Anglicare WA strengthens workplace safety, diversity

Anglicare WA has embarked on a journey to review its commitment to diversity and inclusion in the workplace, as it prepares to launch its business strategy for 2025-2030.

The organisation has a collective workforce of about 800 employees and volunteers located across Western Australia, making it one of the biggest not for profits in the state.

Fostering diverse and inclusive workplaces leads to higher levels of job satisfaction and employee engagement, and Anglicare WA’s dedication to creating safe and accepting work environments has resulted in positive outcomes for both employees and the business. 

It currently has an annual staff turnover rate of 13.1 per cent, which is notably lower than the national median rate for the not-for-profit sector of 29.7 per cent per year.

Despite this success, Anglicare WA is continually looking for ways to improve and do better for its community and the broader NFP sector, through learning and evolution. 

Anglicare WA director people and culture Kathryn Laferla said a big part of this was about exploring new avenues to increase diversity understanding and enhance safety within its workforce.

“We've just wrapped up our three-year strategy, and we're about to commence our next five-year strategy, so it's the perfect time to stop and go, ‘right, how can we do things differently?’,” Ms Laferla said.

“We're also conscious of the external political environment and our executive team is very committed to doubling down on diversity, inclusion, and supporting not only our workforce, but the people in the communities where we operate.”

A group of Anglicare WA's clients that are supported by its Bridges Disability Support team.

While reviewing its previous diversity and inclusion action plans, Anglicare WA identified ways it could better support its workforce by adopting intersectionality considerations and a place-based approach.

Historically, the organisation has focused on supporting specific groups of people who face barriers or challenges in employment to build a more diverse and inclusive workplace culture.

Over the years, Anglicare WA has established ‘working groups’ for each of these cohorts, with each group consisting of people with lived experience and allies, a mix that is vital according to diversity and inclusion lead Anna Boschman.

“Our working groups are basically employee reference groups made up of staff that volunteer their time during work hours to drive change,” she said.

“This includes people with lived experience who are the people we want to hear the voices of and understand the experiences of so we can actually find ways to support them to thrive, but allies are often the ones that are creating the change.

“We need both of those groups involved. It's no good putting all the pressure on people with lived experience, because a lot of the time they aren't able to make that change but there is great importance in their role to tell us what their experience is.”

"We've really started to see that by focusing on creating awareness across our workforce ... it really enhances our ability to serve the communities that we operate in."  Anglicare WA director people and culture Kathryn Laferla

Anglicare WA’s working groups include Rainbow Network, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse, Access & Inclusion, and Well@Work.

The Rainbow Network group focuses on supporting and enhancing inclusion for staff who identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community, while the Culturally and Linguistically Diverse group focuses on migrants and people with a migrant family background.

The Access & Inclusion group opens pathways for disability access as well as neurodiversity, which Ms Boschman said was an area Anglicare WA has been exploring more in the past 12 months.

“We have quite a high percentage of people who identify as neurodivergent in our workplace and as we know, it's an emerging area out in the community,” Ms Boschman said.

“We acknowledge that people who are neurodivergent may not identify as having a disability, so that's an important thing we make sure we talk about.”

The Well@Work group is focused on workforce mental health and wellbeing, not only to acknowledge and support staff with existing challenges, but also to recognise the potential mental health impacts caused by the nature of the work Anglicare WA delivers in the community services sector.

At Anglicare WA, access and inclusion is about opening pathways for people with disability.

Anglicare WA also has an advanced dedication to Aboriginal engagement and a strong focus on creating culturally safe and culturally informed work environments, for both its team and the clients accessing services.

The organisation’s Aboriginal engagement is guided by an external Aboriginal Advisory Group consisting of Elders and community members - a slightly different structure to the other working groups.

“There is a really strong focus … from Anglicare WA’s leadership executive and board on supporting Aboriginal engagement and empowerment in the communities we work in,” Ms Laferla said.

“The advisory group tells us what we need to hear at the executive level, including directly to our CEO, and provides advice on what we can do better as an organisation.

“We have a director of Aboriginal engagement as well, who’s an integral member of the exec team and is helping to drive change. 

“I really want to emphasise that we're walking alongside that group as well as we take this approach, because we don't want to diminish the importance of Aboriginal engagement as a standalone feature of what we do.”

"Our ‘fiercely inclusive’ value is definitely a value that resonates with our staff." Anglicare WA diversity and inclusion lead Anna Boschman

Anglicare WA has found that job candidates often report the inclusive work culture or the focus on Aboriginal engagement as a key factor fuelling their desire to work for Anglicare WA. 

Each working group includes a sponsor from Anglicare WA’s executive team who listens to the barriers being experienced by that group and discusses solutions to improve support and enhance inclusion.

Every six months, the chairs of each working group meets with the executive team to talk about what they're achieving, what they're planning to do in the near future, and how the staff in leadership can support them.

A key event in Anglicare WA's calendar is the Perth Pride Parade, which executives attend in support of the Rainbow Network working group.

“A great example of that is pride celebrations with the Rainbow Network,” Ms Laferla said.

