2020 Catalyst Award Winner
How do you meet the challenge of rapid growth while also moving toward gender equality and creating a culture of inclusion? By leading with inclusion, diversity, and wellbeing, Deloitte Australia has done just that, building a workplace where all employees can thrive.
Deloitte Australia’s Inspiring Women initiative has been a decade-long sustained, strategic, and scalable approach to drive the workplace culture to ensure gender equality becomes the norm.
Inclusive leadership at Deloitte Australia starts at the top. CEO Richard Deutsch leads from the front and is transparent about the goal of reaching gender parity in the partnership by 2025. He holds his leadership team accountable for increasing the recruitment, retention, development, and advancement of women. He follows in the footsteps of two previous CEOs, Cindy Hook (now CEO of Deloitte Asia-Pacific) and Giam Swiegers, both of whom were passionate about strengthening the firm’s inclusive culture to disrupt the way professional services are delivered and to drive the firm’s momentum. These leaders all believe in diversity of thought and the criticality of inclusive leadership.
Deloitte Australia is a leader in Deloitte’s global program to accelerate equitable gender representation, “ALL-IN.” Deloitte aspires to achieve equal representation of women and men at all levels across the firm globally. The firm continues to identify and remove barriers to equality within the employee experience to create a level playing field and a more inclusive culture for everyone.
Highlights of Deloitte Australia’s commitment to gender equality include:
- A working environment to support all employees, including equal parental leave for all employees that can be taken flexibly in the first three years after the arrival of a child, and comprehensive and transparent flexibility policies applying to all the people who work at Deloitte.
- A culture which supports diversity in all its forms and inclusion as a shared value, led from the top. Programs such as Deloitte Dads, a photo exhibition which celebrated the accessibility and value of the parental leave policy for fathers, and the global Deloitte ALL-IN commitment.
- A focus on continual learning, with mandatory inclusive leadership training, a robust coaching structure including mentoring and sponsorship of women, and Aspiring Women, a 12-month development and career acceleration program for high-potential women.
From 2015 to 2019, representation of women on Deloitte Australia’s executive team increased from 15% to 38% and the percentage of female partners at the firm increased from 22% to 30%.
Watch Deloitte Australia CEO Richard Deutsch discuss the Catalyst Award:
About Deloitte Australia
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