Matrix > Toolkit: Recruitment and Promotion > Reform Progression and Promotion Processes
Reform Progression and Promotion Processes
Reviewing and auditing institutional bias around recruitment should also extend to processes for progression and pay rises.
Contents
Revising recruitment, including internal recruitment processes, is a big part of boosting progression for Māori and Pasifika staff, as so much recruitment is internal. Reviewing and auditing institutional bias around recruitment should also extend to processes for progression and pay rises. Kia Toipoto has comprehensive guidance on reducing bias in:
Career pathways, progression and promotion
Professional development and growth
Career breaks
Leave
Click here to download Kia Toipoto Guidance on Career Progression, Pathways, Breaks and Leave.
Eliminating bias from progression and promotion - checklist
Being considered ready for progression or promotion is often linked with self-promoting, extroverted behaviours, and presenteeism or high availability. This favours men, and disadvantages those with more family and community responsibilities, as well as people from cultures and communities that are less individualistic on average than Pākehā. Kia Toipoto guidance recommends:
Have a “robust career pathway framework”: Click here for an example.
Review progression criteria for neutrality in terms of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, and age.
Where testing exists as a requirement for progression, you need to show how your process has actively mitigated potential for bias.
Length of paid work experience is not used as the only or main indicator of capability, as is unfair to those who have had caring responsibilities and career breaks.
Not placing too much weight on specific qualifications unless these are necessary for a specialised role.
To reduce bias towards men and more self-promoting or individualist cultures, development is promoted as a shared responsibility. Managers work proactively with employees to identify goals, strengths and opportunities for progression.
If organisations link performance ratings with readiness for progression, any decisions should be based on transparent gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, and age-neutral criteria developed with unions and employees.
Understand that performance-based pay disadvantages employees who are hesitant about promoting themselves, particularly women and minorities.
Ensure equity of access to professional development, promoting opportunities widely, and monitoring uptake and effectiveness (see GEM indicators on Training & Development).
Reduce bias around career breaks and flexible working. The emphasis on the continuity of employment and traditional career paths disadvantages women, especially wāhine Māori, Pasifika women, and other ethnic minority women.
Flexible working should be normalised and considered the default.
GEM Insights Snapshot: Challenges and opportunities in promotion and progression, in different types of organisations
Blue-collar: Māori & Pasifika frontline-heavy organisations or departments need to make sure Māori and Pasifika frontline workforce can progress to higher levels of the organisation.
The Challenge
Humbleness of Māori and Pasifika blue-collar workers: “the kumara doesn’t speak of its own sweetness” said one Māori manager, referring to the whakatauki. Another manager said: “a big part of this is about confidence… The community has been brought up to not put themselves forward. I can resonate with that as Pasifika myself… We’ve gotten some of the few Pasifika leaders we have to share their journeys and careers, it’s an aha moment – ‘you've got the same challenges that we do’.”
The Opportunities
Organisations are leveraging strength in numbers to create progression cohorts and support networks. The collective and peer-supported approach to Pasifika upskilling is known to be particularly effective. See Uptempo’s report on Pasifika-centred Adult Learning.
The ability to coordinate upskilling for whole cohorts and classes can be supported by funding pools like the Tertiary Education Commission for literacy funding.
White-collar: Organisations and departments with very few Māori & Pasifika and other minorities need to make sure that Māori and Pasifika workforce do not feel isolated and receive adequate support to progress without feeling ‘singled out’.
The Challenge
The lack of internal Māori and Pasifika staff networks can mean added pressures on relatively isolated Māori and Pasifika staff in white-collar workplaces or departments.
Cultural tax expectations to lead Māori or Pasifika cultural activities uncompensated, or to contribute to DEI initiatives or Te Tiriti policies.
This can also create shame/whakama for those with less knowledge of traditional culture.
Feelings of vulnerability, sometimes reluctance to even disclose ethnicity.
Lack of Māori or Pasifika senior mentorship to demonstrate pathway upwards.
The Opportunities
Reaching out to create and formalise networks beyond single workplaces/employers.
DEI leaders and Māori and Pasifika professionals in highly underrepresented industries are taking a sector-wide approach to creating Māori or Pasifika networks across organisations. This means professional Māori and Pasifika staff are less isolated, and can also broaden their career prospects and mentorship networks beyond the organisation, especially useful if there are limited progression prospects in a smaller workplace.
Employers should provide material support for their employees to tap into existing industry networks and strengthen organisational support for and engagement in those networks.
Create a supported pathway to progression
Māori and Pasifika group cohort-based approach to training for progression, especially management & leadership training. See case study: Woolworths.
Understanding that the invitation or ‘ask’ to progress or to take up a new opportunity may need to be offered many times or offered in a new way by a trusted advisor before it is accepted or believed to be genuine. There may be many reasons for this including self-doubt, experiences of ‘failure’ or mistrust in systems.
Strongly supported Māori and Pasifika mentorship networks focused on career progression.
In professions where Māori and Pasifika experience isolation, create these group cohort and network-based approaches through directly supporting sector-wide mentorship and progression networks.