The quest for indigenous leadership and inclusion within every Australian industry continues to be an important action for structural reform.
IndigenousX - the first 100% indigenous owned and operated media, consultancy, and training organisation - is the leader in cultivating this fight for workplace cultural safety.
At AANA's Reset 2022, Luke Pearson, CEO and founder of IndigenousX, used his stage time to point out how the marketing industry is not doing enough to represent indigenous ideologies and enact justice.
“Our biggest client is indigenous people in organisations who are struggling in your environment. It is not a culturally safe environment.
“They are reaching out for support, and we're (IndigenousX) doing the best we can.”
What is cultural safety?
"Cultural safety is a concept most executives and HR employees will acknowledge, but it “is more than putting Aboriginal artwork in your lobby, which seems to be as far as cultural safety translates into the sectors at the moment.
“When we say creating culturally safe environments, we mean the atmosphere, workplace culture, relationships between people, trust, rapport and the sense of safety.
“Even if I experience racism in an instance with an individual, (cultural safety is knowing) that the institution will respond appropriately.
“You're never going to convince me that I'll never experience racism.
“But you can over time let me know that if it happens that you're on my side and I'm not going to be disbelieved, rejected, told I’m too sensitive, told to ignore it or will be unable to access essential services for fear of negative consequences.”
What can the marketing industry do to lift indigenous representation?
“If there was a list of things that we could do to fix racism, I'd like to think we might have done that by now.
“But there isn't, it is case by case and has to be navigated with self-determination principles.
For example, when hiring indigenous talent, “don't just start with indigenous trainees.
“We need to bring on indigenous CEOs, bring on executive-level people to give them the responsibility to affect change in the system.
“I want to be talking about indigenous executive programs, not indigenous intern training programs.”
Most importantly “measure the work you do.
“Show me the framework, the thing that you've done. What has it achieved? And how do you measure it? That would be a great start."
Although Pearson encourages the industry to look at the bigger picture.
Indigenous representation “does not just look like indigenous involvement in mainstream industries. It is a strong, independent indigenous sector.
“We (IngeniousX) are not representative, we are not large enough. Nor do I necessarily want to aspire to that path.
“I would rather see NITV have the infrastructure.
“I think we're doing a lot of big remodelling, but I'm not sure we're doing better.
“We’ve got to be coming together, speaking the truth and we've got to be listening."
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