Inclusion and Belonging
Our vision is to embrace every aspect of diversity and inclusion, build on the progress we have already made and continue to make a difference through the personal and professional opportunities we provide for our people.
Our future vision is one where Downer’s culture is truly reflective of the communities in which we live and operate. A culture in which every employee feels respected, valued and comfortable to own their difference. Downer acknowledges that inclusion and belonging is complex and continually evolving. We will ensure our strategies, programs and policies are reviewed and updated in line with changes to business requirements and macro-environment factors, as they emerge.
Our people are our most important asset, and we will continue to invest in awareness and education programs, ensuring all people have access to opportunities to develop and grow – personally and professionally.
Downer is committed to making diversity, belonging and inclusion a strategic organisational objective. This objective requires greater analysis of our demographic data, targeted investment to support under-represented groups and actively listening to our people to amplify all voices and continue to drive inclusion objectives.
Downer does not tolerate any form of exclusive behaviour including unlawful discriminatory bias, vilification, harassment, or any other type of unethical behaviour where individuals feel isolated and where the behaviour does not reflect Downer’s values.
Gender diversity
Downer is committed to improving opportunities for employees of all genders to reach their potential through an inclusive work environment, while positioning Downer as a preferred employer of choice.
We acknowledge that females working in predominantly male-dominated industries face various challenges as part of their work environment.
Downer believes that gender should not be a factor when we make decisions on rewarding our team members. We will continue to drive this expectation commencing from the point of recruitment, at each promotion and through our Annual Remuneration Review process.
Downer continues to report annually to Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) and use the report and industry comparisons to look for improvements in policies and practices to address any gender pay disparities within Australia.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
Downer’s vision for reconciliation is one where all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are treated equally in all relationships and their cultures and histories are celebrated and respected.
We are committed to continue increasing Downer’s cultural competency, knowledge and capability, and to being an organisation that demonstrates leadership and respects Indigenous communities right across Australia.
Through our Indigenous Engagement team, we support, inform and partner with Business Units to help them understand the importance of cultural heritage, cultural protocols and various ways that Downer can contribute to closing the gap towards true reconciliation. This team works with community leaders, employees and recognised Aboriginal businesses to develop plans that deliver work through sustainable employment and subcontractor opportunities.
Māori cultural diversity
In New Zealand, Downer’s Māori culture and development programs are highly visible demonstrations of our genuine commitment to supporting cultural diversity.
Cultural diversity
Downer acknowledges that Australia and New Zealand are among the most culturally diverse countries in the world. Downer is committed to creating a workplace that is inclusive and recognises the value of our diverse workforce. Our behaviours and interactions are founded on mutual respect where all people, communities and cultures are recognised, valued and celebrated. Building a diverse and inclusive workplace is key to achieving our workforce strategy and relies on a robust, functional and integrated talent management framework. We recognise that the right culture provides a significant competitive advantage in not only attracting and retaining talent but also supporting our people to feel valued and reach their potential. Downer’s partnership with CareerSeekers, a non-profit organisation supporting Australian humanitarian entrants into professional careers, has resulted in refugees and asylum seekers entering our graduate and internship programs.
Generational diversity
Downer sees itself as a market leader in supporting employees across all age groups and generations. We are recognised as an organisation that builds a talent pipeline of thought leaders and values the experience and knowledge of all employees. With more than 40 per cent of our employees over 42 years old, we recognise the importance of ensuring that all generations within our workforce are recognised and that we adapt to meet the needs they have. Downer has targeted strategies to support our employees at various stages of their careers – this includes our flexible work practice, which enables our workforce to phase to retirement, take on part-time opportunities or adjust working hours to meet their lifestyle choices.
Graduates: Downer’s Graduate program continues to be a successful and sustainable pipeline for employees entering the business in their chosen discipline. We continue to undertake reviews of our programs to ensure they remain fit for purpose. We are continually adapting our employee development approach to meet the needs of the individual – this includes a regular review or our Graduate program. This two-year program supports graduate learning through organisational rotations, structured development objectives and pathways and continuous learning opportunities. Our Graduate program continues to grow and evolve in response to changes dictated by the external market and our internal demand for new skills and capabilities.
Apprentices: Downer’s Apprentice program remains critical to the delivery of our projects and contracts by ensuring current and future skills gaps are fulfilled. We work with our apprentice support network providers, State-based regulators, TAFEs and Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) to provide opportunities for additional support for apprentices such as resilience training, mentoring support and funding programs. We work with RTOs to develop a training program that delivers the necessary work experience and exposure, and contextualised learning aligned to current and future business needs, as well as supporting life skills. Apprentices and trainees are offered the same employee benefits as all our employees, including mentoring support and access to Downer’s Employee Assistance Program. The Downer Standard provides a certified and audited governance framework and standard for the management of apprentices and trainees across the Group. We have collated our apprenticeship and traineeship data into one centralised Apprentice Register to allow for easier access to data to assist with reporting requirements and information for bids. Working with Group recruitment, we organise regular organisation-wide intakes and recruitment drives each year to offer the business a consistent approach to fulfilling their needs.
