Our Committees

Gender Equity Champions Group

Formed in 2021, the Gender Equity Champions Group aims to improve our workplace culture and conditions at RA Tas to be equitable for men, women and diverse genders. We promote key gender equity principles, including opposing violence, valuing women’s empowerment and challenging harmful gender roles.

Over the past two years we have:

• made changes to our parental leave policy to be more inclusive of different family makeups.
• researched best practices in inclusive images and marketing.
• launched the 16 Acts of Social Change campaign raising awareness about gendered disadvantage.
• reviewed our internal training so it is in line with the gender equity principles.

We’ll keep driving change and advocating for gender equity within the organisation. Later this year, we’ll conduct another staff survey to identify focus areas, which may include understanding intersectionality and addressing disadvantage.

People Strategy Committee

We acknowledge our strength and ongoing success is due to our dedicated staff members.

To support their growth and well-being, we’ve created the People Strategy Committee to develop our People Strategy – a strategy designed to bring our organisational values to life and foster an environment of appreciation, empowerment and support for our staff.

Key achievements have been:

• sharing with all staff key messages from our Management Team.
• reviewing our Flexible Work Arrangement Policy to better meet staff needs.
• reviewing our remuneration and implementing a salary increase.
• expanding definition of Personal Leave Entitlements to include pets and carers.

Our commitment to our staff continues to be front of mind, and we will continue to support them throughout their journey at RA Tas.

Green Team

The RA Tas Green Team is made up of staff with a special interest in environmental sustainability. We recognise and are committed to our role in supporting a sustainable environment. This means we are exploring practices that reduce our environmental footprint and lead us to becoming an environmentally sustainable organisation.

Our achievements so far:

• we engaged consultants from Sustainable Living Tasmania to help us better understand our environmental footprint and identify realistic goals
• we installed interval meters at all RA Tas-owned sites to monitor our energy use.
• we conducted energy audits at both our Hobart and Launceston sites to identify opportunities to reduce energy use.
• we installed solar panels, LED lighting transition, window tinting, and draft sealing at our Clare St site.
• we developed an Environmental Sustainability Framework to guide our planning ongoing.

As a business embedded within the communities we serve, it is our responsibility to ensure we are doing our part to lessen the impact of climate change.

As a business embedded within the communities we serve, it is our responsibility to ensure we are doing our part to lessen the impact of climate change.

Walking Together

We are committed to supporting Tasmania’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities. To do our part, we have convened our Walking Together Committee, which is made up of Aboriginal staff and staff connected to the Aboriginal community across Tasmania.

The Walking Together Committee aims to enhance the well-being and expertise of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff while promoting cultural awareness among our employees.

To ensure ongoing commitment, we integrate cultural safety into policies and processes, acknowledging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership and self-determination.

We strive to create programs and services that are relevant and accessible to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities.

Key achievements:

• we introduced a First Nations Cultural Engagement Policy.
• as an organisation we chose not to recognise the 26 January as a public holiday, acknowledging its alienating and painful nature for Aboriginal people, offering staff an alternative day of leave instead.
• a local Aboriginal artist was engaged to design collateral to be used in our services.
• our Childrens Contact Service (CCS) has provided First Nations story books and colouring-in pages for children to complete during visits.
• we endorsed statewide engagement activities for staff, focusing on important dates like National Apology Anniversary, National Close the Gap Day, Reconciliation Week, and NAIDOC Week. Activities involve story-telling, arts projects, and cultural walks to promote inclusivity.

We are proud of our key achievements, and together we will continue to work towards a more inclusive and equitable future for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.