Aktive Auckland the first sporting organisation to receive cultural intelligence tick

Aktive - Auckland Sport & Recreation has revealed that it has been awarded the Cultural Intelligence (CQ) Tick from the Superdiversity Institute - the first sport and recreation organisation to receive the acknowledgement.

To receive the CQ Tick, organisations undertake the CQ Tick Programme to measure the existing level of cultural intelligence and capability of staff and management so that gaps and strengths can be identified, addressed and built on to increase CQ.

Advising that the organisation greatly valued the assessment and support around understanding and developing its cultural capability, Aktive Chief Executive, Dr Sarah Sandley stated “we are delighted to receive the CQ Tick from the Superdiversity Institute and excited to be the first sport and recreation organisation to do so.

“We undertook this process to measure our existing level of cultural intelligence and cultural capability to identify where there are opportunities to further build our understanding and expertise in this important area.

“Aktive is committed to diversity and inclusion and the findings establish a valuable benchmark for us. This helps us attract, retain and grow our team to better reflect the increasingly diverse community of Tāmaki Makaurau which we represent and work with.”

Key findings from the CQ Survey indicate that Aktive is already superdiverse with 25% of respondents identifying as Māori and more than 25% respondents born outside of New Zealand. The organisation is represented by a range of ages and 14 different ethnicities with team members speaking six languages fluently.

Superdiversity Institute Chair, Mai Chen highlights the value of these findings, adding “the benefit of Aktive’s CQ Tick journey is that its diversity transformation can take place from the inside out by celebrating and empowering its existing team members to bring their whole selves to work.

“This helps the retention of staff, builds the organisation’s diverse culture and improves the service provided to the end customers who are increasingly superdiverse. This is critical given the organisation is committed to being reflective of the community it serves -the rapidly growing superdiverse city of Auckland.

“Aktive’s response rate to the survey was encouraging; the highest we have experienced to date. It is also great to see that it is the first sport and recreation organisation to receive the CQ Tick. We look forward to helping other enterprises in this sector assess their cultural capability. Sports organisation need to engage with the growing superdiverse population to get players, coaches, funders and fans.”

Aktive has a number of existing diversity policies and activities in place, including the Aktive Māori Advisory Group which contributes to the organisation’s strategic focus; the regional scaling of the increasingly popular ActivAsian that encourages growing participation in the Asian community; and HERA - Everyday Goddess, focused on engaging 10-18 year old girls in sport and recreation.