Bass Coast Post
  • Home
    • Recent articles
  • News
    • Point of view
    • View from the chamber
  • Writers
    • Anne Davie
    • Anne Heath Mennell
    • Bob Middleton
    • Carolyn Landon
    • Catherine Watson
    • Christine Grayden
    • Dick Wettenhall
    • Ed Thexton
    • Etsuko Yasunaga
    • Frank Coldebella
    • Gayle Marien
    • Geoff Ellis
    • Gill Heal
    • Harry Freeman
    • Ian Burns
    • Joan Woods
    • John Coldebella
    • Jordan Crugnale
    • Julie Statkus
    • Kit Sleeman
    • Laura Brearley >
      • Coastal Connections
    • Lauren Burns
    • Liane Arno
    • Linda Cuttriss
    • Linda Gordon
    • Lisa Schonberg
    • Liz Low
    • Marian Quigley
    • Mark Robertson
    • Mary Whelan
    • Meryl Brown Tobin
    • Michael Whelan
    • Mikhaela Barlow
    • Miriam Strickland
    • Natasha Williams-Novak
    • Neil Daly
    • Patsy Hunt
    • Pauline Wilkinson
    • Phil Wright
    • Sally McNiece
    • Terri Allen
    • Tim Shannon
    • Zoe Geyer
  • Features
  • Arts
  • Local history
  • Environment
  • Bass Coast Prize
  • Community
    • Diary
    • Courses
    • Groups
  • Contact us

Vive la difference

8/11/2019

7 Comments

 
PictureAli Wastie
By Catherine Watson
 
RECENTLY some 40 senior council staff gathered to watch a series of short films about LGBTQI people living in Bass Coast. Co-hosted by council CEO Ali Wastie and Cr Geoff Ellis, the films were the centrepiece of a workshop for staff to discuss how they could make their workplace more welcoming for people of diverse sexualities and genders.
 
Ms Wastie told staff she wanted the council to celebrate and welcome LGBTQI members of the community, and to send a positive signal to employees who identify as LGBTQI that they could “bring their full selves to work”.
 
The Post asked her to elaborate.

Post: A lot of ratepayers would say we can’t afford this sort of nonsense – reconciliation, diversity, inclusion – and it’s no business of the council anyway.
 
Ali Wastie: My answer’s quite simple. We can’t afford not to do it. If I looked at it purely from a financial, productivity, hard-edged perspective, that would be very limited but it would still make sense to do it.  From a productivity perspective, if people are fully engaged at work, if they feel respected, if they feel the organisation is supportive both personally and professionally, they will give more to the organisation. You will get it back in spades. More engaged staff put in extra. Organisations with high engagement levels have less unplanned sick leave, lower employee turnover and people recommend their organisation as a good place to work.  A happy healthy workforce is a productive workforce.
 
Post: What do you mean by “bringing your full self to work”? Give me some examples.
 
Ali Wastie: There’s that old school way of thinking: when you come to work you leave your personal stuff at the door and you’re just at work. I want our staff to bring their full selves to work. When I come to work I’ll have corridor conversations with people about my interests, ask people about their interests, ask them how their kids are going, I’ll talk about my kids, what they’ve done on the weekend, what my husband’s up to. The social side of things.
 
But if I identified as a lesbian, for example, if my workplace was not inclusive, I might not feel comfortable talking about my partner, or using a term like ‘she’. If a workplace is not inclusive you’re not really able to bring that full self to work because you’re not feeling comfortable in sharing those aspects of yourself with your work colleagues. I can imagine that feeling of separation and I think that would be really tough, constantly having to check yourself.
 
Post: And how do you create that environment where people feel comfortable to reveal their true selves?
 
Ali Wastie: By living the values of the organisation. By living my own personal values that closely align to that of the organisation. By “preaching what we practise” not “practising what we preach”.
 
We’ve recently established a workplace diversity and inclusion working group that includes members from all areas of our organisation. They’ll be responsible for reviewing existing strategies and policies to ensure they’re inclusive.
 
Often these groups are set up during people’s lunchtimes. It’s seen as an optional extra. The workplace inclusion group meets during work time as part of the members’ professional development program. This is part of their job. This is really important for our wellbeing, for our productivity.  It shows that as CEO I really value your contribution to that working group. It gives it credibility. Just like the reconciliation working group or a major projects working group.
 
We can always do better, always do more. We’ll just keep trying. Having Cr Ellis, who is so positive and so passionate about this space, is really important. I see it as a partnership between the organisation and council. All the councillors are supportive
 
Post: In a country area it can still be pretty tough to come out at work. Can you have a real effect with these programs?
 
Ali Wastie: I believe so. That’s why we’re doing it. The culture change has to start from the top – the CEO, the directors, for example – because we live in a hierarchical society. People look to senior figures to see how they’re behaving, the messages they’re putting out. They can see the CEO supporting an inclusive workplace by setting up a working group, and sending out really positive messages for staff to join that working group.
 
We’re an organisation of just under 300 FTE and we have a moral obligation to role model to other employers in the shire. Local councils and other big organisations have a corporate social responsibility to go beyond the bottom line in terms of setting examples for other organisations, for businesses out there. To say well, if they can do it, how can we do it in a small way? We partner with organisations on awareness days. Some people are a bit blasé – they say that awareness days are tokenistic – but they show the organisation is behind this cause, whether it’s mental health of men or reducing violence against women.
 
