At BHP we recognise the enormous potential that a more inclusive and diverse workplace can bring. We’re taking action to achieve gender balance and we are proud to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD) for the sixth consecutive year. For us, this celebration recognises the enormous potential that a more inclusive and diverse workplace will deliver.

IWD is a global day celebrated on 8 March every year. It celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender balance.

The IWD 2019 campaign theme is Balance for Better. We are entering an exciting period of history where the world expects balance. We notice its absence and celebrate its presence. Balance drives a better working world – a better world for us working here at BHP.

The race is on for the gender-balanced boardroom, a gender-balanced government, gender-balanced media coverage, more gender-balance in wealth, gender-balanced sport coverage – and an important one for us – a gender-balance of employees.

To better reflect the communities in which we work, we set an ambitious, aspirational goal to achieve gender balance across BHP globally by FY2025.

Since 2016 when we announced our aspiration goal, overall female representation has increased from 17.6 per cent to 22.4 per cent and the number of women in the business globally has increased by over 2,000, or 40 per cent.

This is a significant achievement when you consider that not long ago, few could imagine a future where the prevalence of women in the mining industry was normal, even routine. While this is positive progress, we know we still have a long way to go to #BalanceforBetter.

Flexible work is the single biggest driver in helping us to meet our aspirational goal and promote greater workforce diversity – that’s why it continues to be our focus at BHP this year.

Our ‘flex principles’ clarify what we mean by flexible working at BHP and this has contributed to:

• An increase in the number of employees embracing flexible work arrangements: 46 per cent of our people, both operational and office based, saying they now work flexibly and a further 8.6 per cent indicating they plan to do so over the next 12 months.
• More flexible work for our operations: Flexible work arrangements are being used by our long-distance commuters and residential employees at our operations through flexible rosters and job share arrangements. This has challenged the prevailing mindset that flexibility is only available to office-based employees.
• Improved wellness: Internal reporting revealed that those who are formally working flexibly report a significant increase in wellness compared to the overall Group average.
  How we’re getting involved in IWD 2019?

BHP is supporting IWD across the world by hosting a number of internal events, including in London, Perth, Brisbane, Blackwater, Mackay, Moranbah, Muswellbrook and at our global headquarters in Melbourne.

You can learn more about our Inclusion and Diversity aspirations via our Striking the right balance Prospects blog.