About EEO

What is Equal Employment Opportunity?

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) is about:

ensuring a diverse and skilled workforce
making sure that workplaces have fair work practices and behaviours
improving employment access and participation by EEO groups

NSW Public Sector agencies and universities must ensure that policies and procedures are non-discriminatory and contribute to EEO outcomes. This means having workplace policies, practices ad behaviours that are fair and do not disadvantage people because they are attributed to particular groups.

Agencies and universities operate under Part 9A of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 and are required to have EEO management plans to achieve EEO outcomes. These plans are to be submitted to the Director of Equal Opportunity in Public Employment.

Agency targets for EEO groups are benchmarked against their estimated representation in the NSW working age population (ages 15 to 64). These benchmarks (derived from the Australian Bureau of Statistics) are currently:

50% for women;
2% for Aboriginal people;
19% for people from racial, ethnic and ethno-religious minority groups, and people whose language first spoken as a child was not English;
12% for people with a disability; and
7% for people with a disability requiring adjustment at work.

Agencies and universities report on the progress and success of their EEO program in their Annual Report and provide EEO statistics as part of the Workforce Profile Agency survey.

The Director of Equal Opportunity reports to the Premier of NSW on the implementation of EEO throughout the NSW Public Sector.

The NSW Public Sector needs to attract and retain a skilled and diverse workforce in order to deliver high quality services to all communities in NSW into the future.

Agencies must consider innovative recruitment and retention programs in order to maintain and develop organisational capability.

‘Fairness and Opportunity’ is one of the five key areas of activity in the New South Wales State Plan and emphasises the importance of services that promote social justice and reduced disadvantage.

Effective equity and diversity strategies are therefore critical elements of an agency’s workforce management plan as well as being a requirement under Part 9 A of the Anti-Discrimination Act.

A skilled and diverse workforce can be achieved through actions such as:

offering needs-based employment programs
making work-related adjustments for people with a disability
training supervisors, managers and senior academics to identify and implement workplace change which supports EEO group participation
providing training and development, including management development, for members of EEO groups
establishing EEO group networks, and
offering English language programs to those staff who need them, eg SkillMax.