Still in its very early stages, the program will see organisations rated on their GLBT policies and practices in an Equality Index and will likely offer assistance to those whose standards do not come up to scratch.

“Both the US and UK are more advanced in this area,” National GLBT Health Alliance spokesperson David Scamell told SX at a briefing on diversity in the workplace, organised by the DCA this week. “So the DCA and the Alliance have formed a partnership and are looking at how we can deliver a program. It’s going to have two focuses: the Index as the major part, which is about assessing employers and naming the good ones, and the other component to it is what the UK does with its Diversity Champions scheme, and that is in-house training for those people who are part of the program to assist them in lifting their game.”

In the UK, employers are ranked from number one down, while the US gives a score out of 100. Which model will be used for Australia is still being decided.

Nareen Young, CEO of the DCA – which is a not-for-profit diversity advisor to business in Australia, with 120 members nationally – said she was confident of employers signing up to the program.

“They will want to be accredited rather than not to be seen by people who know as being good places to work,” Young said. “We’d like to see all employers wanting to be part of it. DCA members who have shown long-term commitment to diversity practice in their organisations will be invited to be foundation members in the first instance.”

The program is set to be formalised in the next couple of months and likely to roll out in 2009, taking the form of an annual survey, according to Scamell, who noted that it would be the “first program of its kind in Australia for any form of diversity and the first index of its kind”.

Funding is likely to come from the foundation members.

“It’ll be a membership-based program so there’s a fee attached to it,” Scamell explained. “The Index itself won’t be exclusive to members though. The in-house training component, which allows employers to skill up, is for members and we’ll use that program to fund the Index.”

The aim of the program is to move away from mandatory requirements to a more voluntary embracing of diversity, Young said. “We have had compliance measures in Australia and we need to constantly examine those, [but] where we’re leading with this is the embracing focus rather than the compliance focus.”

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