People development, diversity and inclusion
We strive to create an inclusive work environment, with particular attention to gender balance and the inclusion of Indigenous people. We provide opportunities for our team members to enhance their job performance and develop their careers.
Wesfarmers considers building a diverse and inclusive workforce a key enabler for delivering its objective of satisfactory returns to shareholders. Integrity and openness are core values of Wesfarmers – central to who we are and how we work. An open and inclusive work culture helps to attract and retain an outstanding workforce with diverse strengths and experiences, and to maintain workplaces where everyone feels welcome, respected and safe. This is critical as we execute our value-creating strategies and strengthen our businesses, renew our portfolio and ensure sustainability through long-term management.
An inclusive culture helps to ensure we attract diverse team members, which helps to ensure we have the best insight into the evolving needs and expectations of customers and stakeholders. For Wesfarmers, diversity extends to all people and perspectives. We promote gender balance across the Group, including in senior management. We also focus on the employment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait people, and this year we regained employment parity.
We are committed to providing opportunities for our almost 120,0001 team members (as at 30 June 2022) to enhance their performance at work, and encourage a learning culture to help advance careers.
Our Code of Conduct sets out our commitment to treating everyone with respect, valuing diversity and providing a safe work environment.
The almost 120,000 team members work in a wide range of roles, including front-line customer-facing roles, operational, technical or engineering roles as well as commercial and support function roles in support offices. Increasingly, new fields of work and expertise are emerging that reflect strategically important areas to the Group such as data and digital, customer experience and supply chain management. This financial year, we paid almost $5.6 billion in salaries, wages and benefits to team members.
Approximately 57 per cent of our team members are permanent (on a full- and part-time basis) and 43 per cent are casual, with the proportions varying across the divisions. Casual employment plays an important role for team members who value flexibility. It also provides flexibility for our businesses, including when managing seasonal variations in employment with a peak in the Christmas period, in line with the broader retail industry.
Talent retention has always been a focus but is even more so in a tight labour market context. Our divisions continue to evolve their employee offering to attract and retain team members, including supporting hybrid and flexible ways of working and providing development opportunities within the businesses and across the Group. In line with global trends, our voluntary turnover rate for permanent team members was about 17 per cent this financial year. This has was a slow increase as COVID-19 restrictions lifted and team members considered their lifestyles and opportunities.
1 Including the Health division
GRI 103-1, GRI 103-2, GRI 103 -3 GRI 401-1, GRI 402-1, GRI 404-2
