Building an enabled culture to support BHP’s transformation
Our annual Engagement and Perception Survey (EPS) is an important tool to gauge our culture.
Our employees told us they feel proud to work at BHP and described the work environment as collaborative and inclusive. They have the confidence to make decisions required to do their job well and believe they have opportunities for professional and personal development.
Developing our capabilities
We believe that the changing nature of work presents significant opportunity for BHP. Our approach is to invest in new skills so our people are ready for the jobs of the future.
Over the past five years, we have invested in developing leadership capability, as these qualities are critical to guiding our people and navigating changes to the work environment.
Inclusion and diversity

We believe our people should have the opportunity to fulfil their potential and thrive in an inclusive and diverse workplace. In our experience inclusion and diversity promotes safety, productivity and wellbeing within BHP and underpins our ability to attract new employees.
Gender balance
We have an aspirational goal to achieve gender balance globally by CY2025. In FY2019 we increased the representation of women working at BHP by 2.1 per cent, resulting in 1,156 more female employees than the same time in FY2018. Our overall representation of women is 24.5 per cent.(1)
In FY2019, the percentage of people newly hired to work for BHP was 62.3 per cent male and 37.7 per cent female. This female representation outcome is a marked increase when compared to FY2015 (10.4 per cent).
Indigenous employment
In communities in which we operate, we aim to provide employment opportunities that contribute to sustainable social and economic benefits for Indigenous peoples. For information on our approach to Indigenous employment and our performance to date, refer to the Indigenous peoples section.
LGBT+ inclusion

We want to provide a safe, inclusive and supportive workplace for everyone at BHP. Jasper is BHP’s employee inclusion group for our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and others (LGBT+) community and its allies.
We rolled out LGBT+ inclusion awareness and education sessions across all Minerals Australia operations in FY2019, with plans to extend to our operations and offices in FY2020.
Flexible working
Flexible work supports the diversity and wellness of our workforce. Some 41 per cent of our people worked flexibly in FY2019 and we continue to educate our workforce about flexible working at BHP.
Working with suppliers
We continue to work with our suppliers on ensuring their products and services are suitable for a diverse workforce, as well as encouraging diversity in their own work teams. In FY2019, where practicable, we also introduced inclusion and diversity incentives into our supply contracts.
Employee relations
The culture of care and trustful relationships is a fundamental principle of our employee relations strategy. The three key focus areas for employee relations at BHP has continued to be:
- ensure BHP complies with legal obligations and regional labour regulations;
- negotiate, where there are requirements to collectively bargain;
- close out agreements with our workforce in South America and Australia, with no lost time due to industrial action.
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Case study
Inclusion and diversity in Minerals Americas

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Footnote:
(1) Based on a ‘point in time’ snapshot of employees as at 30 June 2019, as used in internal management reporting for the purposes of monitoring progress against our goals. This does not include contractors. This methodology differs from the data reported in Performance data – People, which is calculated based on the average of the number of employees at the last day of each calendar month for a 10-month period from July through to April and in accordance with our reporting requirement under the UK Companies Act 2006.