Sustainability

Looking Ahead

Projects and activities planned for next financial year, some of which have already commenced, include the following:

• meeting the challenge of attracting and retaining appropriately skilled employees, particularly in regional areas
• improving our recruitment strategy to better position us in the recruitment market
• consolidating the Regional Engineering Associate Traineeship Program in order to help build a sustainable workforce in the regions
• continuing a focus on increased Aboriginal employment and creating pathway programs beyond the traditional university stream
• continuing workforce planning with a strong focus on providing the information to enable us to make strategic decisions for our future workforce.

Our Profile

We have 1,237 people, this helps to share a little about who we are.

* Figures do not represent an accurate profile of our diversity, as the information is provided by self-declaration.

** In September 2020 the Public Sector Commission defined culturally diverse to exclude ABS defined countries as mainly English speaking. We have not recalculated previous years figures.

Attracting and Developing Our People

We are committed to training and developing our employees and we aim to build a highly skilled, professional and ethical workforce with the ability to adapt to changing business, technology and environmental needs. Both internal and external training provides the best possible development including supporting people with nationally recognised qualifications either through fully funded or study assistance options. We also participate in a cross-Portfolio leadership program, encouraging peer learning and collaboration for better project outcomes.

Learning Management System

LearningHub, our corporate learning management system, has become the central hub for all training activities. More than 50 eLearning modules are now available to staff on topics including safety, environment, compliance, integrity and cultural awareness.

This year saw a review of the induction process to take better advantage of LearningHub capabilities. The process is now more streamlined by moving from a paper form to an electronic checklist. Managers and employees complete tasks with the click of a button, keeping track of progress in the onboarding process.

Career Conversations

This year we have focused Career Conversations on career development. We have encouraged conversations around regional placements as a way of increasing knowledge and skills; it also supports our commitment to regional employment. Career Conversations is moving to our learning management system, LearningHub; this will link the areas of employee career plans and training and, for the first time, include probationary and development employees.

This year we had a ninety per cent completion rate for the initial Career Conversations and eighty per cent of mid – year reviews were carried out.

Development Employee Programs

This year we increased our focus on recruiting development employees as they present an invaluable pool of fresh and innovative ideas to help us grow. The move supports our commitment to increasing our diversity and improving employment outcomes for youth. For the 2021 Development Employee Program we welcomed 70 fresh faces across the following disciplines, taking our total development employees to 100 people.

New Road Construction and Maintenance Program

A new training program was rolled out in 2020 with a focus on sprayed sealing and seal widening to complement the planned low-cost widening improvements across the regional WA road network. Two hundred and three of our employees participated along with local government staff and external contractors across most regional locations.

Strategic Research and Innovation

Our internal Innovation and Research Program encourages employees to collaborate, learn, solve problems and explore new and innovative opportunities. This allows us to solve real business problems or explore new opportunities in conjunction with various organisations including Austroads, PATREC, SBENRC and ARRB Group Ltd, as well as universities, Cooperative Research Centres and the private sector. During the year, 10 new projects were approved and we were progressing a further 20 active projects. Our Bright Ideas software package helps us to foster a high level of engagement throughout the year as people can participate in specific corporate challenges or submit their own ideas on innovative approaches.

Recruitment and Regional Development

We embarked on refreshing our employer brand, which centres around ‘Going Places’. The positioning concept is that we offer incredible opportunities in regional areas, with every day bringing new challenges and rewards for those willing to put in the hard work. ‘Going Places’ was launched with the recruitment of our regional engineering associate trainees, where we took an innovative approach to our communication with candidates including short dynamic videos showcasing ‘a day in the life’ of a region. All our material was tailored to the work and landscapes of each regional location and featured our own people for a real and personable approach.

