No silver bullet but great progress on gender balance

We’re a big company that has thrived for 130 years. Our work is often remote, physical and until recently, could be inflexible. Our female participation rates have traditionally been low. But we’re changing.

This time last year we set an ambitious and aspirational goal that will change the direction of BHP forever – to achieve gender balance globally by 2025.

I have to admit our aspirational target raised a few eyebrows. Real change needs passion. We’ve had leadership at all levels of our organisation push us forward. But not everyone moves at the same pace. We’ve also heard some reservations and scepticism during our progress.

We need to feel uncomfortable about the targets we set ourselves to know we’ve pushed hard enough. I am proud of how our people have responded.

We achieved an increase of 2.9% in female representation in the last financial year, just shy of our 3% goal. Now women comprise more than 20% of our workforce. We hired 1,000 more women in FY17. And we nearly halved the female turnover rate over the last year, from 8.4% higher than men in FY16 to 4.7% in FY17.

These numbers are important. If we achieve balance in and balance out then we can move towards our goal more quickly.

This year the number of female leaders rose to 18%. There are 100 more female leaders in our company today than a year ago. It makes a noticeable difference to how we make decisions and how it feels to work in our teams.

We know there are strong commercial reasons for diversity. A diverse workforce is safer, more innovative and productive. Our most diverse sites outperform the company average on many measures, such as lower injury rates, and greater adherence to work plans and production targets.