The Drinks Association Embrace Difference Council’s See Difference workstream has now completed all work on the first iteration of the Toolkit. Its completion is in advance of the 2022 Scorecard being released to member organisations in February.
Member organisations are invited to log on to the Drinks Association website’s Industry Council page to download the interactive Toolkit PDF to access all document and resources.
The Scorecard
A new industry Scorecard will be released each year. This allows us, as an industry, to track progress of our member organisations and to bring momentum to our goals for equity, diversity and inclusion.
The 2022 Scorecard measures gender equality with data from Australia’s government-funded champion of change: WGEA and is informed by both WGEA data reporting and the Drinks Association’s HRD Forum. It has been developed by the Embrace Difference Council for the benefit of all Drinks Association member companies.
The starting focus in year one for the Scorecard was gender diversity using the high quality data available via WGEA. In its third year, the Scorecard shows year on year data changes and has been enhanced to include insight into member companies D&I strategies, their focus areas, targets and use of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs).
Seventeen Drinks Association member companies report annually to WGEA and a further three companies report to the Association independently. The Drinks Association invites and encourages all member organisations to contribute to the Embrace Difference Scorecard so it becomes an ever-increasingly robust tool for benchmarking, dialogue and ultimately, progression.
There is a five year Embrace Difference Roadmap and the industry Scorecard supports the Council in reviewing the commitment of the industry as a whole to greater diversity, equity and inclusion.
As a member of the Embrace Difference Council, Angela Burgum, Commercial Finance Business Partner at Treasury Wine Estates, has led the development of the Scorecard for the past three years.
She said, “The Scorecard helps to drive awareness using facts and data with the goal to invoke action…
“We can see improvement in the number of members analysing their payroll for gender remuneration gaps, access to paid parental leave has improved, so too has female representation at the leadership level.”
“There is healthy enthusiasm in our industry to continue to challenge the barriers that drive inequality, and progress is being made but we are mindful of the challenges that remain, and we will continue to highlight that.”
To ensure confidentiality, the Scorecard is delivered to the HR Director and Drinks Association Board Director in each Drinks Association member business.
The Toolkit
All four levels of the Embrace Difference Council’s Toolkit have now been completed by the See Difference workstream led by Asahi’s Sandra Gibbs.
Ms Gibbs said, “The Toolkit is a great way forward for Drinks Association member companies of different D&I maturities and can be used in conjunction with the D&I Diagnostic Scorecard. It will support them to understand the ‘how’ in terms of what practical steps to take to advance their maturity – irrespective of companies differing starting points in their D&I journey.”
Where the Scorecard allows member companies to benchmark their status within the context of the industry, the Toolkit serves to support members of the Drinks Association to improve diversity and inclusion within their organisation.
The Toolkit features policies and resources to support an inclusive industry and see the difference that an inclusive and diverse workplace culture makes to a company’s performance.
It gives member companies the tools they need to be inclusive & diverse, no matter where they are at on their diversity and inclusion journey.
The Toolkit – A step by step process
The objective of the Embrace Difference Toolkit is to create an industry-wide framework and encourage honest conversations, challenge our ways of thinking and ultimately make our industry a leader in D&I.
The Toolkit allows a business to self-diagnose accomplishments across four distinct ‘maturity’ levels: Foundation, Curious, Motivated and Integrated. As companies rise through these levels, their D&I programs have an increasing impact on their businesses.
In the first instance, businesses interested in the Toolkit should refer to the Diversity & Inclusion Diagnostic chart to establish which level of toolkit is suitable for them. Assistance is also on offer from one of the many See Difference council members who are able to show you how to interpret and use the Toolkit.
Each level of the Toolkit comes with practical resources which can be easily integrated into any business. For example, Foundation level includes gender equity, parental leave and domestic abuse policies, among others.
The language and legalities are all detailed within the policies and businesses can review, adopt, adapt and make the policies their own. Businesses will also find guidance as to how to implement diversity and inclusion into training and development sessions for their senior leaders and how to build a committee of champions for diversity and inclusion from all levels of their organisations
Level 1: FOUNDATION
Foundation includes a self-diagnosis tool as well as generic D&I policies that can be easily branded as well as a talent management and recruitment guide.
Level 2: CURIOUS
Curious builds on the foundations of Level 1 and seeks to expand the company’s mindset in in terms of the importance of D&I and how to challenge current thinking.
Level 3: MOTIVATED
Motivated is a way to ensure that diversity and inclusion are clearly embedded into the business’ strategic plans and that this is led by the business’ leaders.
Level 4: Integrated
Integrated is for businesses where diversity & inclusion is fully integrated into a company’s culture, where every employee identifies an equitable, diverse and inclusive workforce as being central to improving their business’ performance.
The Diagnostic Checklist and the Toolkit are available for members of the Drinks Association via the Industry Council page of the Drinks Association website.