Our equity and diversity approach

We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace where people feel safe, respected and valued. Work continues to progress across the business to improve the way we support our people’s physical and psychological health and safety.

As a Commonwealth authority employer, we are bound by the following legislation:

Equal Employment Opportunity (Commonwealth Authorities) Act 1987
Human Rights Commission Act 1986
Racial Discrimination Act 1975
Sex Discrimination Act 1984
Disability Discrimination Act 1992
Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012
Age Discrimination Act 2004

The below table outlines the annual program report in accordance with the requirement set out in section 6 of the Equal Employment Opportunity (Commonwealth Authorities) Act 1987 (EEO Act).

Table 8 – Equity and diversity reporting

EEO Act (1987)	2022-23 activities
Informing employees - s.6 (a) Without limiting the generality of the definition of program in subsection 3(1), the program of a relevant authority shall provide for action to be taken: i. to inform employees of the contents of the program and of the results of any monitoring and evaluation of the program under paragraph (h).	We implemented the People and Culture Plan, including priorities for increasing diversity and fostering inclusion across the organisation. Our people are informed of equity and diversity programs through CEO and leader communications, the employee intranet, the workplace social media platform, induction and development training, and our annual and quarterly reports. Our Cultural Reform Board recruited new members and met monthly to drive and oversight. In addition, we have appointed culture champion representatives from across our organisation that provide a voice for our people. They engage collaboratively across our organisation to proactively contribute towards our vision and a positive workplace culture.
Conferring responsibility - s.6 (b) To confer responsibility for the development and implementation of the program (including a continuous review of the program), on a person or persons having sufficient authority and status within the management of the relevant authority to enable the person or persons properly to develop and implement the program.	Our Chief People and Culture Officer held responsibility for diversity and inclusion within the organisation. Leaders throughout the organisation, without exception, are responsible for creating a safe and inclusive environment for their teams and were supported in 2022-23 by ongoing training, development and awareness events such as the organisational effectiveness workshop which focused, among other issues, on leadership accountability for cultural inclusiveness.
Consultation with trade unions - s.6 (c) To consult with each trade union having members affected by the proposal for the development and implementation of the program in accordance with this Act.	We consult with our people and their representative organisations prior to the implementation of new policies and procedures relating to employment matters. These organisations include Civil Air, the United Firefighters Union, Professionals Australia, the Community and Public Sector Union, and the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union. Our National Consultative Council also provides a mechanism for ensuring ongoing dialogue about specific employeerelated issues with our employee organisations.
Consultations with employees - s.6 (d) To consult with employees of the relevant authority, particularly employees who are women or persons in designated groups.	We consult with employees, as appropriate, through the workplace social media platform, webinars, site visits, newsletters and videos. In addition, regular employee surveys are conducted, helping us to identify matters that should be considered in our diversity and inclusion initiatives. In addition, our employee network groups Elevate (LGBTIQ), Yakka Bunji (Indigenous employees) and Women@Airservices (women) are each sponsored by a member of the Executive team who drives progress and desired outcomes.
Collection of statistics - s.6 (e) For the collection and recording of statistics and related information concerning employment by the relevant authority, including the number of, and the types of jobs undertaken by, or job classifications of: i. employees of either sex; and ii. persons in designated groups.	Please refer to Tables 9-15 for more information on our employee diversity profile, including employees by gender, demographic group and job family. In addition to capturing demographic data through our human resource systems, we also collect attitudinal data on perceptions of diversity and inclusion practices through our employee surveys.
Consideration of policies, examination of practices - s.6 (f) To consider policies, and examine practices, of the relevant authority, in relation to employment matters to identify: i. any policies or practices that discriminate against women or persons in designated groups; and ii. any patterns (whether ascertained statistically or otherwise) of lack of equality of opportunity in respect of women or persons in designated groups.	We review our people policies and processes to maintain inclusive, fit-forpurpose and contemporary working principles, processes and standards. This includes our Bullying, Harassment and Discrimination Policy and publication of a refreshed Code of Conduct.
Setting objectives and selecting indicators - s.6 (g) To set: i. the particular objectives to be achieved by the program; and ii. the quantitative and other indicators against which the effectiveness of the program is to be assessed.	Our people plan outlines the particular objectives to be achieved and indicators against which the effectiveness will be assessed. We implemented our 'Innovate' Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) 2021-23 and commenced development of the RAP for 2024-26. Our Cultural Reform Board, comprising members of diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives from across our organisation, also has oversight responsibility for monitoring the progress of our cultural transformation program.
Monitoring and evaluation - s.6 (h) To monitor and evaluate the implementation of the program and: i. to assess the achievement of those objectives; ii. to assess the effectiveness of the programme by comparing statistics and information collected and recorded under paragraph (e) with the indicators against which the effectiveness of the program is to be assessed.	We have a program of regular reporting to our Executive and Board on diversity and inclusion matters, including quantitative and qualitative indicators of progress. This includes demographic workforce data, progress against gender targets for specific workforce segments, evaluation data and information about our people's experience of inclusion and culture.

