Who knew that the topic of Diversity & Inclusion was so entertaining? The three invited panel members at the panel event – Felicity Evans (general manager of HR at ANZ), Russell Windsor (partner and Culture Leader at PwC), and Kirsten Te Wao (Diversity & Inclusion Lead at Vodafone) – were all informative, interesting, inspirational and often absolutely hilarious.

Natasha Markham (director, MAUD) navigated the conversation, adding the architectural slant to an issue affecting every aspect of people’s working lives. We feel confident that everyone in attendance learned something new, as well as having instincts and anecdotal observations confirmed.

One of many gems of the night was the clarity around diversity and profitability of an organisation – if you don’t believe the business case for increasing your pool of talent selection base by now, you are apparently at least 10 years behind.

The research and observations have established that diversity is good business, as well as just being the right thing to do.

Organisations with gender diversity across leadership levels out-perform equivalent companies by 15 per cent, organisations with ethnic diversities across leadership levels out-perform equivalent companies by 35 per cent.

Increasing the breadth of conversation amongst organisation members (in our case, architectural staff at all levels, from graduates to leaders) quite simply leads to better outcomes and possibly more engagement.

Targets were discussed – are they effective or are they symbolic, tokenism, and possibly insulting? The panel’s verdict? Effective. Targets force change.

One of the many quotes of the night came from Kirsten Te Wao on her response to this topic: “I am not a token, I am a taonga”. (There were several moments throughout the evening of spontaneous applause from the audience and this was one of them.)

Institutional targets also show publicly what is regarded as important and what is valued by that company. Legitimising policy such as (gender-neutral) flexible hours and (gender-neutral) paid parental leave shows that companies/practices value family units, which is desperately needed in the culture of architectural practices which have long subsisted on long-hour habits.

The audience were reminded that everyone involved with their organisation – from clients to incoming staff – are critiquing that organisation’s profile: do you reflect them?

The evening was opened by A+W•NZ secretary Divya Purushotham, followed by a beautiful waiata by Amber Ruckes, with moderator Natasha Markham then taking over to ask the architecturally-focused questions of the incredibly diverse, capable and humorous panellists.

Questions from the floor capped off the evening and we were lucky enough to continue the conversation with some of the panellists at the post-event drinks. For those who missed out, a video link will be available here once material is edited.

A big thank you to the three panellists, Natasha Markham, sponsors Warren and Mahoney – and WaM principal Andrew Tu’inukuafe – for instigating this event.