“Every year, Anglicare WA get involved in the Perth Pride Parade and the CEO and executives go along and march as well. 

“That's something we've been doing for quite a few years and that was one of the things that the working group wanted: more attendance and getting more people involved.”

Elevating intersectionality within diverse workplaces

This year, Anglicare WA is committing more focus on intersectionality within its diversity and inclusion action plans, which involves recognising that the same disadvantage can cut across multiple groups of people.

Ms Boschman said it was important to also recognise the people who identified with multiple diversity profiles. 

“That might be someone who is in the rainbow community but is also a migrant or someone who's Aboriginal but also has a disability, and so on,” she said.

“One of the things I've noticed is that often organisations have a focus on maybe one or two marginalised groups because there's so many different diversity profiles and it's really complicated, and as humans, we need to simplify things, so that we can have targets and things like that. 

“But we really want to talk about intersectionality and unpack the different layers of advantage and disadvantage, and we’re reflective on whether we have privilege and how we have different experiences to someone else.”

"We want to remove barriers to inclusion." Anglicare WA diversity and inclusion lead Anna Boschman

Ms Boschman said Anglicare WA’s ongoing diversity and inclusion review had included a shift towards increasing understanding of intersectionality and listening to these voices within the community.

The not for profit has also already begun to involve itself in events and activities that recognise and elevate intersectionality.

“We've starting to explore this through doing,” Ms Boschman said.

“For instance, at Pride last year we worked quite closely with our Bridges Disability Support team and a number of Bridges staff and clients actually attended the parade. 

“What that meant was that we were bringing that intersectional lens of including everyone and we want to remove barriers to inclusion.”

Anglicare WA worked closely with its Bridges Disability Support team at Perth Pride Parade 2024 to recognise both diversity profiles.

“Another example was when we worked with Dr Lukasz Krzyzowski, who runs the rainbow migrants program … and we started talking about intersectionality for rainbow community and migrants, in particular refugees,” Ms Boschman said.

“Australia is quite progressive, but there are other countries that aren't, and so that’s about recognising that there are different experiences for people who are migrants that identify in that community and there are other things we can do to keep them safe.

“They're just a couple of examples of how we’ve been looking to intersectionality.”

Pivoting to a place-based approach

Anglicare WA is also exploring the adoption of a place-based approach, which is about empowering teams to understand their own community demographics and design engagement strategies that are meaningful and relevant to their team.

“I'm hoping that we’ll be able to work out a way to be more place-based because I think a lot of organisations that span large geographical areas find it quite challenging to provide information and support to staff … because they're kind of generalised,” Ms Boschman said.

“Whereas if you're looking at a place-based approach, you can say, ‘what does your community need? what does your team need? how can we make sure that we are providing the structures you need?’ and if there are barriers, then being able to feed that back up to some sort of centralised place where we can try to find solutions to wicked problems. 

“I come from a community development background, so I'm a great believer in supporting people to find their own solutions and I think that's the way to do it.” 

Anglicare WA is in a constant state of improvement, always looking to help clients and staff live happier, healthier lives.

Ms Boschman said Anglicare WA was still in the exploratory phase of pursuing a place-based approach but had begun testing the concept.

“For example, during Harmony Week this year, which was also International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, we started having conversations about racism and multiculturalism,” Ms Boschman said.

“To make it relevant for staff, we did a team challenge activity where we encouraged teams to learn together and gave them access to publicly available resources, like Diversity Atlas where you can put in your postcode and see what people from different multicultural backgrounds live in your area. 

“Teams were able to put in their postcode or their suburb, and then look up profile of that particular area. 

“They might find, for example, ‘oh my gosh, we have a lot of people who are Chinese in this area, do they speak Mandarin or another language? what religion are they? what things can we learn so that when people are coming through the front door of our services, we actually have a little bit more knowledge, and that we are supportive and understanding that people need cultural safety?’

“That team learning experience has been really useful because people have been able to have a discussion and ask questions and then seek out additional information if they need it. They're in charge of their own learning journey, but it's relevant to their area.”

Ms Laferla added that using a place-based approach would potentially enhance Anglicare WA’s service delivery and translate into better support for people and communities on the receiving end.

“We've really started to see that by focusing on creating awareness across our workforce, whether it's cultural awareness training or training on what racism and discrimination really mean, it really enhances our ability to serve the communities that we operate in,” Ms Laferla said.

“It's building workforce awareness, but it's also supporting our service delivery, because we're helping staff to understand the experience of our clients and the communities they operate in, which is why that place-based approach is so important.”

Anglicare WA’s annual staff engagement survey 2024 found that 81 per cent of its workforce agreed that the organisation embraced diversity and the potential of all its people, marking an increase from 58 per cent in 2016.

“Our ‘fiercely inclusive’ value is definitely a value that resonates with our staff,” Ms Boschman said. 

“It means a lot, so that’s really helped us on the journey of trying to be better and be on a continual improvement journey.”

Anglicare WA aims to launch its renewed diversity and inclusion action plans during the 2026 financial year.