Getting DEEP: Diverse Equitable Employment and Practice
A small group of local young architects have been working hard over the past year to encourage change in our local architecture community with regard to equitable employment. They call themselves the DEEP (Diverse Equitable Employment and Practice) Taskforce. We're super proud to say that Sarah and Duncan co-chair this taskforce, while Rachel has been supporting them heavily with her graphic expertise, and Jenny has also lent a hand contributing local words of wisdom to their publication.
Last month DEEP held a breakfast with 19 directors from the largest architectural practices in the ACT, with the intent of creating the tools and momentum for change amongst this local leadership group.
The DEEP taskforce formed with the goal of reducing barriers to engaging with, and implementing, the research and guidelines produced by the national Parlour group. The result is a short booklet which introduces key issues, presents local stories from our architecture community, prompts objective reflection and analysis of practice, and provides immediately actionable steps that firms can take.
Each director was presented with a full copy of the Parlour Guidelines, and a copy of the 'Get DEEP' Booklet, and were taken through the booklet, stories, and exercises provided. The event concluded with directors sharing some of their firm's strengths, opportunities for improvements, and goals set, identified as a result of the workshop. The most popular self-identified strengths related to flexible employment options and a balance of female representation in the office. In contrast, the common opportunities for improvement and goal setting related to creating office pay scales to address pay inequity, improving staff performance review systems and management of career progression, and better managing employee workloads and overtime.
The DEEP taskforce plan to follow this local leadership group over the following 12 months to encourage accountability and measure equitable employment improvements made in our local architecture community.
The DEEP Booklet will be available to all ACT firms for download in the coming fortnight.
Well done, Sarah, Duncan and Rachel!