New research shows leaders and teams across New Zealand workplaces are committed to building inclusive cultures but are being held back by a lack of robust strategies, processes and policies to support that mahi.
The findings are part of the just-released Workplace Inclusion Barometer Snapshot covering data collected in the four-month period from December 2025 to March 2026.
The research looks at how people perceive inclusion in their workplaces across four key indicators, providing an overall inclusion score.
Te Uru Tāngata Centre for Workplace Inclusion Chief Executive Maretha Smit says this first snapshot from the barometer survey provides a baseline index of 65.6, which indicates a perception of a moderately inclusive culture in workplaces in Aotearoa.
“People are finding that individual behaviours and relationships in organisations are more supportive of inclusion than the structures that are in place in our workplaces to enable an inclusive environment.
“We’ve been aware for some years that this is the case in New Zealand – there is a high level of charitable intent to be inclusive and equitable. However, the structural conditions to support inclusion are lacking.
“Essentially, organisations are being perceived to be inclusive despite themselves. The people driving that inclusion are carrying more than the structures can support.”
This creates several risks for organisations.
When the people driving inclusion mahi in a workplace leave the organisation, the forward momentum often halts.
Without well-developed strategies, policies and processes, team members experience inclusion inconsistently.
Long-term, organisations can find themselves unprepared as the demographic of the talent pool shifts.
“If organisations don’t do the work of structurally embedding inclusion, the accelerating shift in the diversity of the talent pool is going to catch them out. They won’t be ready to welcome all the new demographics into their workplace, and their people will experience the workplace becoming less consistently inclusive,” Maretha says.
The Workplace Inclusion Barometer is a rolling, always-open survey designed to measure workplace inclusion across four domains: trust and belonging, lived experience, structural conditions and observed inclusion climate.
“It will allow us to connect the dots between conditions in workplaces and how those contribute to the overall objective of building social cohesion in New Zealand to support better social and economic outcomes.”
For organisations to thrive, they need a culture of inclusion, Maretha says.
That culture of inclusion has a ripple effect beyond organisations and contributes to social cohesion more broadly.
This research is being funded for the next two years by the Clare Foundation.
“It will allow us to work with individual organisations to map their inclusion scores and benchmark them against the national average.
“Then we can help them put the systems, policies and processes in place to support their intent to be a fair and inclusive workplace.”
Do you agree with the findings? Share your views and experiences for the next Workplace Inclusion Barometer snapshot.
If you would like to find out more about how your people perceive inclusion in your workplace, contact us on consultancy@workplaceinclusion.org.nz