Diversity and inclusion achievements

In 2022-23, we achieved the following:

The Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) working group continued to work on the balance of activities within the 2021-2023 'Innovate' RAP. Work commenced on developing a new 'innovate' RAP for 2024-26. The RAP working group welcomed new members across the business, including First Nations members.

We established new procurement contracts with First Nations businesses and are promoting the use of Supply Nation to all staff and encouraging a focus on Indigenous business when procuring services for Airservices.

Our first Indigenous Career Pathway ATC traineeship commenced in March 2023 in Brisbane. Trainees will be immersed in the life of an air traffic controller and undertake study in various areas of the Brisbane Air Traffic Services Centre and surrounding towers.

Our pilot tailored Indigenous employment program with ARFFS recruitment has resulted in 5 candidates being offered a position in the September 2022 recruit course, resulting in a 20% Indigenous representation. Our current ARFFS Indigenous employees have embraced this program and led the way - from the First Nations information sessions at the beginning, to the mentorship of candidates, to the cultural support at the assessment centre.

Our Elevate network for LGBTIQ+ employees and allies continued to build awareness with our people to foster more inclusiveness and belonging. We hosted a number of activities which included cultural awareness training, Pride Month, IDAHOBIT and Mardi Gras.

We strengthened efforts towards gender equality through our continued partnership with the Champions of Change Coalition a globally recognised network that promotes a strategy for achieving gender equality.

The Women@Airservices (W@A) employee network is supporting AirNav Indonesia with the establishment of their new women's network. We also implemented the W@A Mentoring Program pilot in October 2022 with a second cohort commencing in April 2023.

Women@Airservices employee network led a variety of events and activities to celebrate International Women's Day (IWD) on 8 March. Two of our female air traffic controllers participated in a joint initiative with other aviation businesses which saw a first for Australian aviation history where a commercial flight was fully managed, crewed and handled end-to-end by women to celebrate IWD.

We celebrated significant days for diverse employees including Harmony Week, Mens Health Week, Womens Health Week, National Reconciliation Week, NAIDOC Week, RUOK Day, IDAHOBIT, Mardi Gras and Pride Month with online events and team gatherings.

Twenty of our emerging female leaders participated in our Women in Leadership pilot program, Thrive. The program was launched in October 2022 with participants graduating in May 2023.

In October 2022 we launched our new inclusive leave benefits, centred around family care and wellbeing, to provide a safe and compassionate environment for our people. Benefits have included gender neutral parental leave of 18 weeks for the primary carers, family and domestic violence leave and fertility leave and enhancements to our cultural leave provisions.

Our Safe Place team was specifically established to deal with complaints and grievances about bullying and harassment and to address complex behavioural concerns within a system-based methodology. This methodology is underpinned by the principles of harm minimisation, traumainformed principles, and the prioritisation of workplace psychological safety. New ways of supporting cultural change were implemented during 2022-23 including commencing largescale cultural intervention programs that provided tools on how to safely implement bystander intervention against bullying, racism, sexual harassment and which supported leadership on these issues. Complaints were effectively triaged with a preliminary response being provided within 30 days of a complaint being lodged.

