Promoting Diversity and Equal Opportunity

We strive to create a rich, diverse workforce. There is strong emphasis on promoting equality to ensure our workplace is free from harassment and discrimination and that all employees have equal access to training, progression and promotion.

Recognising that our workforce is comprised of varied perspectives, viewpoints and backgrounds our Diversity Committee continues to focus on Women in Management, Equal Employment Opportunity, Disability Access and Inclusion and the deployment of our Reconciliation Action Plan.

The following is an update on some key achievements in this area:

Women in Leadership

We believe women have a vital role to play in the leadership of our organisation and in 2013-14 we continued our focus on improving our female representation at senior levels.

The Diversity Committee continued to support the implementation of our ‘Women in Management’ (WiM) Action Plan which targets attracting, retaining and developing women within the organisation, particularly in the technical and professional areas and encouraging women to apply for acting, developmental and promotional opportunities. This year, the WiM Action Plan was refreshed to include a focus on identifying workplace, cultural and attitudinal barriers and unconscious bias against women progressing into senior roles.

The numbers

	2012	2013	2014
Women in the workforce	29.6%	29%	29.7%
Women in Level 5 positions (permanent employees)	28.8%	29.4%	28.1%
Women in Level 6 positions and above (permanent employees)	13.4%	12.9%	15.4%
Women in acting opportunities	32%	34%	33%

Continuing our efforts with our WiM Action Plan, we:

• Provided professional development opportunities for our women through various leadership development programs
• Continued our Professional Women’s Speakers Series, inviting successful professional women to speak about their ‘Road to Success’. Over the past 12 months, we had three senior women in the road construction industry and the Deputy Director General of the Department of Transport, Ms Sue McCarrey, as guest speakers
• Completed the second mentoring program in our Heavy Vehicles Services and Road Network Services, targeting female employees, with 27 partnerships using senior managers in Main Roads and the Department of Transport as mentors;
• Promoted flexible working arrangements in job advertisements and encouraged women and people with diverse backgrounds to apply
• Provided more women with acting and promotional opportunities, and involvement in and management of high profile project work including 2020 strategic projects.

Reconciliation Action Plan and Indigenous Employment

Our Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) can be found on both our website and Reconciliation Australia’s website.

A central component of the RAP is our cultural awareness training program ‘Engaging and Partnering with Indigenous people’. Metropolitan staff, including our Corporate Executive, have continued their training throughout the year with the program to be rolled out to the regions over the next 18 months.

The Diversity Committee is also progressing development of a welcome to country and acknowledgement of country statement awareness program for staff to refer to when organising events where either an acknowledgement of or welcome to country should be conducted.

NAIDOC Week

We recognise the importance of engaging our staff in National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) Week activities throughout the State. This year to commemorate NAIDOC week, a celebration was held for all metropolitan based staff. The regions were invited to join by video-link and to organise their own events. Guest speaks from our supply partners at Brierty and Gateway WA spoke about their culture, practices and achievements concluding with a presentation from Aboriginal Elder Jim Maher on bush tucker before tastings and a bush tucker themed morning tea were provided.

The ROADS Foundation

The ROADS Foundation is an independent not for-profit organisation that focuses on creating training and employment opportunities for young people in the civil construction sector. The foundation advocates for young people from regional areas and marginalised backgrounds – promoting sustainability of the civil construction workforce through development opportunities for regional, disadvantaged and Aboriginal people in Western Australia.

Over the past 12 months there has been significant change and development in the foundation driven by changes in the Board and the implementation of a new strategic plan and operating model. The biggest development was the introduction of a Community Engagement Program which sees greater association and interaction with regional communities as well as the promotion of civil construction career opportunities within schools and community groups across WA.

Family Day

Family Day promotes a healthy work-life balance while recognising contributions to the organisation. Each directorate and region puts together a display for visiting family and friends outlining past achievements and current projects as well as new and upcoming projects and events. The day demonstrates the critical role our families play in our success and the value we place on this. As well as having displays from our directorates, we also seek involvement from the community.

Giving back to the Community

Throughout the year we’ve supported a number of charities including the Starlight Children’s Foundation Australia, SIDS and Cancer Council WA. This complements other initiatives including our ‘Roads to Giving’ program which enables staff to donate to selected charities throughout the year.

Each year we conduct Cancer Council’s Biggest Morning Tea at the Don Aitken Centre and our various regional offices. This year the event raised $2,300 for the Cancer Council.

