Inclusion Deep Dive Overview and Approach

Te Taunaki | Public Service Census

Te Taunaki provided an important opportunity for us to better understand diversity and inclusion for people in public service. About 60,000 public servants working in 36 agencies (departments and departmental agencies) were asked questions on diversity, inclusion and wellbeing at work, a unified Public Service, and strengthening Māori Crown relationships. The final overall response rate was 63.1%, representing the views and experiences of about 40,000 public servants. New Zealand’s first Public Service Census started on 11 May and closed in early June 2021.

Approach to exploring workplace inclusion

Te Taunaki found that eight in ten public servants (82%) feel they can be themselves at work and most people (78%) felt that their agency supports and promotes an inclusive workplace. While this shows a considerable majority find the Public Service an inclusive place to work, it also shows many have a less positive experience.

Te Taunaki captured information across a range of demographic and job dimensions, allowing us to explore which communities or groups within the Public Service might have more or less inclusive work experiences.

To do this, we combined several of the key inclusion related questions together to create an average inclusion score that could be analysed in relation to demographic (e.g., age, ethnicity) and job characteristics (e.g., salary).

This analysis makes it possible to separate the underlying effect of each factor. This is particularly important where people with some characteristics are more likely to have others (e.g., as people get older, their salaries generally increase), which can confuse or hide the effects of each factor. The statements included in the average inclusion score were:

• I feel accepted as a valued member of the team
• I feel comfortable being myself at work/with my colleagues
• The agency I work for supports and actively promotes an inclusive workplace
• The people in my workgroup behave in an accepting manner towards people from diverse backgrounds

We also explored other questions individually that related to inclusion for their relationship to demographics and job characteristics.

• I am valued for the range of cultural expertise I bring to the job
• I have access to employee-led-networks relevant to me
• I feel comfortable working with people from backgrounds other than my own

This report also includes relevant results from the two open-ended questions in the Census:

• What could [Agency] do to make you feel more comfortable about being yourself at work?
• Is there anything else about your experience of working for the New Zealand Public Service you would like to comment on?

We know from the responses in the open-ended comments that a variety of factors influence inclusion that were not measured in the Census, including having a supportive manager and team, and these are covered below. These are topics that might be considered in future Census surveys.

See Appendix A for more details on the methodology used in this report.