Police and diversity

Police’s excellent showing in last week’s diversity awards was the icing on the cake of a highly successful diversity summit.

Police was well represented at the event at Sky City, Auckland - New Zealand’s first Diversity Summit, organised by Diversity Works NZ (formerly the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust).

Police Diversity Liaison Officers (DLOs) from across Auckland and ‘Women in Policing’ workgroup representatives attended the summit, which was led by Diversity Works NZ chair Michael Barnett.

It featured six keynote speakers from New Zealand and overseas – and many made reference to Police’s work in fostering a more diverse workforce to better reflect the changing profile of the population at large.

“It was fantastic that many of the speakers held New Zealand Police in such high regard in the field of diversity,” says Acting Sergeant Bryan Ward, a member of the pan-Auckland DLO group.

“They made particular reference to The Turning of The Tide, women in policing and the work being conducted day-to-day by harassment contact officers and diversity liaison officers within the organisation.”

The speakers included Angela Workman-Stark, Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada, who is a former Chief Superintendent in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

In more than 24 years with the RCMP, she held leadership roles in implementing transformation programmes including an action plan to boost diversity and inclusion in the ranks.

Minister for Women Louise Upston and Associate Professor Workman-Stark both made reference to Police’s work in diversity and inclusion – and encouraged other organisations to look to Police as an example.

As previously reported, at the Diversity Works NZ 2016 award event the day after the summit Police won the Empowerment Award and overall Supreme Award for its work to increase numbers of women in the organisation.