Creating a postive culture

In 2021 Recorded Music adopted Guiding Principles which include:

• We are leaders in fostering a safe, respectful and inclusive culture
• We acknowledge Māori as tangata whenua of Aotearoa and we are committed to our journey to respect and honour Te Ao Māori

As a leadership organisation, we believe that what we do can help to set the tone for the culture of our music industry and community. This page includes our policies and some initiatives in this area.

Recorded Music’s work around safety and harm prevention has been informed by the independent report Creating culture change around sexual harm in the music community in Aotearoa published in July 2021 by SoundCheck Aotearoa. The report summarised feedback from across the music community and highlighted the problems and challenges, as well as recommendations for everyone in the music community to play their part in driving change. We have taken up a number of the independent expert recommendations from that report, and we are proud to be a founding supporter and ongoing funder of SoundCheck Aotearoa.

First and foremost we acknowledge that as a national representative music body we want to create true and meaningful partnerships with tangata whenua, in addition to our activities that are supporting the revitalisation and growth of waiata reo Māori. We recognise we have more work to do in this area and we will be working with advisors and the Māori Music Industry Coalition to take this mahi forward.

Recorded Music Code of Conduct

Recorded Music’s Code of Conduct outlines the expectations that we have of those that work for us and those we work with, both inside and outside the organisation. The Code of Conduct includes principles around respecting others, acting lawfully and with integrity and acting safely and responsibly.

We have taken steps to embed the Code of Conduct across our activities, and you can expect to see more about it when you engage with us or attend our events. For example, we expect recipients of music grants to comply with the Code of Conduct and to promote its values across the activities that we fund and support. We also have Conduct Expectations around the Aotearoa Music Awards, see further below.

Safety – sexual harassment, harassment & bullying

Our policies and other work in this area are included below. If you are looking for help or advice regarding sexual harassment, harassment or bullying, please refer to the resources and contact details on the website of SoundCheck Aotearoa

Other support services available to everyone in the music community can be found on the website of MusicHelps

• Prevention of and response to sexual harassment, harassment and bullying policy: Our policy addresses legal requirements and sets out our commitment to prevention, as well as a clear process for reporting incidents of sexual harassment, harassment, and bullying, and a process for how we will deal with reports and complaints that we receive. Read it here. We have also set up a confidential channel for those who don’t want to formally report
• Professional Respect training: All of our staff and Board have attended SoundCheck Aotearoa Professional Respect training days to gain an understanding of prevention of and response to sexual harm
• Recorded Music Grants scheme: While we expect our Music Grants recipients to comply with our Code of Conduct and laws generally, from September 2021 we have explicitly required recipients to be aware of and comply with their obligations under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. These include obligations to manage the risks of sexual harassment, harassment and bullying as per WorkSafe guidance
• Bullying & Harassment training: All of our staff have attended training with an external HR consultancy to gain an understanding of prevention and response to bullying and harassment

Aotearoa Music Awards

We are proud to be the host and kaitiaki of the Aotearoa Music Awards (AMA), and as such we want everyone involved to celebrate and enjoy themselves, but also to feel safe, included and respected within the environment that we create.

That’s why in 2021 we introduced Conduct Expectations for AMA, which apply to everyone involved with the Awards.

Representation & Inclusion

Recorded Music NZ has a small staff of 14 people but we recognise that we have a wider impact as a leadership organisation in the music community and that we need to do more to drive better representation and inclusion both internally and externally.

We have adopted a policy statement on Representation and Inclusion which continues to guide all of our activities. Applicants to our Music Grants programme are required to consider representation and inclusion within their funded activities, and we are actively promoting it within the Aotearoa Music Awards.