good change. >> Absolutely well, thank you so much for today Mary. Once again delight for having you and look forward to hearing about all of your research and influence in the future. It's been a delight. >> Thank you Jane. >> That brings us to the end of today's U W A podcast. Thank you so much again to Mary for joining us to discuss the candidate experience through the lens of diversity and inclusion. I hope you all took as much from today's episode as I did. And we will see you all for the next one. Thanks for listening.
