Leading and managing diverse teams
Providing direction, establishing expectations, and giving feedback are important parts of good leadership and management.
Employees from marginalised groups may need their manager’s or leader’s support to:
- use specific entitlements
- remove barriers to career progression and professional development.
Model inclusion
Principals and school leaders must model and build a workplace where employees feel:
- safe to raise concerns
- supported in their career development
- respected when requesting reasonable adjustments and flexible working arrangements.
Leaders can model inclusion by:
- learning to pronounce names correctly, demonstrating respect for people’s cultures, languages and identities
- ‘leaving loudly’ at the end of the day to demonstrate the importance of work-life balance
- championing Aboriginal self-determination, inclusive language, inclusive recruitment, workplace adjustments, flexible work, taking active bystander action, and other aspects of inclusion.
Leave and entitlements
Employment conditions and entitlements can remove barriers to inclusion. Principals and managers must provide employees with the terms and conditions of their employment and support them to use their entitlements:
- Cultural and Ceremonial Leave – Teaching Service
- Parental Absence – Teaching Service
- Disability and Reasonable Adjustments – Staff
- Flexible Work
- Flexible Work for Principals
- Family Violence – Information for Employees.
Managing employee conduct and performance
It is important to establish expectations of respectful behaviours and address any instances of disrespectful or harmful behaviour. These policies provide guidance on managing conduct and unsatisfactory performance:
Consider whether an employee may need a different approach to career development and work planning for accessibility, cultural safety or psychological safety:
- VPSC guide to career development for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff(opens in a new window)
- VPSC guide to supporting and retaining neurodivergent employees(opens in a new window)
- VPSC manager’s guide to mental health and safety(opens in a new window).
Professional development
A diverse and representative workforce enriches learning experiences for students. Diverse leadership teams make better decisions. School leaders are encouraged to support the professional development of diverse employees.
When seeking to develop aspiring or new school leaders, leaders can consider the sponsorship approach. Read more about sponsorship below:
- Supporting careers – mentoring or sponsorship?(opens in a new window) (Workplace Gender Equality Agency)
- Mentoring and sponsorship (Diversity Council of Australia).
Supporting colleagues affirming their gender in the workplace
Gender affirmation is when a trans or gender diverse person takes steps to socially or physically feel more aligned with their gender. Gender affirmation may also be called gender transition. This process is different for every person.
Gender affirmation can include:
- changing how they interact with others
- changing their name or using different pronouns
- changing their appearance and how they present
- seeking medical assistance.
Employees in schools can discuss appropriate leave with their principal or manager or the Employee Diversity, Inclusion and Engagement team: employee.inclusion@education.vic.gov.au.
To support an employee or colleague affirming their gender at work:
- understand each person’s needs will be different
- be sensitive, open-minded, adaptable and respectful. Gender affirmation is often a new experience for both the individual and the workplace
- let the employee drive the process
- make the safety and wellbeing of the employee the priority
- take active bystander action if the employee is misgendered or an incorrect name is used (sometimes called a ‘dead name’ – an old name the person no longer uses).
An employee affirming their gender will communicate how best to support them. The employee and their principal or manager can go to Gender affirmation in Victorian public sector workplaces(opens in a new window) (including schools) and use its Gender affirmation plan template.
Employees are entitled to use toilets and other facilities appropriate to their affirmed gender. Any employees who have concerns about the use of toilets and facilities should raise these concerns with their principal or manager.
Workplace adjustments
The department encourages all school leaders to have conversations with their employees about workplace adjustments.
People with disability can request a workplace adjustment at any time. The department will provide adjustments whenever it is needed, possible and reasonable to do so. Under anti-discrimination law, employers must make workplace adjustments for employees and prospective employees with disability, except in specific circumstances (detailed in the Disability and Reasonable Adjustments – Staff policy).
Principals and managers can also invite team members to tell them if they need workplace adjustments at any time. Leaders can champion workplace adjustments as a way to make the workplace accessible and inclusive.
Read Disability and Reasonable Adjustments – Staff for information about workplace adjustments.
Flexible work arrangements may be requested as a workplace adjustment. When flexible work is a workplace adjustment, the Disability and Reasonable Adjustments – Staff policy must be applied.
The Victorian Public Sector Commission has a template Workplace adjustment and arrangement passport(opens in a new window), which school staff can download and work through with their principal and support persons. This resource helps ensure the right supports are in place and can be easily communicated.
Principals and school leaders can go to Equal Opportunity – Employees to learn about their responsibilities as employers.
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