What’s the issue?

We celebrate everyone from all walks of life and we’re creating a culture of belonging that’s reflected in the everyday behaviours demonstrated by team members at every location and at every level.

We recognise the value that diversity brings to our business and understand that diversity means many different things, including; individual life experience, skill, ability, age, ethnicity, religious and cultural background, family status and sexual orientation.

What are we doing?

It’s important to us that our team members feel valued and accepted when they come to work, and that they belong. This is why we’ve created a new strategy to broaden our approach to diversity and help create an even more inclusive working environment.

This year we introduced specific questions relating to team members' sense of belonging in our annual engagement survey, Your Say. Through this survey, results showed us that more than 80 per cent of our team members feel like they belong at Officeworks and that they can bring their whole self to work knowing that we value diversity and inclusion.

The four pillars of our Diversity and Belonging (DB) plan enable us to make real changes for our team members, by building the capability to have vital and authentic discussions about equity, diversity and inclusion to become better together.

• First Nations – To respect and recognise Australia’s First People by building a greater cultural understanding of their history, customs and culture and providing career opportunities and guidance for our First Nations team members. During the year we worked towards achieving and maintaining employment parity for our First Nations People, which aims to increase Indigenous employment to reflect the proportion of the Indigenous population nationally – approximately three per cent. As of June 30 2021, our Indigenous employment sits above the national average at 3.8. This was achieved through investment in the retention of our existing First Nations team members, continuing our partnership with the Clontarf Foundation, and the hiring of 194 new Indigenous team members that remain with us as at June 30 2021. We also invested in the hiring of our first Indigenous Engagement lead to support culturally appropriate recruitment. We partnered with the Australian Retailers Associated for an inaugural Indigenous employment pathways program and delivered cultural awareness training programs across the business.
• Identity – To recognise and support our diversity across the business. We continue to remain focused on gender balance of our leadership team, with more than 43 per cent of leadership roles currently held by women. We established a partnership with Pride in Diversity to support building Pride awareness and the creation of an Officeworks Pride network, with more than 150 team members expressing interest to be part of the network.
• AccessibilityTo ensure our team are empowered to work in a way that suits them, including working families and carers. This year we developed and launched our New Ways of Working principles and updated Flexibility Policy, with the intention of supporting a more flexible and diverse workforce, where careers can be built through life change. Circle In, a resource centre for working families, carers and managers was also launched to provide webinars and wellbeing support to all team members at different stages of the life journey. Additional support and resources were provided to team members through the periods in which they were required to work and learn from home. Another aspect of our Accessibility pillar is the support of removing any barriers for either our customers or team members with disabilities so that everyone has equal access.
• Thought - To celebrate and bring together diverse perspectives, part of which is achieved by delivering on our three diversity pillars above, but also by supporting our team to appreciate and embrace different perspectives

Focus for FY2022

Our focus for FY2022 will continue across each of our four pillars under the Diversity and Belonging plan. We will continue to focus on the hiring, retention and career development of our Indigenous team members while building an ongoing awareness of our First Nations cultures, aligned to the Wesfarmers Reconciliation Action Plan. We will continue to expand our broader cultural awareness, taking an intersectional approach including identity, sexual orientation, disability and accessibility in supporting our diverse identities of team members. Finally, we will build on our flexible work culture to support a broad range of flexible and accessible work options for all our team members including working parents, carers and individuals who may have requirements for a flexible arrangement.

Learn more about another 2025 commitment