Comprehensive Analysis of Westpac Group's Diversity Management

This report provides a detailed analysis of Westpac Group's diversity management practices, focusing on strategic planning and organizational learning. It begins with an executive summary and table of contents, followed by an introduction that defines diversity management and its benefits. The discussion section includes a briefing paper for the Board of Directors, outlining the rationale for diversity learning, legislative and regulatory requirements, and various organizational learning and assessment strategies. The research and analysis report delves into stakeholder engagement, approaches to workplace training, and the evaluation of the best-suited diversity management approach for Westpac. The report further examines the alignment of policies with human resource management, the role of technology in diversity learning, and the impact of diversity dimensions on individuals. It also reviews existing policies and procedures, designs a strategy for implementation and review, and gathers feedback from stakeholders. Finally, the report offers recommendations for updating policies, evaluates current processes, and proposes a plan for improving the diversity organizational learning strategy, concluding with a summary of findings and a list of references.

Running head: Diversity Management: Westpac Group
DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT: WESTPAC GROUP
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1DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT: WESTPAC GROUP
Executive Summary
This report is a detailed analysis report on the conducting and developing a strategic
planning for diversity learning practices at an organisation. The organisation used for the survey
is Westpac group, Australia. The report discusses the benefits of having a diverse workforce
within an organisation. The various aspects of having a diverse work force is illustrated in this
report. Furthermore, to the discussion the strategies to implement the diversity management
effectively within the organisation is detailed out. The suggested strategies are implemented for
test run period of 3-6 months and the results are analysed. The feedback and the results of the
report is presented at last.
Table of Content

2DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT: WESTPAC GROUP
s
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Discussion........................................................................................................................................4
Briefing paper..............................................................................................................................4
A rationale for having an organisational diversity learning strategy.......................................5
The Legislative and Regulatory requirements that apply to an organisational diversity
learning strategy.......................................................................................................................5
Types of organisational learning and assessment strategies that can be used to support
organisational diversity learning and/or incorporate valuing and leveraging diversity
principles..................................................................................................................................7
Research and analysis report.......................................................................................................7
Listening to the stakeholders...................................................................................................8
Approaches to learning and workplace training directed at supporting the valuing and
leveraging of diversity.............................................................................................................8
Evaluating the best suited approach to diversity management at Westpac.............................9
Aligning the policies with the human resource management..................................................9
Technology and diversity learning strategy...........................................................................10
Implementing technology to diversity management..............................................................10
Impact of diversity dimensions on the individuals within the organisation..........................10
Understanding the employees individually within a diverse environment............................11

3DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT: WESTPAC GROUP
Review of the organisation’s policies and procedures to determine their continuing
relevance, operational effectiveness, forward thinking and to identify any gaps..................11
Strategy Design..........................................................................................................................12
Implementation and Review......................................................................................................13
Feedback from the internal relevant stakeholders.................................................................13
Feedback from the stakeholders............................................................................................13
Recommendation for updating the policies and procedure...................................................14
Evaluation of the functioning and processes at Westpac group............................................14
Comment on the performance of the resources used.............................................................14
Comment on the performance of people within the organisation..........................................15
Plan for improving the diversity organisational learning strategy.........................................15
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................17

4DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT: WESTPAC GROUP
Introduction
Diversity in context to organisation and workplace is the diverse nature of workforce
being employed by the organisation. Diversity point to the variation among the employees on the
basis of many factors and personal traits such as gender, ethnic origin, age, race, education,
marital status and a lot of other secondary qualities (Cole and Salimath 2013). Diversity
Management is a human resource management planning process done with the scope to optimize
the benefits of diversity whilst dealing with the challenges effectively on implementing it.
Diversity management enlists usually training for the employees and cultural awareness drives.
These training is usually included at the beginning of commencement of the job of the employee
during the orientation period itself.
There are many benefits involved to the concept of diversity management. The most
basic or the primary benefit is the employees coming from wide array of backgrounds. This
suggest that the organisation have more expertise coverage and experience in a wide domain of
sectors (Gotsis and Kortezi 2013). Diversity management is a tool to the management to
optimise the functioning of the organisation irrespective of the nature of the organisation. This
report is an analysis of diversity management methodologies at a banking sector in Australia.
The banking sector choose for case study in this report is Westpac Group. The report discuss the
current methodologies being practices at the organisation and the better practices that should be
taken up. Towards the end of the report, various strategies for implementing the newer
methodologies are also discussed.

5DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT: WESTPAC GROUP
Discussion
Briefing paper
This section of the report is the briefing report to the Board of Directors acknowledging
them with some of the basic and fundamental concepts that are associated with the diversity
learning at Westpac group. Significant facts are presented regarding the diversity learning as
follows
1a) A rationale for having an organisational diversity learning strategy
The need for diversity management at Westpac group can be understood by the fact
diversity is of immense benefits to the organisation. The most basic benefit is the experience
gained in numerous sector and a wide area of expertise coverage, which, are critical and intricate
in nature. In a similar way involvement of employees from different individual traits in
discussion related to the firm can generate ideas from a wide and diverse background of the
employees. Proper and effective management of diversity can call for the concept of
brainstorming. Brainstorming is the process of spontaneously and rapidly generating a wide
variety of ideas within an organisation by involving a large set of employees for their
contribution toward the problem (Haddou, Camilleri and Zaraté 2014.). It is really beneficial to
the organisation to incorporate as if it involves the participation of all of the members in the
organisation irrespective of the position or other variables. The other benefit is it readily
generates a large possible solution within an organisation. Moreover, the companies that have a
diverse employment serve a diverse or global audience and thus can have a diverse market in
terms of culture, language or geographical conditions.

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1b) The Legislative and Regulatory requirements that apply to an organisational diversity
learning strategy
Diversity Policy
The Diversity Policy by Law Council is a framework, which enables the Law Council to
encourage and actively manage the diversity across and within the organisations. The Diversity
Policy was brought up with the sole purpose of promoting equality, diversity and the inclusion of
the Law Council among all the age group, colour, ethnic, race, natural origin, marital or parental
status, sexual orientation, physical impairment, religious beliefs and disability
(Safetyandquality.gov.au. 2019).
Legislation
In Australia, organisations are obliged to function under a lot of different international
human rights treaties, with the purpose of eliminating discrimination on the basis of age, sex,
pregnancy, race, disability and marital status.
The Commonwealth Government implements these obligations through the following
legislations, which are mentioned herewith (Lawcouncil.asn.au 2019)
 Age Discrimination Act 2004;
 Disability Discrimination Act 1992;
 Racial Discrimination Act 1975;
 Sex Discrimination Act 1984; and
 Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986.
Regulatory officers- The Law Council’s Contact Officers are:

7DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT: WESTPAC GROUP
 Chair, Safety and Health Committee
 Manager, Administration
 Director, Finance and Corporate Services.
 Executive Assistant to the Secretary-General.
The regulatory offices should serve as a point of contact for the complaints and enquiries,
provide awareness to the staff, managers and employees regarding preventing discrimination,
bullying and harassment. The officer is bound to tell the individual managers as well as the
staff on the procedures available to resolve the complaints.
1c) Types of organisational learning and assessment strategies that can be used to support
organisational diversity learning and/or incorporate valuing and leveraging diversity
principles
Following are few organisational learning and assessment strategies that can support
diversity and everyone’s inclusion within an organisation.
 Knowing the diversity visions and goals of the organisation and the relation to the overall
business objectives. This is the process of understanding how the objective is impacted
by the diversity and hoe the objective impacts the success of the initiative for diversity.
 Welcoming ideas from the employees, which are unique for each employee individually.
This foster a sense of fellowship among the employees and even generates creative ideas
from diverse backgrounds readily (Fujimoto, Härtel and Azmat 2013).
 Becoming culturally competent, investing time to learn about the various cultures, races,
backgrounds, religions and ethnicity of the team members is helpful in diversity
management. This helps in better understanding of the personal traits of the individual

8DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT: WESTPAC GROUP
and clubbing individuals strategically to promote harmony within the organisation whilst
looking forward to achieve organisational goals (Podsiadlowski et al. 2013).
Research and analysis report
This section of the report discusses and highlights the detailed and comprehensive
analysis of the technicalities of the diversity management methodologies within Weston Group,
Australia. This closely discusses on all the relevant factors to manage to diversity effectively,
bring and flaws in the current practices on surface and at last exploit the resources to achieve the
bear outcomes.
2a) Listening to the stakeholders
Westpac group have the vision as to be one of the world’s greatest service company
whilst helping communities, consumers and people collectively to grow and to prosper. Weston
believes engaging in with people who are associated indirectly or directly with the organisation
this helps in better understanding and meeting the concerns of the stakeholders and guide them
accordingly (Westpac.com.au 2019).
The employees at Westpac support diversity among them and welcome individual from
different race, religion, ethnicity and beliefs. Managers at Westpac also calls for the involvement
of all the reasonable employees to participate in the organisational related activities and to
promote harmonious and healthy working culture within the organisation (Westpac.com.au
2019).s

