Claudio Cortez
Maintenance Mine, Spence

We believe an inclusive and diverse workforce promotes engagement, safety and productivity, and is valued by prospective employees as well as our current workforce. 

Our commitment to a diverse and inclusive work environment involves measures to improve the accessibility of our workplaces for people with disability. Our ambition is clear: to recognise the unique needs and strengths of every individual and to systematically remove barriers, aiming to ensure that people with disabilities can participate equally in our workforce. 

In December 2024, BHP launched our global Disability Action Plan (DAP), which was developed to create an inclusive workplace that empowers people with disabilities. Our DAP seeks to encourage, recognise and promote an active commitment to improving accessibility and disability inclusion by addressing three strategic pillars – people, culture and systems. It shares inspiring stories from our global workforce, incorporating priorities recommended by the Australian Disability Network and provides the foundation for us to improve our systems and continue supporting underrepresented groups and their allies across our business. 

In creating our DAP, we held internal listening sessions and employee consultations to learn about the experience of people with caring responsibilities and capture the lived experience of people with disability, such as Claudio Cortez at Maintenance Mine in Spence.  

Claudio was working as a mechanical dispatcher when a zip-lining accident during a family vacation in 2019 left him with tetraplegia. This prevents him from walking and he relies on prosthetics to be able to write. 

After a long period of rehabilitation, Claudio was ready to return to work in 2022. He was initially offered to work in the Santiago office due to his former site not being fully adapted for wheelchair users.  

Rather than taking the position in Santiago, Claudio pushed to return to the mine and help implement adjustments for other people with disability. He let his colleagues know what he needed (parking, asphalt, ramps, and ground floor office location) to be able to move around and perform his duties. He helped guide colleagues through the specific arrangements and accesses he required.  

In Chile, as of 30 June 2025, people with disabilities represented 2.5 per cent of our Chilean workforce. Looking back, Claudio is hopeful that the modifications he helped champion will provide more people in wheelchairs or with similar disabilities the option of working on the site. Claudio says, “I am happy that the company listened to me, and I hope that with the modifications that have been made, more people in wheelchairs or with disabilities can work on the site. There is a very nice work environment where you can feel everybody’s support.” 

Seeking diverse perspectives and insights from a variety of people through our DAP, has helped us in ensuring our approach is relevant to our employees and is supporting our progress on a global scale.  

Though we are early in this journey and there is still more work to do, our DAP represents an important step towards making our workplace an environment where everyone can join in and thrive.