Blood donation drives are also held across Main Roads through the Red Cross. To date, employees have given blood 30 times this year resulting in the saving of 90 lives. We have 93 employees currently on the blood donation list.

Attraction and Retention

Workforce Planning Process

Our comprehensive workforce planning program revolves around the annual ‘Workforce Planning Cycle’. It helps us formulate a five-year forecast that promotes sustaining our capability into the future by focusing on:

• Profile of the current workforce
• Succession management
• Knowledge management
• Future resource needs
• Environmental factors
• Development employees

Through the cycle, we’ve developed a functional and innovative approach to workforce planning which attracts a high level of participation from Senior Branch Managers and supports forecasting for the future, knowledge management, capability development and development employee programs in line with our strategic direction.

Recruitment

A freeze on Government spending was in place during 2013-14 causing a slight drop in the number of positions advertised. Over the past 12 months we advertised 82 vacancies, receiving 1,532 applications.

	2012	2013	2014
Positions Advertised	128	91	82
Applications Received	1,898	1,653	1,532
Average Applications per Advertised Position	14.8	18.1	18.7

Developing Capabilities

Development Employee Leadership

We promote the development of our next generation workforce through our Development Employee Leadership Program. The program targets development employees in engineering, technical and business streams and is designed to fast-track future leaders and specialists through ongoing formal training, coaching and mentoring, rotations and on-the-job learning.

Executive and Senior Manager Development

Thirty eight senior leaders across the organisation have been involved in two new leadership programs designed to provide the tools to meet the leadership needs of the 2020 strategy. This year’s Leadership for Change Program involved five facilitated workshops while the Leadership Enhancement Program is delivered in partnership with Curtin Executive Education. The program includes five leaders from one of our portfolio partners, enhancing our relationship with the Department of Transport.

Lunch and Learn Seminars

Our Learning and Development Branch continued to deliver the highly successful ‘Lunch and Learn’ series this year. Designed to enhance leadership and creativity, these short and dynamic workshops target key competencies with our Leadership Competency Framework.

The highly practical sessions provide employees with useful tips and tools that can be applied immediately within their roles. The session content is based on competencies that have been identified as gaps in the Individual Performance Agreement Process, and participants who have identified competencies relevant to the session are invited to attend.

TechXchange

Running since 2005, this one-hour, monthly forum provides an opportunity for technical experts to share their knowledge and experience with other employees and technical partners.

The sessions are designed to benefit all staff and stakeholders looking to improve their technical skills and network with our technical gurus.

On average, each session attracts 90 people with some Special TechXChange presentations attracting and audience in excess of 300 people.

Competency Development

The numbers:

• Close to 50% of our workforce has fewer than 10 years’ work experience with Main Roads
• 47%% of our workforce are over 50 years of age
• 31% are already over retirement age

These figures highlight just how critical it is to expedite the competency development of our younger employees who will be our workforce of the future.

The Competency Development System was integrated into the new online Employee Development System and the new Individual Performance Agreements. This competency-based approach promotes targeted development of relevant leadership and technical competencies of each employee through Individual Performance Agreements.

The system focuses on both operational needs and the career development needs of our employees. It supports our workforce planning, succession planning, knowledge management and learning and development strategies.

Training on the new online Individual Performance Agreement process, including competency development, was conducted across the organisation and regions during 2013.

Innovation

We strive to create and foster and environment where innovative thinking is encouraged, recognised and rewarded. To aid that we have adopted a more integrated, systematic way of fostering and implementing new and exciting initiatives that help us achieve our corporate goals including promoting our innovation research and development program.

This year, Senior Design Engineer Bruce Snook was recognised for his contribution to innovation by receiving the 2013 Managing Director’s Excellence Award for Innovation. Bruce oversaw the design of an on-ramp to Mitchell Freeway from the Graham Farmer Freeway’s Loftus Street exit. This new design provided a safe solution for those vehicles travelling from Graham Farmer Freeway who needed to enter the Mitchell Freeway. To read more about this project, please refer to the Road Management section.

Looking Ahead

• Developing the capacity of our people to demonstrate innovative leadership and management practices.
• Optimising productivity by accurately measuring the value of our people and creating an environment that fosters innovation.
• Building strategic relationships to contribute to our strategic planning.
• Developing initiatives and strategies to guide our corporate direction.