BHP WA iron ore asset president Brandon Craig pens his thoughts on inclusive and diverse workforces.
Gender equity - two small words that don’t mean a lot separately, but together their collective impact is changing workplaces around the world.
In Western Australia’s mining industry and BHP’s global operations, these two words have been and continue to be an unprecedented game changer.
In 2016, we made a commitment to achieve gender balance within our global workforce by FY2025, but this commitment was never just about the numbers.
Having a diverse and inclusive workplace is fundamentally important to the culture we want in our industry and at BHP – a place where it’s safe to speak up, share ideas and debate and enable and develop people in exciting and meaningful work, in an interesting and enjoyable environment.
It’s evident through our lived experience that an inclusive and diverse workforce fosters greater safety, productivity and wellbeing.
Our data shows employees are happier, more collaborative and engaged and that is critical to our ability to attract and retain employees.
At BHP and in WA Iron Ore, we are making strong progress towards gender equity and our focus on creating a more representative workforce is delivering results.
We are reflecting and acting on employee feedback to address emerging issues and drive performance improvement and our workplaces are becoming more open, engaging and dynamic.
Twenty years ago when I started my mining career, diversity levels in our industry were incredibly low. Like my peers I wanted to grow my knowledge, skills and career experience.
And after working in a number of international locations with both locals and ex-pats, I quickly came to understand the significant value and enjoyment of working with people from different cultural backgrounds, genders and beliefs.
This early realisation shaped my leadership and fuelled my passion and focus to shape and change the ‘traditional’ structure of our mining workplace, enable greater diversification and representation of people and to make the industry a much better place to work.
But for me it’s not just about the end game, it’s about how we go about achieving these results that is equally important.
To create a dynamic and high performing culture it is critical that we value the individual contributions of every person in our business – both men and women.
We also need to ensure that our progress towards achieving gender equity is guided by careful and purposeful work design coupled with a competitive process, to select the best talent for our business. A strong focus on merit is vital to achieving change and ensuring that change enhances culture and lifts business performance.
Men in our business must also be valued and not limited in their potential for advancement as should women, with the knowledge they too have succeeded on merit.
While research shows progress on achieving gender equality globally is slow, we’re confident of achieving our targets. We recently announced that 33.6 per cent of our global workforce are women, up from 17.6 per cent when we set our aspirational goal in 2016.
Our newest mine South Flank is leading the way on diversification, a result of strong leadership and purpose-built programs where we’ve achieved 40% female and 15% Indigenous representation at that site.
Researchers at Melbourne’s Monash University have found South Flank is the most gender-balanced large mine in Australia and, likely, the world.
It’s a big statement.
The research which they plan to publish in the next few months, has found the progress made at South Flank has been underpinned by several factors including strong leadership, target setting, significant investment, the use of science and data, and importantly a recognition that achieving gender equity is hard.
We have a solid plan and are heading in the right direction, but there is still much more that we can do as we learn from this process to support change at BHP and across the entire industry.
The single biggest learning I’ve had on our journey to grow gender diversity and inclusivity in our business, is really that leap of faith you have to make and trust – that the perseverance and effort will achieve a better workplace.
This is a huge focus for us as a business and for me personally, as the leader of WAIO.
We don’t claim to have all the answers but we are committed to achieving a workplace that provides a rewarding and enjoyable environment for everyone. A place where people have a voice and can speak their minds, where being part of a team means something and working together in pursuit of something bigger than ourselves is both motivating and real.
But we also have some challenges to overcome as we have seen from the cases of sexual assault and sexual harassment across the industry, to which we are not immune.
We are implementing plans – from structural investments to behavioural changes – at every level of the organisation to ensure our workplaces are a safe space, where people are encouraged to speak up and call out unacceptable behaviour. It’s a key priority that requires support and action from everyone in our business and a material risk that’s being addressed in every single operation in our Asset.
The decisions we made at BHP a few years ago are paying dividends today and our strategy across the mining industry has been unique.
When I joined our iron ore business two years ago we created and embedded a robust integrated workforce strategy to drive stronger inclusion and diversity outcomes in our business.
We’ve focused on finding people who have never historically participated or thought about a career in mining or at BHP. We’re making significant investments in work re-design, training and development to give new to industry workers the skills and tools to work safely and thrive.
We’re also supporting educational programs which encourage students – especially girls – to study STEM subjects and better understand career opportunities and pathways to employment across the sector. We are planning for our future workforce with several new to industry entry pathways including through our Rail Academy in Port Hedland.
Over the next 12 months we expect more than 200 apprentices and 170 trainees to enter our Future Fit Academy in Perth and subject to successful completion of their programs, these graduates will be offered roles across the business including iron ore.
We’re changing our rosters to enable employees to spend more time with family and offering greater flexible work arrangements than ever before to foster a better work-life balance. We’re also tackling one of our biggest challenges - access to childcare in regional areas – and working with a range of stakeholders on sustainable solutions.
Large organisations are in a unique and privileged position to help those most in need of being understood and accepted both in the community and workplace, where they can participate with dignity and respect.
Within BHP, we have several ally groups to help employees, their colleagues, friends and families, to understand and support inclusion and diversity.
These include Jasper which supports our LGBT+ community, Amber our newly established accessibility and inclusion network focused on people with disability, as well as carers and allies, and NeuroBHP which supports neurodiverse people. Our newest employee resource group EmBRace, is currently establishing chapters across the globe to discuss and celebrate our racial diversity and address racism.
We are working hard to drive deeper engagement of respectful behaviours across our operations to create more inclusive workplaces.
By mid-2023, every employee will undertake Active Bystander training so they feel more comfortable and confident in calling out disrespectful behaviour.
And with the support of Monash University, for the first time ever our South Flank mine will conduct a study to measure the effectiveness of this type of training to keep learning and improving.
On one of my recent trips to our Pilbara operations a number of people shared their thoughts with me about the positive changes we are making in our workplaces, as well as the things we can still do better such as listening, speaking up and actioning feedback.
It highlighted to me that as leaders, we have an obligation to set the tone ‘from the top’ about our goals for inclusion and diversity.
We need to ensure everyone understands the benefits of achieving the best possible culture in our workplace, which is supported by having the best people across the broadest available talent pool and creating the environment where these high performing employees can thrive.
In my mind, one thing is certain. If we get this right, it will make a significant difference to the lives of thousands of people and create a workplace where everyone has a positive and rewarding experience, where every person can start each day with a sense of purpose and end each day with a sense of accomplishment and pride.
