Our vision at Auror is to provide a place where everyone can do their best work. Part of this involves cultivating an inclusive environment, where people feel seen, heard, and valued. Celebrating people’s achievements - whether it’s on a job exceptionally well done or achieving a personal milestone - is important to us, and so is celebrating commemorative events. 

In June, we “Sweat with Pride” in New Zealand to raise critical funds for LGBTQIA+ organizations. And in the US, we volunteered, fundraised, and got our running shoes on for Pride to help the local Rainbow community in Colorado, where our US team is based. 

We recognized that June 19th was Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the end of slavery in the US. This is an important day to recognize and celebrate, especially as it’s a day that has seen a resurgence in acknowledgement, notably with the signing of the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act in 2021. 

At the end of the month we celebrate Matariki - the Māori New Year. 2022 is the first year Matariki is recognized as a public holiday, although Māori communities have celebrated it since the beginning of time. Matariki refers to a cluster of stars known in English as ​​Pleiades, or the Seven Sisters, which are closely tied to planting, harvesting and hunting. At the heart of the celebration is Mātauranga Māori (wisdom and knowledge of the Māori people). It’s a time to honor those lost since the last Matariki, gather together to give thanks, and look forward to the future.

Beyond June, there are a raft of commemorative days and months that are important to Aurors, including - but definitely not limited to - Waitangi Day, International Women’s Day, Black History Month, Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, R U OK? Day, World Mental Health Day, and more. 

Why are these celebrations important to us at Auror? Our team is based across several different locations across the world - New Zealand, North America, Australia and the United Kingdom - and we’re made up of a multitude of different backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, and identities. We’re extremely proud to have this diversity reflected in the people who work at Auror and also in the people we partner with. We want everyone to feel like they can acknowledge and celebrate the things that matter the most to them.

Our mission to create a place where everyone can do their best work drives our focus on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. It is also at the heart of our approach to the benefits we offer as a company - including Shorter Work Weeks, flexible working, and the various ways we support our people’s mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing.

We acknowledge that we’re very much on a journey and there is always more work for us to do. There may be occasions where we might unwittingly miss a commemoration or it’s not as public of a celebration in some of the countries where we’re based. In these situations, we welcome feedback from the team and partners, and we’ll work together to learn what’s important to people and how they would like the occasion to be recognized. 

We hope that, over time, by bringing awareness to the historical, social, and cultural significance of these various celebrations, we continue to empower our team to upskill their allyship, advocate for others, and help to build our inclusive company culture.