Last updated: 05/09/2024

Policy documents

Implementation date: 05/09/2024
Reference number: PD-2024-0485-V01.0.0
Publicly available: Yes
Policy cluster: People

Our culture

Direction and guidance on the department’s plans, programs and initiatives.

Audience

All department employees, contractors and people applying for employment, where relevant.

Changes since previous update

Version	Date	Description of changes	Approved by
V01.0.0	05/09/2024	Under the 2023 Policy and procedure review program, new policy statement developed.	Chief People Officer
		Ongoing union consultation is occurring and amendments may be made from time to time.

Policy statement
1. The department is committed to creating open, supportive and inclusive workplaces where our people are safe, respected, included, valued, and inspired to bring their whole selves to work by:
  1. building a diverse workforce comprising people from all backgrounds, identities and experiences that embraces, reflects and promotes the communities that we serve
  2. ensuring the department supports its employees to care for themselves and each other by embedding employee health and wellbeing at theheart of everything that we do
  3. creating positive and culturally safe workplace cultures where employees are engaged in doing their best work every day to support learners and communities
  4. recognising staff who perform at a high level, exemplify the department’s values and serve the department for extensive periods of time
  5. providing compassionate environments where staff, learners and community members are treated with dignity and respect, and where everyone feels empowered to speak up about unacceptable behaviour or work without fear of negative consequences – even when mistakes are made
  6. creating inclusive school communities and workplaces that are completely free from unlawful discrimination of any kind, including harassment or bullying
  7. addressing sexual harassment as a workplace health and safety issue, where all employees are empowered to speak up and take action, and impacted people are respected, listened to and supported
  8. supporting employees who have been affected by domestic and family violence and providing them with a safe and secure workplace environment at all times
  9. providing a productive and healthy workplace that is free from the influence of alcohol, illegal drugs and illicit drug use
  10. adopting practices that provide everyone with equal opportunities to succeed at work, including making inclusive workplace adjustments a standard feature of every school, office and team, so all employees have the necessary supports in place to allow them to perform and thrive in their role
  11. protecting student, employee and stakeholder data and ensuring that everyone is informed of the personal information collected by the department, how it is used and how it is secured in accordance with all relevant privacy legislation and obligations
  12. building a respectful and responsive culture where all members of staff are encouraged to raise workplace concerns and, where appropriate, participate in resolving those concerns; underpinned by a fair, efficient and accessible complaints handling process
  13. ensuring department policies are inclusive of staff of all ages, genders and cultures, veterans, refugees, carers, people of faith, people with disability, LGBTQIA+ people, as well as their families, where relevant.
Context
1. Creating positive, inclusive, and respectful workplaces enables people of all backgrounds, identities and experiences to feel valued and respected. It boosts workplace morale, reduces absenteeism, and enhances collaboration, innovation, engagement and productivity. It also helps develop and retain a workforce with the skills and qualifications needed to give learners the best education possible and to allow our communities to thrive.
2. This policy mandates the implementation of the directions set out under the Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Strategy 2023-26. The strategy celebrates our diversity and details actions that help ensure the workplace is an environment where people feel represented, included and valued – where all employees feel they belong.
3. The presence of diverse teachers within school workforces is associated with improved student outcomes, including academic achievement, reduced exclusions and dropout rates and higher aspirations for continued study. There are significant barriers to participation for diverse teachers, including discrimination, tension in being fully identified in the workplace and the additional workload of ‘representing’ their diversity.
4. The effective resolution of concerns about workplace issues is associated with improved employee engagement, productivity, satisfaction and relationships.
5. The department is obliged to take reasonable and appropriate measures to eliminate, as far as possible, sexual harassment and sex-based harassment in the workplace, and to comply with the positive duty under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984.
6. This policy has been developed in the context of Part 9A of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act 1977.
7. Section 63 of the Government Sector Employment Act 2013 mandates that the head of a NSW Government sector agency is responsible for workplace diversity and ensuring that workforce diversity is integrated into workforce planning within their agency.
8. The following legislative provisions relate to this policy:
Policy contact
1. Executive Director, HR Operations
  HR.Operations@det.nsw.edu.au
  1300 32 32 32
Monitoring the policy
1. The Executive Director, HR Operations monitors the implementation of this policy, regularly reviews its contents to ensure relevance and accuracy, and updates it as needed.