Rick Ede, CEO – Unitec and an OMEGA ‘CEO Mentoring Champion’, explains why participating in OMEGA programmes to support skilled immigrants is the right thing to do for promoting a culture of diversity and innovation.
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Why did you personally get involved with the Mentoring Programme?
It is fundamentally the right thing to do; it is a civic responsibility. Looking at the needs of New Zealand and Auckland over the long term, immigrants arrive here with hope, and what they get is barriers – obstacles to achieving their aspirations. So with relatively minimal time and energy from myself, I can help someone make a positive change in their life. It is part of my personal values.
Several senior staff from Unitec are also mentors. Why did you encourage them to get involved?
Well it was a case of 'signs and symbols', as Unitec's involvement with the mentoring came via two channels: I was getting involved and then our recently appointed Equity & Diversity Manager had also already made contact with OMEGA. We encourage our staff to get involved as the core mission of Unitec is to equip people to meet their aspirations so that they are able to achieve more. So there is a perfect alignment. We also have lots of staff with amazing capabilities at Unitec and part of their day job is to mentor students anyhow, so starting to mentor out there gives us a much broader reach into our community and businesses; it help keeps us relevant.
What collective benefit does the mentoring give Unitec as an organisation?
Most of all it helps to keep us relevant to the world out there. Anything that helps us to maintain an outward focus is worth doing. It also helps build our internal mentoring capability.
How does the growth of diversity awareness, and innovation and creativity interplay with Unitec values?
We have a very diverse student population (more so than for our staff base). So we are really on the pathway somewhere between being aware of diversity, and harnessing the innovation that it can bring. We are on a journey ourselves. We acknowledge the benefits but are not sure yet how to fully capture and use those. We are currently looking at a new strategy to move along that pathway towards it. But we are very clear in our understanding that real – and the most fruitful – innovation comes from the interplay between different disciplines, groups and perspectives, not from things being homogenous.
How do you hope that your collective involvement with the mentoring will affect the culture of Unitec?
Over time it will help us on that journey from diversity to innovation. When more people are exposed to immigrants and what they face, then it helps to build our understanding. My hope is for more staff to get involved – it is a civic responsibility to be involved, but it is also closely aligned to Unitec's core business. We give it our absolute support.
How do you see Unitec's involvement with the mentoring as preparing for the future?
The planning we do as an institution for the long term not only deals with the aspirations of students, but also with Auckland's future workforce needs. Our modelling shows that Auckland is at severe risk of a significant skill shortage in the next twenty years, so we would be foolish to ignore the sitting talent that is currently right here. Putting barriers in the way of people is dumb – we rather need to be maximising the resources on hand. The Mentoring Programme is therefore an excellent way of leveraging existing resources for both now and the future.