Te Rito cadets at a pōwhiri at Hoani Waititi Marae in Glen Eden. Photo / Juli Zhu
NZME’s Te Rito journalism project is the winner of the Diversity and Inclusion Leadership category in the 2023 Deloitte Top 200 awards.
Te Rito is a 12-month journalism cadetship programme aimed at increasing newsroom diversity. It was established by NZME, which contributed the initial finances to get the project off the ground and continues to run the programme. Specifically, Te Rito aims to amplify Māori, Pasifika, ethnic, LGBTQIA+ and disabled voices by giving people an entry point into media careers working in digital, print, television, radio and producing podcasts.
Lois Turei is NZME’s head of cultural partnerships and newsroom diversity and the Te Rito programme manager. She says the idea for Te Rito started when NZME began exploring a cadetship programme.
“We thought we could partner with other media organisations to take Māori, Pasifika and other journalists who were already employed, but could come together once or twice a week for targeted training. Then the Public Interest Journalism Fund came along with some funding that allowed us to look more expansively. We decided to do much the same thing, but on a bigger scale.”
NZME partnered with Whakaata Māori, Discovery-Newshub and the Pacific Media Network. The partners extended the reach of the programme from mainstream media into specialist Māori and Pasifika outlets. For Turei, the partnerships were the heart of the project. “One of the values of the project is that we adopted the Māori values of manaakitanga [respect], aroha [love/compassion], whanaungatanga [kinship and connections] and mana [strength/power], justice and equity.”
She says she knew there was a issue with Māori and Pasifika recruitment. “In part that’s because we don’t see people like us in these roles. We wanted to correct that and bring in diverse voices and different types of thinking. It meant getting them in the door and supporting them.”
This was reflected when the first programme started in February 2022. Organisers enrolled 24 cadets and the selection process included karakia-led interviews that were conducted in different languages, acknowledging cultural affiliations. Initial training was for three months, with cadets given work experience placings. All the 22 cadets who successfully graduated found jobs in the industry; nine of them were recruited by NZME.
The Deloitte Top 200 category judges were particularly impressed by the novelty of the concept, the collaboration with other media and, given their audience reach, the potential diversity and inclusion benefits to the nation. They say the partnership and continuous learning embedded in the programme have ensured it is sustainable.
They note Te Rito has achieved transformative change in print, radio, TV and social media visibility. At the same time, there is strong engagement from media audiences.
Deloitte Top 200 category judge Ranjna Patel said they were also impressed that the programme picked up international recognition for its impact increasing the voice of “first nations” people in mainstream media. In May, the Te Rito project won the International News Media Association award for Best Innovation in Newsroom Transformation at a ceremony in New York.
Patel says when judging these awards, she was looking at each project’s longevity and the difference it was going to make. “The Te Rito programme was visible in the public arena. I could see articles in the New Zealand Herald, I could read them online and I could see them on TV. The diversity came through.”
“The Te Rito programme actually assisted people into work - it gave them confidence to get out there and shine. People found they were comfortable and doing brilliant work. That means it is going to deliver long-term results. It’s great example of what is possible with a diverse community.
“It means that a brown-skinned person could see them reporting on television and realise that, ‘Yes, it is possible for someone like me to do this work’. The same when they see an ethnic name appear on the byline of a newspaper story.”
Mercury Energy’s Diverse Emerging Leaders Programme supports and develops next-generation managers from Māori, Pacific, Asian and other under-represented ethnicities.
Kath Hartley, Mercury’s head of organisation development, says the company sees having a diverse culture as a key contributor towards realising its full potential and driving future growth and success.
Mercury set up clear targets for gender and ethnicity, but recognised there was a gap when it came to the company’s leadership.
Hartley says: “We had been focused on progressing gender diversity across our leadership group. Then, a couple of years ago, we realised that ... we still had quite a lot of work to do on increasing ethnic diversity in our leadership group.”
“We developed a programme with external partners and internal experts. It’s been running for three years with three cohorts. One of the features of our programme is its focus on internal sponsorship: every participant gets an opportunity to be sponsored by a senior leader. This includes our chief executive.”
Hartley says this has had a huge impact, not just for the people going through the programme, but also for the leaders and the whole organisation. “The leaders are not just coaches and mentors; they act as advocates.”
The category judges said they were impressed by the strong top-level support shown for the programme. Judge Ranjna Patel says this was underlined during interviews for the awards, which Mercury’s CEO Vince Hawksworth attended.
“It’s a very powerful statement when the CEO turns up to say, ‘This is what we’re going to do. This is the change we’re making. We’re going to get on to doing this’.”
Patel says the judges were also impressed by the data-driven approach and Mercury’s effectiveness in addressing the targeted issue. While targeting potential leaders, the programme has also had the effect of reducing bias generally across the organisation, with improved people processes being used to promote greater inclusion.
Chorus faced the same diversity challenges as other technology sector companies.
Sarah Archer, head of diversity and inclusion — she is also acting head of people experience — says the senior leadership team was focusing on gender: “We partnered with an external agency and quickly discovered the issue was much broader in terms of intersectionality and workplace culture. So, we decided we needed to shake things up.”
There was a specific issue with the high turnover of female employees, who were leaving the company at twice the rate of males. To address this, Chorus implemented a strategic approach to shifting toward a fair, inclusive and equitable culture. It used an external agency to review the issues and found that what was initially seen as a gender equity issue was, in fact, broader.
Archer spent time working with people across the business to develop a strategy and framework for diversity and inclusion: “It’s very much around our people.”
Chorus’ approach has a third part: getting everyone involved. Archer says: “For [diversity and inclusion] to be successful, it needs to be the responsibility and accountability of everybody in business. It must sit in the infrastructure of a business, and not just sit with the HR people or the culture function.”
“That’s been the key to the progress we’re starting to see at Chorus.”
For Archer, the job is far from over. She says there is a huge amount of work in front of the organisation in terms of normalising diversity and inclusion.
The award judges found Chorus’ broad-based approach to culture change and execution was well-demonstrated, with demonstrable outcomes. They were impressed by the sophisticated, inclusive approach to developing and introducing a new diversity and inclusion strategy and the company’s development of an adaptive workplace culture. Likewise, they liked the tight alignment between this strategy and the company’s wider ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) agenda.
This approach saw notable improvements in the employee’s net promoter score (NPS). The improvement was particularly strong for employees in rainbow and disability groups.
Judge Ranjna Patel says this is significant, as both these groups often show up as the lowest on any organisation’s radar. Moreover, there was a significant drop in the turnover of female employees.
She says the judges were also impressed by the speed at which Chorus identified gaps and moved to fix them.
The Diversity and Inclusion Leadership award is sponsored by Barfoot & Thompson.
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