I know there are views out there in regional Victoria and Australia that are not progressive but I see Bass Coast as very progressive. We just need to be more creative and use our imaginations more because we don’t have the resources that our city counterparts do.  
 
Post: I’d imagine people who feel comfortable at work will be more inclined to bring their imagination, their ideas?
 
Ali Wastie: You have to find ways to bring that out. Our front-line staff, the people who are closest to the customer, aren’t necessarily people who are in positions of great power in terms of the hierarchy, but they often have the best ideas because they’re closest and they see where there are issues.  Innovations, better ways of doing things … we need to find ways for people to share those ideas and to test them. To say we may not get it right but we’re going to give it a go because if it comes off it’s going to be really valuable. An employee is going to feel really valued because their idea got taken up, or it was heard and discussed and debated. So we’re finding ways through working groups, problem solving on issues that are really critical to the organisation. That can involve front-line staff, senior leaders, a whole mix of people.
 
It’s one more reason diversity in the workplace is so important. Diversity brings different perspectives and often skills and expertise. It brings increased creativity and great problem solving abilities.
7 Comments
John Coldebella.
8/11/2019 08:15:20 pm

Congratulations Ali. There are very few feelings, if any, better than a sense of belonging. There are very few feelings worse than a sense of being on the outer, especially when it's because of who you are.

Reply
Phyllis Papps
9/11/2019 11:20:25 am

Bass Coast Shire Council should be commended for their forward thinking and especially for CEO Ali Wastie, the Councillors and the staff.
When Bass Coast Shire Council voted to support Marriage Equality in 2018, thousands and thousands of members of the LGBTQI community and general community applauded this very strong statement about ACCEPTANCE, DIVERSITY and INCLUSIVENESS.
We thank everyone because it has taken a life-time to achieve this equality.

Reply
John Gascoigne
13/11/2019 07:07:33 pm

Another great week of contributions! I’m venturing here where wiser souls would fear to go. Isn’t Ali Wastie pre-supposing that staff wanting to avail themselves of this opportunity for openness have, in fact, come out or are comfortable talking about their sexual orientation with their workmates? One's individual sexuality isn’t generally on the agenda of workplace discussions, is it? Hopefully it is among friends and family.
I guess Ali is declaring that if you want to talk in her workplace about how you spent your weekend with your same-sex partner you are guaranteed to have support of the management and its working group.
But people are people and the inner workings of their psyche are unfathomable, sometimes even to themselves! I imagine that in any circumstances, ‘coming out’ requires courage. Ali is saying we understand that, and we will back you all the way. But CEOs come and go.

Reply
Catherine Watson
13/11/2019 07:10:04 pm

John, my reading of it is that at least the possibility of “otherness” is being raised at the council, which may cause staff to question their own assumptions and gives individual staff the opportunity to announce their status or discuss their experiences should they choose to. My guess is that older LGBTI people will be more comfortable about coming out and that at least younger LGBTI will know there is support there if they need it.
For all LGBTI people, there are multiple coming outs, or not. For a long time, while I was out to close friends and my family, I was not out at work. Like most people leading a double life I self-censored – “I” instead of “we”; “they” instead of “she”. Several times I was tempted to come out, once to try to shut up a very homophobic boss, but a close friend begged me not to because she was well aware of the consequences for me.
It was only when I went to work for a gay newspaper and was surrounded by gays that I realised how liberating it was to be part of the majority! My workmates were so brave and so funny about their oblique lives. I realised this was my tribe, or one of them.
I’ve never really gone back in the closet since then. Not that I make a grand announcement but I no longer prevaricate.
My most recent experience of coming out at work was on a country newspaper after one of my more redneck workmates pontificated “Bloody lesbians. They’re all trying to be men.”
“Speaking as a lesbian, Keith,” I said, “I can reassure you that I’ve never wanted to be a man.” There was dead silence from Keith and laughter from everyone else in the office. It was one of the better coming outs I’ve had.
As I’ve got older, I’ve realised the true value of coming out is that it gets rid of the sort of people you really don’t want to know.

Reply
Camilla Myers
13/11/2019 08:10:17 pm

Wonderful article. Thank you Bass Shire Council and Ali for being actively inclusive. And Catherine for publishing the conversation and your important comment.

Reply
Phyllis Papps
14/11/2019 10:29:43 am

Thank you Catherine for your brilliant article and your response to a comment related to your article. As you said in your final statement to a comment from a somewhat biased reader:
"As I’ve got older, I’ve realized the true value of 'coming out' is that it gets rid of the sort of people you really don’t want to know."
There are still so many people out there in our community (homophobic, transphobic etc. etc. etc.). I hope I don't meet them.

Reply
Geoff Ellis link
17/11/2019 08:37:34 am

Once again the Bass Coast Post facilitates an essential conversation and hearty thanks to Catherine W for her efforts and her sharing of lived experience.

How many times does a person have to come out each day?

My take: I am proud that BCSC, as a major employer in Bass Coast, leads by becoming a safe space in which everyone can be proud of who they are and not have to strategize every single sentence to avoid the burden of an unguarded comment.

Wonthaggi itself has a proud history of welcoming and including others.

Great leaders have to come and go as their example lights our path. Keep at it Phyllis, Catherine and Ali.

Reply



Leave a Reply.