Ambulance Victoria urged to change ‘toxic culture’ in wake of report

Ambulance Victoria has been urged to diversify its board, after the state’s human rights watchdog found women and people from diverse backgrounds were still disadvantaged in the workplace.

Ambulance Victoria has been urged to diversify its board in the wake of a damning report. Picture: David Geraghty

Ambulance Victoria has been urged to diversify its board, after the state’s human rights watchdog found women and people from diverse backgrounds were still disadvantaged in the workplace, which was described by employees as a “boys’ club” and “notoriously corrupt”.

More than 2100 Ambulance Victoria employees took part in a survey by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission as part of the organisation’s workplace culture review.

The final report, released on Thursday, found that while Ambulance Victoria had adopted a range of measures to ensure “fair and inclusive attraction and recruitment efforts”, women and people from diverse backgrounds continue to face “ongoing barriers that impede their access to promotion and career progression”.

One employee told the commission: “At the moment power sits with men. And women are in roles that have no decision rights. We have functional accountabilities … We sit at that table with a functional accountability with no authority. And so, what it would mean to prioritise (workplace equality) would be to share the decision-making rights.”

One Ambulance Victoria staff member says the organisation is ‘notoriously corrupt’. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Another participant said that the people “being tapped on the shoulders for development opportunities seem to always be blokes”.

“ … It’s very much a boys’ club. I think it’s very much who you know. I think you’ll probably hear lots of stories … around nepotism and people getting promoted because they’re mates with the guy who’s in charge,” one employee said.

Another staff member added: “You can have a very good resumé, it means absolutely nothing. They’ll pick who they want, it’s notoriously corrupt”.

The final report made 19 new recommendations on top of 24 that were announced late last year, when it was identified that “incivility, disrespect, discrimination, sexual harassment, bullying and victimisation” was rife across the organisation. Among the new recommendations, the commission identified a need to “proactively increase diversity across the organisation and, in particular, a need to increase the representation of women in senior operational and specialist clinic roles”.

It also called on the organisation to disrupt stereotypes and remove structural barriers to career advancement, advance equal pay and strengthen workplace equality education and training.

The report also found that while the organisation had trialled new ways to work flexibility since the first review, “systemic barriers to flexible work remain” particularly for operational staff which “disproportionately” impact women and workers with parenting and caring responsibilities.

“Ambulance Victoria also does not have dedicated policies and processes regarding reasonable adjustments for workers with disability, or transition to retirement strategies to ensure respectful and non-discriminatory treatment for older workers,” the commission stated.

Ambulance Victoria acting chief executive Libby Murphy says the organisation has accepted, and will implement all of the commission’s recommendations. Picture: Daniel Pockett

Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner Ro Allen has declared it’s time for change within the organisation.

“It’s time for the staff at Ambulance Victoria to give the care and concern to each other that they give to us as Victorians,” they said.

“If they did that, we’d come a long way to meeting these recommendations.”

Ambulance Victoria acting chief executive Libby Murphy said the organisation had accepted, and would implement all of the commission’s recommendations.

“It actually makes me sad that people have had those experiences,” she said.

“The simple fact is we do need to get better. We need to have equality. We need diversity.”

Ms Murphy said allegations voiced by anonymous employees were “concerning”.

Allen said the commission included “a lot of quotes” in the report from individual people to highlight their experiences.

“We certainly haven’t sugar-coated it. Those sorts of stories, we’ve made sure that we put them in the report,” they said.