“Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation” Mahatma Gandhi Omesh Jethwani, Government Projects & Programs Manager interviewed Ian Bridger , Director of Across Culture on the importance of adopting and embracing cultural diversity and equality. Tell us about the inception of Across Culture? Across Culture (AC) evolved from my previous business, Bridgeway Barnes and Associates (BBA). BBA was a training/consulting business.
CULT URA L DI VERS I T Y
CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND EQUALITY
Prior to BBA I had been working in the employment sector for a number of years. During this time I observed that the issue regarding Indigenous employment was less around Indigenous people not wanting to work or organisations not wanting to employ Indigenous Australians, but more about organisations not being able to retain Indigenous people. So although BBA was doing well, I didn’t feel that I was working where my passion lies; working with Diverse Cultures and in this case Indigenous culture. So together with my current Indigenous business partner, Mark Spinks, we looked at what was working in regards to retention. What we discovered was that mentoring was a key success factor in the retention of Aboriginal workers but we also saw that there was no real quality standards around mentoring and in fact people were mentoring without a real understanding of what mentoring entailed. To address this issue Across Culture, which at that stage was known as Bridgeway Barnes and Associates, developed its first Certificate IV in Mentoring Diverse Groups. Mark became a business partner and we rebranded to Across Culture. So our entry into the market really was through our Certificate IV in Mentoring Diverse Groups, this qualification has now been superseded by our new qualification 10571NAT Certificate IV in Workplace Mentoring.
If the customer requests cultural knowledge that has the potential to be implemented in the workplace or they want to move beyond cultural awareness towards cultural competence then I get involved. I often deliver this type of training with an Indigenous trainer. In addition to my work with AC I teach at undergraduate and post graduate level; Approaches to Cultural Diversity, Managing in Ambiguity and Change, Society and Culture in an Organisational Context as well as units such as Organisational Behaviour. Given my background I am able to draw on tools and frameworks, which allow organisations to understand culture from a worldview and an organisational perspective. What is often overlooked, is that we don’t have only 2 cultures interacting in the workplace at any one time, overarching everything is organisational culture. We need to bring organisational culture into the discussion. Then if we want to take it a step further management styles are also part of the jigsaw puzzle. So as you can see it’s not a matter of simply understanding Indigenous traditions, values and history and empathising with the past and ongoing trauma, there’s a lot more to it, fortunately the people I have worked with have provided me with some great feedback,
for example in my last work shop 3 of the comments from people who had already participated in traditional cultural awareness training were; • Totally changed my approach to working with Indigenous people • It was a real eye opener and I will recommend it highly to others • I will be reviewing existing policies So in answer to your question I have been very well received because I also help Indigenous Australians to understand white Anglo Saxon Australian culture and workplace culture. Many of my Indigenous participants have stated that it’s a light bulb moment for them. We need to be looking at culture from a broader perspective and endeavouring to understand all cultures in a manner that allows us to compare and measure culture against culture. Only then can we begin to look for solutions and build bridges. What is cultural diversity and why is it so important in this day and age? It has been said that Culture is the 2nd most difficult word in the English Language to define. In 1953 there were 163 different definitions of culture however for myself I like the simple definition of Cultural Diversity from the Oxford Dictionary; ‘The existence of a variety of cultural or ethnic groups within a society’ or if we are talking about organisations ‘within organisations’. In terms of the importance of cultural diversity within the workforce, we currently have a skills
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As a non-Aboriginal Australian, how did the Aboriginal community react to you delivering their 100+ years culture? It really depends on what our customer wants. If they are requesting traditional Cultural Awareness training where the history and traditions of Indigenous Australians is at the heart of the learning outcome then we have a
number of Aboriginal trainers who deliver the training. I don’t believe it is appropriate for me or that I have the knowledge or experience to deliver this type of training.