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2b) Approaches to learning and workplace training directed at supporting the valuing and
leveraging of diversity.
The top-down or the bottom-up strategy to diversity and inclusion management is the
most common and very effective strategies to implement the policies within an organisation
(Elnaga and Imran 2013). Few approaches to learning and for the workplace training with the
aim to support value and leverage of diversity among Westpac group is as follows:
 By training employees to actively participate in the activities by the organisation and
show their support towards the efforts being put in by the organisation towards
diversification. The involvement could be of any type like mentor, volunteer or
participant (Hhs.gov. 2019).
 Continuously put in efforts and looking for improvements. Train the individual to
welcome ideas of all and value all the members of the organisation.
2c) Evaluating the best suited approach to diversity management at Westpac
There are numerous strategies to diversity management in an organisation. For successful
implementation of diversity management, it is required to analyse the factors modulating
diversity management closely and carefully. The best strategy for Westpac group considering the
work culture and nature of organisation is Culture of Acceptance (Castaneda and Bateh, 2013.
As if the Westpac group is a banking industry, the customers are from all diverse traits
having employees from a diverse environment help the company understand the consumers in a
better way. The approach seek to create an organisation that truly appreciates and values the
diverse nature of its workforce. The indicator for success of this strategy is removing barriers
that hurdles growth opportunities to employees.

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2d) Aligning the policies with the human resource management
The Human resource management at Westpac group plays an essential role in maintain
the work ethics and culture intact whilst monitoring the organisation to achieve its objectives
effectively. The objectives of diversity management is almost related to Human resource
management as if both aim to bring up a strong work culture and ethics at the organisation and
set up harmony among the employees to benefit fully from them (D'Netto et al. 2014).
The human resource management at Westpac group strives to create very interactive
employee framework, and valuing every individual and their beliefs. This bring up opportunities
for all to grow and prosper, this is case that demonstrate that the human resource management is
aligned to the diversity management policies as well at the Westpac group.
2e) Technology and diversity learning strategy
Traditional practice in an organisation have eventually lead to unintentional biases in the
hiring processes over years. Technology have reformed almost every sector of an organisation
including the processes related to the human resource management (Govinfo.library.unt.edu.
2019).
At Westpac group technology have helped the human resource management to align itself
to the diverse management in numerous ways. The most benefited process is the hiring process at
Westpac group. With the advancement in technology, it is possible to create job opportunities to
diverse potential candidates and have people showing interest from diverse backgrounds.
2f) Implementing technology to diversity management
It is evident that technology is playing an important role in applying diversity and
managing it to promote harmony and individuality among all in an organisation. At Westpac

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group, the use of technology is covering most of the operations to serve the consumers. The use
of technology is not only made to provide services to the consumer but as to improve the
functioning of the organisation as well. Technology is essentially playing its role in promoting
diversity within the organisation as well.
To support the diversification even further better use of technology can be implemented
within the organisation. The process of hiring via video interviewing can provide opportunities to
a large and diverse audience all at once (Wangombe 2013).
2g) Impact of diversity dimensions on the individuals within the organisation
Diversity within an organisation is the diverse dimensions of traits in their employees this
is done to eliminate inequalities on the basis of gender, religious beliefs, race, marital status,
ethnicity, parental status, age, education, physical and mental ability, income, sexual orientation,
occupation, language, geographic location. The impact of diversity management and promoting
diversity within the organization is helping individual understand others in a better way.
(Ashikali and Groeneveld 2015) The people experience an exposure to different cultures,
ideologies or beliefs and they are trained to support and attend these aspects in a positive way.
Thus at Westpac group diversity is essentially playing its role to build a good bond among its
employees and the bond between the organization and employees as well.
2h) Understanding the employees individually within a diverse environment
At Westpac group, it supports and promote diversity among its employees to understand
them in a better way. This help clubbing together of employees with certain similar traits
strategically. However, incorporating diversity have extended benefits to the organisation.