Atlassian dumps ‘diversity’ from lingo
SOFTWARE giant Atlassian has dumped diversity from its corporate lingo as it moves toward a workforce defined by more than gender and race.
The Australian company says it is moving “beyond diversity” to build balanced teams where all workers feel a sense of belonging.
“It’s not about how many people of a specific demographic are represented ... it’s about balancing perspectives across teams,” Atlassian said in a report yesterday.
It says the highest-performing teams included people with diverse perspectives and ways of problem solving.
But it must think “beyond defining diversity in terms of gender and race”.
Aubrey Blanche has used the phrase “diversity fatigue” to explain the frustration people feel.
Atlassian’s global head of diversity and belonging says people have come to associate the word diversity with only minority groups.
“When you tell people you’re trying to diversify the workforce, you’re saying people from a majority group don’t count and you’re trying to build a future without them,” Ms Blanche said.
“People from majority groups are part of diversity, there are imbalances but they can go both ways,” she said.
“You can have a team where the majority are women - that’s an imbalance.”
According to Atlassian’s latest employment data, men make up the majority of the company’s managers in IT, marketing, customer support and software while women dominate HR and finance.
Atlassian boosted the number of women hired in leadership roles by less than 1 per cent to 27.1 per cent in the past year, putting it above average for senior management across all industries. It also increased the proportion in technical roles from 14.6 to 17 per cent and grew its workforce over 40 from 19 to 22 per cent.
Ms Blanche denied the company was pandering to its white, male workforce by scrapping diversity targets.