Gender Equality at Veolia Australia & New Zealand

To achieve our target of women in leadership roles by 2023, Veolia has implemented a range of initiatives and programs to attract, recruit, develop and retain women in the organisation across all roles. 

We appreciate the importance of how attraction and recruitment decisions influence how diverse our organisation is, both now and in the future. Key Veolia initiatives include:

• Our Graduate Program, which in 2022 had a target of 50% women and achieved 60% women recruited
• Use of a gender decoder in all job advertisements
• Reducing unconscious bias by reviewing the language we use in our recruitment adverts to make them more gender neutral
• Talent mapping to specifically target female candidates
• Targeted programs to attract and increase female participation in traditionally male-dominated operational roles, such as our Women on Wheels program which was successfully piloted in Tasmania and is now being rolled out to other locations across the country.

Initiatives and programs to develop our female employees and support retention are implemented year after year and include: 

• Our global Women in Leadership program supports the development of talented women leaders across Veolia internationally by strengthening leadership skills and promoting innovation by focusing on three pillars of effective leadership: Performance, Business and Visibility
• Identification of leadership development pipeline activities and other development opportunities outlined in individual development plans including coaching and mentoring
• WEDO, is a global Veolia network open to all employees at Veolia and designed to promote gender balance. The network currently has over 3000 members and helps Veolia benefit from gender-related initiatives worldwide
• Commitment to pay equality by conducting annual remuneration reviews, including a gender payroll analysis, to monitor our adherence to equitable remuneration practices
• Providing information each year to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA)
• Annual International Women’s Day Celebrations
• Support for the ‘Girls on the Move' program as part of the Elles Bougent Association (international body) which aims to highlight and promote the diversity of jobs within STEM and promote gender diversity in science and technology
• Diversity and Inclusion and Gender Equality education campaigns and training.

Our Parental Leave Framework supports our commitment to providing workplace flexibility to all employees to balance family and caring responsibilities and work participation. This includes:

• Paid parental leave entitlements include 12 weeks of paid parental leave to eligible primary caregivers and 2 weeks of paid parental leave for the non-primary caregiver (in addition to government-paid parental leave)
• A return to work superannuation benefit providing make-up superannuation payments for the unpaid period of primary carers’ leave taken, capped at 12 months
• Independent, confidential well-being coaching support through our EAP to help new parents successfully navigate the transition back into work.