We are committed to increasing Indigenous employment opportunities in our business. In partnership with the Federal Government and Diversity Dimensions, Woolworths Group has committed to recruit 1,600 additional Indigenous team members by 2019. Our 2020 target is for Indigenous people to make up at least 2% of our store team and graduates.
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Proportion of Indigenous team members to equal Federal Government Employment Parity contract. Once achieved, 2 per cent of our Store Operations team members will be Indigenous.
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Proportion of Indigenous Graduates to equal Federal Government Employment Parity contract. Once achieved, 2 per cent of our Graduates will be Indigenous.
Resourcing the future
Our Indigenous employment program has continued to help us focus on ‘Resourcing the Future’. With steady growth in applications and job placements, we are proud of our achievements to date. However, we are determined to continue this growth and stay ahead of our Federal Government 2020 parity target.
Since launching in 2015, we have implemented the program in 328 stores and seen an additional 952 Indigenous Australian job seekers placed into permanent part-time employment, with the majority of these positions in regional and remote Australia. This has also led to a significant increase in the number of direct job applications – resulting in an additional 1,082 Indigenous team members joining our Woolworths Group family in the last year alone.
Diversity Dimensions General Manager, Mimi Kind, said: “Woolworths has embraced this program with a level of commitment that inspires us. This is why we are seeing such great results in this program, with a retention rate of over 80% of Indigenous employees that we place. We’ve seen first-hand the positive impact it has had on the lives of individuals, families and their community.”
Key to this success has been the strong senior leadership support and the continued rollout of targeted recruitment directly linked to our workforce plans, as well as the delivery of cultural awareness training by Indigenous mentors to all teams participating in the program.
INDIGENOUS TALENT DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
During the year we commenced development of an Indigenous talent development strategy that is based on the success of our Indigenous employment ‘Resourcing the Future’ Program. For our FY19 Graduate Program, we will proactively work with external partners on a targeted approach to attract and develop Indigenous graduates.
JAWUN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY SECONDMENT PROGRAM
We have continued the partnership between Endeavour Drinks and Jawun – a not-for-profit organisation that supports innovative programs of change in Indigenous communities.
By providing skilled employees, we were able to help in areas such as marketing and business planning – giving much needed help over two separate staff trips to regional areas.
These initiatives added a FY17 contribution of approximately $42,000, as well as our annual $75,000 operating‑cost contribution to the program.
Woolworths Group Head of Diversity and Inclusion, Tony Backshall, and the Tribal Warriors Cultural Dancers during National Reconciliation week, 30 May 2017.