We believe our business should reflect the diverse communities we operate in and we are committed to initiatives that encourage diversity and support inclusion.

Inclusivity is one of our organisation’s values and through this value we want to ensure people feel respected and included, every day, when they come to work.

Disability

As part of our Accessibility Action Plan, we aim to attract and recruit candidates from a diverse talent pool and are currently working towards becoming a Disability Confident Recruiter, an accreditation program administered by the Australian Network on Disabilty. Once accredited we will have a barrier free recruitment process. The retention and development of all employees is important to Australia Post, including employees with a disability.

We have established an employee reference group, Accessibility Matters, comprising employees with a disability and their managers. Monthly meetings are live-captioned so that deaf attendees can fully participate. This group is providing valuable feedback on our systems and processes, identifying where we can improve the employee value proposition for our people with a disability.

Investing in our Indigenous workforce

As at 30 June 2019, we employed 675 people who identify as Indigenous. This equates to 1.92 per cent of our employed workforce, which is just below our 2018/19 target of 2.6 per cent. We are working to grow our peak, fixed and permanent Indigenous workforce and will invest in new apprenticeship pathways with StarTrack to build our Indigenous workforce.

Through our Indigenous Employee Care program, we provide support to our current Indigenous employees, to improve engagement and reduce attrition. We are creating a pipeline of Indigenous leaders through our Indigenous Emerging Leaders program, designed to inspire and connect award- level colleagues who would like to become people managers.

This year we held our first Indigenous Network Meetings across the country, providing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees with the opportunity to connect and learn about each other’s journey and build a support network within our business.

Reconciliation Action Plan

We continue to make progress on our Reconciliation Action Plan 2017- 2020 (RAP). We are monitoring our deliverables through the RAP Working Group, which meets quarterly. A number of our RAP programs and initiatives have executive sponsorship and support from senior leaders across our operations. We are procuring more services from Indigenous businesses and making sustained progress against our RAP targets.

Celebrating our Indigenous workforce

We celebrated NAIDOC Week in July 2018, honouring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and the roles they play in our communities, reflecting NAIDOC’s theme “Because of her, we can”. On the road, many of our delivery trucks proudly displayed Indigenous artwork and celebrations were held around Australia.

We also marked Reconciliation Week, from 27 May – 3 June 2019, by hosting events, breakfasts and morning teas and providing an opportunity for our people to come together and reflect on the significant milestones in the reconciliation journey.

We support the Indigenous Reading Project, which aims to improve the reading ability of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students through their E-Reading project. Tablets and e-books are provided to children to encourage them to read and measure their progress. Our support of this project in 2018 included packing and delivering 150 parcels, delivered to 51 school communities across Australia.

CASE STUDY: Our Indigenous history uncovered

To mark NAIDOC Week, Dale Mickelo from Northgate Mail Centre investigated the Indigenous heritage of suburb names. He extended his investigations to include suburbs named after explorers, settlers and other aspects of European culture, to celebrate National Reconciliation Week.

“Then I suggested that the labels we use to despatch to delivery centres could have the meaning printed on them,” Dale said. “For example, Capalaba is Kapella Ba, meaning place of ring-tailed bush possum and Toowong means Storm Bird.”

“It was a great way of educating people about Indigenous languages of the area and recognising the heritage of our suburb names.”

Embracing our cultural diversity

We embrace our cultural diversity and celebrate the 146 ethnic backgrounds and 64 languages spoken by our people. Almost a quarter of our workforce (22.5 per cent) come from non-English speaking backgrounds.

Our annual Taste of Harmony activities brought people together with food and a chance to learn about each other’s cultures. At sites across Australia, people shared food and customs, wore traditional costumes and hung national flags. Recipes were swapped and people shared stories of why the food they brought in was important to them. From falafel, lambshanks and curries, to baklava, sushi and lamingtons, the range of food was vast and the lunch room tables were abundant with colour.

These celebrations reflect our value of Inclusivity, ensuring people feel respected and included.

Our Pride network

PostPride is our employee network of people who are interested in joining, supporting or learning more about the Australia Post LGBTI+ community. This network is for everyone, LGBTI+ employees and allies.

We have recently established state-based PostPride teams to ensure we support our people across the country, including facilitating connections to reach out to our regional teammates.

We supported a diverse program of activities during the year, including pride marches in Melbourne, Sydney, Geelong and Perth; sponsoring the Midsumma and Australia Post Art Prize; and launching the Rainbow Peer support group.

CASE STUDY: Rainbow peer support group

At times, it can be tough to talk about issues we face at home or in the workplace. We acknowledge at times our people may not want to discuss concerns with a trained professional, and would rather talk to a “mate”. Not only a mate, but someone on the same wavelength that they trust. Someone who understands and supports all matters LGBTI+.

Customer Contact Centre employee Stu Reynolds is leading an initiative that facilitates these conversations and embodies all of our values. He is leading the Rainbow Peer Support Group, a referral group available to help anyone in the organisation to reach out for confidential support for LGBTI+ matters.

“We are not counsellors. We simply listen and guide people toward the right avenues for tailored support, such as EAP or local services,” Stu said.

“It’s available to all Australia Post Group staff from Brisbane to Broome, and everywhere in between.”

This network has been developed to support our LGBTI+ employees to ensure we continue to provide a safe and inclusive culture for all our people.

Gender balance

We measure pay parity with reference to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) guidance by aggregating and comparing annualised full time equivalent base salaries for male and female permanent and fixed term employees. We define gender pay parity as within a +/-2 per cent band.

In recent years, however, we have noticed an increase in the number of women leaving our workforce, particularly in operational areas, so we have developed a Women@Post strategy to improve how we attract, grow and retain our female employees.

The strategy aims to reduce the turnover of female employees, attract women to operational roles and promote engagement and inclusion through cultural readiness activities.

Part of the strategy is an eight-week program, liaising with business leaders and HR to understand the experience of employees and develop recommendations for change. This program was piloted at a number of our deliveries facilities in Sydney and the results were analysed to identify main themes and insights to set the foundation for activities to attract women to work at Australia Post – and retain them.

We also support the development and retention of female employees through ProjectMe, a seven-week career and personal development program designed to give our women the tools to build resilience, self- awareness and career agility.

Another program, Elevate, creates a cohort of high potential women with the confidence and capability to set up, drive business outcomes and challenge the status quo. Through the success of this program, we have been able to identify and develop a strong pipeline of female talent to move into leadership roles.

For the second year, in partnership with Wodonga Institute of TAFE, Volvo Group, Transport Women Australia and Linfox, we supported seven candidates to retrain as a professional driver. Candidates came from across the business to train for their Heavy Rigid driver’s licence.

Our workforce: Diversity and turnover rates

Our workforce statistics