Diversity and Equal Opportunity

We encourage and recognise that a diverse workforce is integral to our success. We value the unique blend of knowledge, skills and perspectives people bring to the workplace; including cultural background, ethnicity, age, gender, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, language and education. Diversity also includes professional skills, working style, location, and life experiences. As part of recognising and promoting awareness around diversity, over the last 12 months we acknowledged and celebrated many different events.

Equal employment opportunity training is compulsory for new starters. Employees also have access to Diverse WA, cultural competency online training. In addition, information on unconscious bias and inclusion in the workplace is readily available on our intranet page.

Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity Management Plan 2021-24

To assist with identifying barriers and creating a diverse inclusive workplace at Main Roads, an equal employment opportunity survey was conducted during April 2020. Results highlighted areas for improvement.

Our newly informed 2021-24 Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and Diversity Management Plan focuses on these priorities to increase engagement and representation of:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
• women
• people with disabilities
• youth
• people from culturally diverse backgrounds
• lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and questioning (LGBTIQ+).

We are committed to supporting the government initiative that aims to increase the diversity of our workforce across the state.

Women in Leadership

We continue our focus on attracting, retaining and developing women to have greater representation in technical and leadership positions. We recognise that women in positions of influence will lead to increasing numbers of women in leadership.

International Women’s Day 2021 ‘Choose to Challenge’, was promoted across the state with several senior managers interviewed, providing their perspective on the importance of women in leadership and their advice on career development, challenges faced and management of work-life balance. Corporate Executive endorsed the implementation of personal ‘pods’ in the workplace to encourage women on maternity leave to return to work to continue their careers and still have access to private facilities for infant feeding responsibilities.

Reconciliation Action Plan 2021-23

During National Reconciliation Week we launched our new Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) ‘The Road to Jobs and Business Opportunities’ focusing on implementing longer-term strategies and working towards defined measurable targets and goals. In support of the government’s Aboriginal participation policy, our Aboriginal Advisory and working groups are implementing Aboriginal engagement initiatives for procuring goods and services from Aboriginal businesses and engaging Aboriginal groups in design, construction and maintenance activities related to road infrastructure projects. We encourage agency-wide commitment to achieving the RAP actions. A copy of our RAP and regular updates are available on our website.

Aboriginal Employment

We employ 28 people, 2.3 percent of our workforce, who identify as being either Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. In order to improve the level of direct employment, we have developed an Aboriginal Employment and Retention Plan for significantly improving meaningful Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment and training opportunities.

Throughout the year we had four Aboriginal people appointed as engineering associate trainees, three Aboriginal people appointed in trainee roles and three senior Aboriginal people appointed in identified positions to undertake Aboriginal Engagement roles.

National Reconciliation Week 2021 – More than a Word – Reconciliation Takes Action

As part of our activities, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal employees shared their stories about what Reconciliation ‘More than a Word’ means to them. This was show cased across our internal website. We featured daily stories highlighting our commitment to providing long term, sustainable employment opportunities for Aboriginal West Australians.

In addition, a corporate lanyard was created from a collective art piece made during Connecting People with Culture and Country cultural training. Other activities included: supporting the Department of Local Government Sport and Cultural Industries Banner Project by sponsoring banners at St Georges Terrace, Elizabeth Quay, Bunbury, Geraldton and Kalgoorlie; and plaques with Noongar names as well as colourful language posters being installed outside our conference and meeting rooms.

Cultural Awareness

Our cultural awareness training, ‘Walking together in partnership’ brings greater understanding of Aboriginal people’s culture and the commitments of our Reconciliation Action Plan and it is now being delivered to our Regions. The training consists of one-day workshops with a local perspective component within each region culturally tailored and with consideration for each area’s own local, unique and diverse communities. The trainers work together with local Elders to provide an immersive learning program which takes participants through a journey exploring non-Aboriginal thinking, Traditional Culture, and its relevance in 2021, and keys to cultural competence and cultural safety. The roll out began in February 2021 and will continue until September 2021. At least one class is being delivered in each location as each office interacts with a different mob.