The ABS is committed to creating and providing a workplace that is inclusive, and benefits from the diverse skills, perspectives and experiences of our employees, who reflect the communities we serve.

The ABS Workforce Strategy 2015–2019 recognises that our people are the key to fulfilling the ABS’s purpose and successfully transforming our organisation. The ABS has recently developed its first Inclusion and Diversity Strategy which articulates the ABS’s commitment to an inclusive, diverse and representative workforce, and its launch is planned for the second half of 2018.

Fostering inclusiveness

To support our commitment to an inclusive and diverse organisation the ABS has:

• provided support for people with disability via reasonable workplace adjustments (RWA) including physical, technological and flexible options
• co-developed the new ABS Reconciliation Action Plan 2018–2021 (RAP) with our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employee network (Youmpla). The RAP is due for release in the latter half of 2018
• acquired the SBS Cultural Competence Program (CCP) to raise cultural awareness, understanding and capability across the organisation
• participated in the Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI) to understand the overall impact of inclusion initiatives on the organisational culture for both identifying and nonidentifying LGBTI+ employees. The ABS’s result increased by 14 base points equating to a 50% improvement on the previous year’s results
• increased our employee networks from two to six with the creation of the ABS Pride Network, Leveraging Asperger’s and Autism Network, Gender Equity Network, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Network in addition to our existing Disability and Carers’ Network and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Network (Youmpla)
• increased the number of Senior Executives who are diversity champions to ten to provide strong support to our diverse employee networks
• brought together members of our Youmpla employee network on the 10th anniversary of the National Apology for a face-to-face workshop focused on enhancing support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees
• released a Disability and Carers’ Resources document which provides information for employees on resources available internally and externally
• released the Inclusion and Diversity Channel which provides on-demand videos of inclusion and diversity activities that have been presented in the ABS.

The Australian Statistician, David Kalisch, continued to drive inclusion and diversity initiatives in his role as a Male Champion of Change through:

• release of Flex Works – which is a commitment to a default ‘yes’ to reasonable requests from employees to work flexibly, unless there is a compelling and justifiable business reason not to. This initiative won the ABS the 2018 Federal Government Champion Flexible Working Award
• signing up to the Closing the Gender Pay Gap Report 2017 and undertaking an ABS gender pay audit, using the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s (WGEA) industry standard for measuring gender pay gaps. The ABS wide pay gap was 3.2% in December 2017 compared with 8.6% for the APS for 2015–16 (the most recent figure available) and a national workforce estimate of around 15% for 2017.

ABS is very proud of Adelaide-based employee, Justin Lokhorst, who won an individual Australian Public Service Diversity and Gender Equality Award for his personal contribution to promoting diversity and inclusion.

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s Disability Discrimination Commissioner recognised our engagement with the disability sector to ensure adoption of best practice support and accessibility in the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey (AMLPS).

Recruiting for a diverse workforce

The ABS has continued to identify opportunities to recruit and attract a diverse workforce including:

• participating in affirmative measure recruitment programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples including APS Indigenous Graduate program, Indigenous Australian Government Development Program (IAGDP), Indigenous Apprentice Program, Australian Government Indigenous Lateral Entry Program (AGILE) and positions with the ABS advertised as affirmative measures (for example, ABS Graduate Program)
• participating in the APS GradAccess Program for graduates with a disability
• partnering with JobAccess to increase employment opportunities for people with a disability
• participating in the ‘Dandelion 2’ program which sources and assesses autistic talent for the APS, to identify suitable candidates for the ABS from the second half of 2018
• utilising the APS RecruitAbility scheme for all vacancies
• updating the inclusion and diversity material on the ABS website Careers Pages.

In our 2018 graduate intake, 3% of graduates identified with a disability, and 42% were female.

ABS workforce diversity profile

As at 30 June 2018, staff who identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples represented 0.8% of the total number of staff (office-based staff and interviewers) in the ABS (excluding unpaid inoperative staff). The APS Employee Census for 2018 identified 1.0% of staff who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and we continue to support staff to willingly identify through the payroll system.

See 2.6 Indigenous employee staffing for the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples employed in the ABS, 2017-18.

According to data from the ABS HR systems as at 30 June 2018, staff who identified as having disability represented 2.0% of the total number of staff (office-based staff and interviewers) in the ABS (excluding unpaid inoperative staff). The APS Employee Census for 2018 identified 7.0% of staff who have a disability and we continue to encourage and support staff to willingly identify through the payroll system.

The ABS is committed to achieving gender diversity at all levels. Just over half (54.8%) of the workforce is female.