Diversity, Culture and Inclusion - This is What We Have Been Up To

As a business we truly live through our values, working together as a family, maintaining an inclusive, supportive and safe environment for everyone. 

We are proud of the recent initiatives we have made in an effort to improve equality in our workplace. Considerable effort has been made to make Powernet a workplace that caters for everyone, providing equal opportunity and facilities for people at every stage of life, including new parents and breastfeeding mothers.

Accredited Breastfeeding Friendly Workplace

On the 6th of October 2020, Powernet officially received accreditation as a Breastfeeding Friendly Workplace (BFW), a program facilitated by the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA).

The process involved creating expressing rooms in our offices across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, supplying educational material to our team members and developing a breastfeeding policy. Our expressing rooms meet the ABA's standards of privacy, locks, comfortable chair and cleaning supplies, with an accessible fridge. Though this was a simple and inexpensive task, it can make an enormous effort to our team members who return to work after having a baby. 

A Certifed Great Place to Work

In December 2017 Powernet was certified as a Great Place to Work®. Providing an environment for our team that is productive, fun, and safe and gives everyone the opportunity to learn and grow is important to us, which is why we still maintain this accreditation today.

Corporate Partnership with Headspace

We are so excited about this partnership with Headspace, it launched on the 5th of July 2021, giving our entire team free access to meditation, exercise videos, mindfulness activities for children and much more. Work-life balance is vital, particularly in today's working from home environment, giving our team access to this resource, that may have been otherwise inaccessible to them is something we are proud to offer. 

Employee EAP Offering through Acacia

We know that life doesn't always go to plan and that sometimes we need support. In November 2019 Powernet partnered with Acacia to provide our team with free, anonymous counselling services. Providing this service to our team is one way of showing our support as a business when it's needed. 

WGEA Compliance 

Diverse teams are more successful and it is no secret that IT support teams are traditionally occupied by mostly men. We are committed to creating a diverse workforce and providing everyone, of all genders, backgrounds and identities the opportunity to work with us. 

Though we do not meet the minimum employee count for official accreditation, in 2021 we decided to bring our business in line with the WGEA compliance requirements.

Thus far, through this initiative we have introduced a new Recruitment Policy, added the option for our team members to have their chosen pronouns in their email signature, created a Gender Equality Strategy, Gender Equality Policy are voluntarily publishing our gender pay gap among many other programs. 

"To progress gender equality further we must also continue to challenge the beliefs and attitudes that are undermining progress. We must expand our focus on workplace flexibility and be more innovative and creative in how we overcome the barriers that women and gender diverse individuals face," says Bernard Moran, CEO at Powernet.

Equality Council

Forming part of our WGEA compliance project we have launched an Equality Council. This council is responsible for the implementation of our Gender Equality Strategy and coming up with new ways to create a more inclusive workplace.

After their first meeting, our Equality Council published a Public Holiday Swap program, giving our team members who recognise different holidays the opportunity to swap public holidays with their chosen day. They also kicked off our Design a Mug challenge, in honour and support of PRIDE month.

Here is the winning design: 

The Biting Truth, Step Challenges & Voluntary Body Composition Scans

Our Community Engagement Committee is always looking for new ways to bring our team together and provide them with fun and interesting resources.

In 2021 so far, our team have held many company-wide quizzes, participated in The Biting Truth involving a 1-hour seminar with a registered dietician on how to create a healthy meal, followed by a 4-week healthy eating competition. We visited our friends in New Zealand in a step challenge and we provided free optional body scans, giving our team members insight into their body composition. 

‘Powernet hopes to lead by example in this space, we would like to see diversity and inclusion worked on, across the Managed IT Support and Services industry’ says Bernard Moran.