LGBTQIA+ diversity
Downer aims to create a welcoming and safe environment where all employees who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, asexual and other diverse genders, sexes and sexualities feel comfortable and supported to bring their whole selves to work. Downer seeks to provide an environment where employees are not afraid of being bullied or harassed because of their identity and sexual orientation. Downer is committed to increasing awareness, understanding and respect for the LGBTQIA+ community in the workplace.
Workforce retention and attraction
Our integrated talent management process provides the foundations for strategic and operational workforce planning, recruitment and selection and employee development requirements across Downer. We are acutely aware of the increasingly competitive labour market and, as a result, Downer’s talent attraction and retention techniques have evolved and adapted to ensure we have the right skills in the right place at the right time.
We recognise the need to keep supporting schools and tertiary education providers to ensure we position Downer as a destination employer – an organisation that provides the opportunity to build and sustain a rewarding career. Our workforce development and recruitment teams continue to attend Careers Fairs and Expos to promote the opportunities Downer has to offer.
Downer relies heavily on technical skills-based tradespeople and all disciplines of engineering, project management, commercial and risk management and actively recruits to seek interest from the right people with the required skills in anticipation of the mobilisation of projects and contracts. This requires collaboration between the Recruitment teams and Bid and Operational teams to forecast needs and develop plans to build a capable workforce using external and internal channels.
Our talent pools have expanded to include working with our corporate philanthropy partners to provide career pathways to meet the growing skills demand within Downer, while supplying the people in our communities with career pathways and development opportunities.
We regularly monitor the labour and industry markets in which we work to:
- Be aware and respond to national and State-based skills shortages
- Understand our workforce planning requirements across the entire company to ensure we have the right skills in the right places for successful delivery
- Develop agile and sustainable retention strategies
- Retain and transition specialist and skilled workers across the Group
- Involve our operational and HR/IR teams in bids and tenders
- Analyse tertiary education and school leavers’ choices and pathways (i.e. upcoming talent pipeline)
- Benchmark and adjust employment packages to remain competitive
- Ensure we are agile in our approach to the changing needs of our people and communities
- Embed our integrated talent management framework to provide company-wide strategy and governance
- Direct our workforce development strategy and plans.
Talent Management and Succession Planning
We recognise that everyone at Downer is different. Our people are encouraged to participate in employee development plans to identify career goals and develop structured career pathways. We focus on identifying high performers from both leadership and individual contributor streams. Recognising the subject matter experts and individual contributors in our business is critical to our success. Our leadership pipeline remains strong with a continued focus on internal mobility across the organisation and the identification of our future leaders.
Remuneration and reward
Downer implements a remuneration and reward strategy which focuses on market competitive remuneration packages to attract and retain industry-leading talent. This strategy draws on the collective remuneration experience of our team and includes a focus on industry competitiveness and further incentives.
Freedom of association and collective bargaining
Downer has a large network of worksites, primarily across Australia and New Zealand, and the working arrangements and conditions differ, subject to the type of work performed and the requirements of our commercial relationships.
As an organisation, Downer acknowledges collective bargaining as an effective approach to building beneficial working arrangements that are market competitive, are inclusive and collaborative in their construction, and assist Downer to retain our people.
Where our people choose to be members of an industrial association, we respect and acknowledge that choice and we work to establish outcomes through collective negotiations.
Downer’s capability in this area is strong, as we have invested in an internal training and development program for managers and operational leaders to both understand the complex Industrial Relations (IR) environment and to be deeply involved in the solutions derived through collective bargaining.
These Enterprise Agreement (EA) solutions are led by the IR representatives embedded across the organisation. Downer has more than 150 EAs in place, with roughly one-third of these agreements being re-negotiated each year.
Employee benefits
We understand that Downer employees are regular consumers. By leveraging our organisation’s size, we are able to access a range of benefits with large discounts to help our workers and their families.
All full-time and part-time employees at Downer’s major Australian and New Zealand sites receive access to benefits including:
- Professional development: study assistance, training, mentoring and secondments across the business
- Financial and other benefits: salary sacrifice superannuation, novated leasing, leave entitlements, banking discounts and offers, and employee recognition
- Health and wellbeing: flexible work arrangements, discounted health insurance and health check-ups
- Lifestyle benefits: discounted vehicle rentals and leasing deals, discounted technology products and a wide range of shopping offers.
Parental leave benefits
Parental leave is available to eligible employees. The total number of employees who took Parental Leave in FY22 can be found in the ‘Our performance’ section.
Employee engagement survey
In order to continue to be a preferred employer of choice, it is important that we seek regular feedback from our people on what it is like working at Downer. One of the key channels to gather this information is our annual employee engagement survey, which is conducted during May of each year.