Diversity
By sourcing employees from a wide range of backgrounds, we benefit from a range of experience, insight and skill.
Strategies have been implemented across our sites to increase workforce participation amongst women including flexible working arrangements such as job sharing and shift rosters within school hours.
The overall proportion of women in our workforce decreased slightly from 13 per cent in 2008 to 12 per cent in 2009, largely as a result of staffing changes in our corporate office. Our sites have maintained or recorded an increased proportion of female employment by as much as 40 per cent as a result of targeted recruitment strategies designed to encourage women into non-traditional mining roles. The Clermont project was recognised for its efforts in recruiting women with no previous experience for mobile equipment operator roles, receiving a "Highly Commended" award in the Coal Mine of the Year category in the 2009 Australian Mining Prospect Awards.
We seek to increase Indigenous employment levels in the business through direct employment strategies, working with suppliers and contractors to employ Indigenous people, and supporting the development of Indigenous owned enterprises to provide services to our operations. Indigenous people currently represent about two per cent of our workforce.
In 2009 we employed 80 graduates and vacation students as part of the Rio Tinto graduate development and vacation student programmes. The graduate programme features a range of development activities designed to prepare graduates for future leadership roles and to build their technical competency. The vacation programme is a key recruiting pipeline for the graduate programme.
Two new scholarships were made available through The University of Queensland and University of New South Wales for mining engineering students in 2009. These are in addition to eight current scholarships across the two universities. Twelve additional general higher education scholarships are also available to students living in the Hunter Valley through our community development fund.
In addition, we support a range of other scholarships through our community development funds.