Diversity profile

Our diversity profile has remained relatively stable over the past 5 reporting periods. The representation of women in senior leadership positions decreased by 3.7% in 2022-23 when compared with the previous year. In contrast, the broader workforce during the same period experienced a noteworthy increase in female representation, which rose by 4.5%

Table 9 – Representation of designated groups in overall headcount 2018-2023

Designated groups^1,2	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23
Indigenous Australians	1.7%	1.7%	1.6%	1.9%	1.9%
People with a disability	0.7%	0.9%	1.0%	1.0%	0.9%
People from a culturally or linguistically diverse background	6.0%	6.1%	5.9%	23.0%³	22.8%
Female employees	17.7%	17.8%	17.2%	20.2%	19.8%
Gender: Non-binary, 'Uses a different term', 'Prefers not to answer'⁴	-	-	-	-	0%

Notes:

Note that disclosure is voluntary, and not all employees provide equity and diversity data for these groups.
All figures are inclusive of full-time equivalent employees only.
Definition updated to meet the MCIMA Minimum Core Set of Standards for reporting culturally and linguistically diverse statistics.
New reporting of non-binary and other gender terms is not yet captured effectively by currently utilised human resources information system (HRIS).

Table 10 – Employees in diversity groups by job role classification as at 30 June 2023¹

Job family	Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander	Culturally and linguistically diverse	Disability
Air Traffic Management	7	232	6
Aviation Rescue Fire Fighting services	39	95	7
Engineering	0	67	0
Technical and Trade	3	60	5
Information and Communications Technology	1	62	2
Enabling Professions	14	220	9
Senior Leadership	0	47	1
Total by diversity groups	64	783	30
Percentage of workforce	1.9%	22.8%	0.9%

Notes:

All figures are inclusive of full-time equivalent employees only.

Personal information, as recorded in our human resources information system (HRIS), is treated confidentially according to the Privacy Act 1988.

Table 11 – Gender by job role classification as at 30 June 2023

Job family¹	Female by percentage	Female by number	Male by number
Air Traffic Management	17.5%	216	1017
Aviation Rescue Fire Fighting services	4.4%	36	777
Engineering	13.2%	19	125
Technical and Trade	6.3%	16	237
Information and Communications Technology	20.6%	26	100
Enabling Professions	45.7%	323	384
Senior Leadership	27.9%	43	111
Total by gender	19.8%	679	2751

Notes:

All figures are inclusive of full-time equivalent employees only.
New reporting of non-binary and other gender terms is not yet captured effectively by currently utilised HRIS.

Table 12 – Employee age profile as at 30 June 2023

Age range¹	Under 25	25-34	35-44	45-54	55-64	65+
Number of employees	59	614	1140	1098	474	45
Percentage of employees	1.7%	17.9%	33.2%	32.0%	13.8%	1.3%

Notes:

All figures are inclusive of full-time equivalent employees only.

Table 13 – Average retirement age

Data at 30 June 2023	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23
Average retirement age	60.9	61.6	61.1	63.4	66.7	67.9

Table 14 – Part-time employees by age bracket

Flexibility	Under 25	25-34	35-44	45-54	55-64	65+	Total
Permanent part-time	0	7	58	49	22	3	139
Temporary part-time	0	0	1	0	2	2	5
Casual	3	2	2	0	3	5	15

Table 15 – Employee work location^1,2

	Male				Female
State	Full-time	Part-time	Casual	Total male	Full-time	Part-time	Casual	Total female	Total
NSW	317	4	1	322	56	5	0	61	383
QLD	931	25	7	963	221	25	2	248	1211
SA	87	1	0	88	7	3	0	10	98
TAS	60	0	1	61	2	0	0	2	63
VIC	782	16	2	800	163	34	0	197	997
WA	224	1	1	226	18	3	1	22	248
ACT	219	3	0	222	110	24	0	134	356
NT	69	0	0	69	5	0	0	5	74
Total	2689	50	12	2751	582	94	3	679	3430

Notes:

New reporting of non-binary and other gender terms is not yet captured effectively by currently utilised HRIS
All figures are inclusive of full-time equivalent employees only.