2018-2022 Our focus to date

Where have we come from - key focus and summary of actions to date

Our people data and analytics have evolved, continues to inform our focus and progress and is visible and transparent

Analysis of a range of data sources have enabled a good understanding of the drivers of Inland Revenue’s pay gaps for woman, Māori, Pacific Peoples, and other ethnicities.
Analysis across our human resource processes across the employee lifecycle has been undertaken to identify risk points for potential bias.
Develop and publish our People Dashboards internally. These contain demographic data reflective of our gender and ethnic pay gaps as well as turnover and hire rate data.
Made a shift to providing business group level representation data and insights for leadership teams and started considering how to use as part of decisions relating to their workforce and to track changes in representation.
Our Active Listening approach has continued to provide opportunities for our people to share what matters to them through our People Experience Pulse Survey (PXP). This helps to understand where our strengths are, and where we have opportunities to create a better work experience for our people.
We have reviewed and updated our exit survey to better understand our opportunities and the drivers of people who leave Inland Revenue.

Our talent acquisition approach uses a broad range of mechanisms to target and attract diverse talent to join Inland Revenue

Leverage what we know matters to our people via our People Experience Pulse Survey through advertising and attraction campaign for our frontline roles, to attract diverse talent into the organisation.
Use targeted job boards and agencies, including targeting Pasifika and Māori candidates and a roundup of vacancies to Work Bridge, to create visibility of open vacancies in less traditionally used recruitment channels and advertising mediums.
Work with external partners to create a more inclusive approach to attraction, through the use of gender-neutral language, in our job titles, descriptions and job adverts and showcasing our Employee Value Proposition (EVP).

We aim to select people based on capability and have been focusing on mitigating bias from our selection processes and hiring leaders decision making

In 2015, we committed to being a capability-based organisation. This means we source, recruit, develop and deploy people based on skills, knowledge, experience, and attitudes. Inland Revenue’s people capabilities recognise the value of transferrable skills and experience – including those that are gained outside of day-to-day mahi.

We are continuing to embed the capability-based approach, acknowledging that there is still more work to do to support leaders to lead in a way that supports capability-based development and improve understanding in terms of selection.
Current end-to-end recruitment processes have been reviewed for potential points of bias, with on-going work underway for a new recruitment and selection tool that will help create a more candidate centric experience and to remove the potential for bias in the process.
All Inland Revenue people. including hiring leaders. are required to complete Unconscious Bias training, with recruitment and selection guidance embedding the learning for hiring leaders through clear roles, responsibilities and supporting actions.
Interview questions have been revised and are clearer and more understandable by both internal and external candidates – although, more work is still to be done to help ensure all candidates.
Interview panels are of mixed gender and interview outcomes are monitored using documented panel summaries.

Potential for bias in our pay systems is mitigated and we continue to minimise bias in decisions relating to pay

In 2018, we introduced a new pay approach and continued to embed it over 2019. Both our banded and graded pay structures mitigate bias by removing the role of a single leader in pay decisions. Both pay approaches prioritise larger increases for those paid lower in the pay range.

Since 2017, all employees on, or returning from, parental leave receive a remuneration review.
A calculator is incorporated into the spreadsheet for Graded Remuneration Structure (GRS) Calibration – this includes visibility of how changes in remuneration would impact on pay gap (gender and ethnic) for business groups and Business partners have dedicated person to support this process.
A tool/calculator has been created to provide data related to salary based on roles, business group etc – for both gender and ethnicity. This is designed for the Talent Acquisition team use to provide guidance for hiring leaders.
All of our people, including leaders, are required to complete unconscious bias learning.

Creating a workplace where people feel free to bring their whole selves to work, feel supported and included for who they are

Focused on supporting our Rainbow community through our people network and have achieved reaccreditation of our Rainbow Tick. This has included reviewing existing policies and practices with a Rainbow lens, communications and sharing of personal experiences of trans/non-binary staff to showcase a positive and supported environment for these people, creation of a transitioning at work guide and an update to our anti-discrimination and harassment policy, to include specific references to gender identity.
Our people networks are supported and valued and have continued to raise awareness about different cultures and different diverse needs and perspectives. We have started developing guidance for leaders about how they can support their people who are in our people networks, as well as understanding how involvement can provide valuable development opportunities.

We aim to provide development opportunities for all of our people and recognise the unique career aspirations of individuals

Our people practices – including our performance approach, Whanake, are designed to recognise that our workforce is diverse, with unique backgrounds and individual perspectives. Whanake is built around getting to know your people and supporting them to achieve in a way that works for them, through tailored coaching and development.

An on-going focus has been on embedding these core people practices, through continued discussion, support, and tools.
Capability-based roles’ guidance has been created to provide guidance relating to the use of our type of capability-based roles and clarifies the intent of how movements within and between roles should work for different types of capability-based roles − (broad, specialist and enterprise.
Talent conversations have started to happen across our senior leadership team, and in some capacity in business groups. Ensuring effective talent conversations are critical to providing cross business group, and across agency development opportunities to support broader career progression for our people.
We have started exploring how to leverage career development opportunities through external programmes – Rangatahi Māori emerging leaders programme, Pasifika Mentoring programme, Te Aratiatia leadership programme, Ria McBride Public Service Award − both to ensure our people have the opportunity to be considered for these, but how to provide support and other development opportunities for those unsuccessful in their application for these programmes.

Creating a whānau friendly working environment that enables flexibility and a work place that’s supportive of diverse needs

Our refreshed flexible working policy takes a principles-based approach to flexibility was launched in 2021 and has helped create a shift in culture in terms of access to flexible working arrangements that are built around individual, team, and organisational needs. The initial launch included guidelines to provide clarity around flexible working practices – such as working from home and a hub for tools and resources

Since 2021, we have been working to embed and mature our flexible working practice and create a flexible by default approach through communications and supporting leaders to make inclusive, non-biased decisions. More work is still to be done to create an effective hybrid working environment and a truly ‘give and take’ way of working.
Our workplace tools and technology now allow the majority of our people to connect and be work effectively no matter when, when our how they work. With the addition of tools like Urunga to enable more flexibility of location for our voice channel people and on-going review to embed and remove barriers to flexible working.
We have continued to consider options for creating more whānau friendly, accessible office spaces and have taken opportunities to upgrade the front of house in a number of sites.
Our property programme works directly with our Diversibility network to continue to focus on physical accessibility and takes into account practical considerations for our people with disabilities.
All Inland Revenue offices are equipped with spaces for parents/child feeding, reflection/prayer, and wellness.
A revised process has been developed that makes it easy for our people to request equipment that they need to support them to be successful at work.
On-going focus on digital accessibility and digital tools, with the continuation of the Digital Accessibility Working group to oversee continued capability uplift across the organisation. Tapping into diversability network as required to raise awareness and the A11y group.