How work and environmental factors influence inclusion

Many people are taking advantage of flexible working arrangements, ranging from things like flexible start/finish times, to reduced hours or job-sharing. Te Taunaki asked about whether people currently used flexible work but also asked about their wish for additional flexible working (both for those not currently using any, and additional arrangements for those already doing so).

We found that those who have flexible working arrangements reported higher feelings of inclusion than those who don’t, while those hoping for more/some flexible working arrangements reported lower inclusion.

Te Taunaki also asked whether people had caring responsibilities (whether it be for tamariki, whānau, friends or others). Those who did reported slightly lower levels of inclusion than those without caring responsibilities, although these differences were small (2% or less).

However, there seems to be a stronger effect when caring responsibilities and flexible working are considered together. Overall, 78% of people felt their agency supported an inclusive workplace. This dropped to 67% for those without any flexible working and dropped even further to 63% for those who also had caring responsibilities (compared to 71% of those without caring responsibilities).

There is a similarly strong negative effect for those with caring responsibilities in the under-25 age group. While mostly people in this age group reported similar or slightly higher feelings of inclusion than their colleagues, if they had caring responsibilities under-25s were considerably less positive. For example, 83% of under-25s agreed they felt accepted as a valued member of their team, but this was only 72% of those who also had caring responsibilities.

People new to their role, their agency, or the Public Service tend to have significantly higher feelings of inclusion. This tended to decrease over time, particularly in the first two years and then more gradually as tenure lengthened up to 10 years or more.

However, when tenure exceeded 20 years, there was evidence that feelings of inclusion increased again, particularly in the extent to which people feel comfortable being themselves at work.

“I feel my manager and co-workers have made me feel welcomed and have supported while I learn my new role.”

The positive effect of being new to a role may partly explain the fact that employees on a fixed-term contract reported a significantly more inclusive work experience than permanent employees. However, the positive relationship with being on a fixed-term contract is not restricted to those with short tenures in their agency or the Public Service. Those with fixed term contracts and long tenures also reported more positive feelings of inclusion than their permanent position peers. For example, looking at people who have been working in the Public Service for 10 to 15 years, 78% of those who are in permanent positions feel accepted as a valued member of their team, compared to 85% of those on fixed term contracts.

People who joined the Public Service through a graduate/early in career programme reported marginally higher feelings of inclusion than those who hadn’t. This small difference was evident across age groups.

Te Taunaki included people working across all regions of New Zealand. When we explored whether region had an impact on feelings of inclusion, we saw little effect.

We tested a hypothesis that ‘central offices’ are more likely to support inclusive workplace environments and there was a small but positive effect linked to working in the Wellington region compared to elsewhere in the country (with about 55% of respondents in the survey working outside the Wellington region).

“We hear wonderful messages coming out of our main office in Wellington. These messages do not become actual practices at the 'front line'. I am hopeful that the messages of diversity become the norm.”

However, looking at the detail, this effect was not consistent across all inclusion questions. Rather, the most positive results were seen from those working in the Nelson and Tasman regions, followed to a lesser extent by Wellington and West Coast regions.

Differences across regions were small in general, although three regions – Hawkes Bay, Southland and Northland – reported lower than average feelings of inclusion across the questions.

“…rural locations and small communities where conservative old-fashioned attitudes towards bi and gay people tend to prevail, …can make it difficult to be entirely open and yourself. This isn't always the case in cities.”

Te Taunaki asked people about their occupation (occupation type and job title), but also asked a clarifying question about whether they spent more than half of their working time dealing directly with the public, external customers and clients or people in their care.

‘Inspectors and regulatory officers’ reported consistently lower feelings of inclusion than average, while ‘Managers’ and ‘ICT professionals & technicians’ were consistently above average. Despite some of these results, occupation grouping is not a good predictor of feelings of inclusion overall when you control for other factors.

However, having a public-facing role was a significant predictor of lower feelings of inclusion. For example, of those who had a predominantly public-facing role, 76% felt accepted as a valued member of their team, compared to 81% of those whose work was not primarily with the public or those in care.

Both management level (or ‘tier’, where tier 1 is Chief Executive) and salary are predictive of reported feelings of inclusion, with the higher the management level or salary, the higher the feeling of inclusion. It makes sense that both help predict inclusion as they are related to each other (as management level rises so does salary) but even within management levels, the higher the salary, the higher the feeling of inclusion.

Looking just at tier, this effect was consistently visible. Looking at salary, the effect is also clear, particularly for those on an annual salary of $120,000 or greater, but there are exceptions.

It is possible that management level and salary are indicative of broader concepts of authority or autonomy within an organisation, or confidence within one’s work. These factors may help people to have more security and comfort in being themselves at work. There is also broad recognition within senior leadership about the importance of inclusion, for example all chief executives are committed to the Papa Pounamu Diversity and Inclusion work programme.

Te Taunaki asked for the number of hours that people usually worked each week. This did not appear to have a significant or consistent relationship with feelings of inclusion.

Having asked for both worked and contracted hours, it was possible to identify if people usually worked more or less than in their contracts. The data indicates this had a minimal relationship with feelings of inclusion, with those who worked more hours than contracted feeling slightly less positive than those who worked contracted hours only.

“Allowing flexible start/finish times or working from home to allow me to feel more myself.”