At Aurizon, diversity is about creating a respectful and inclusive workplace that recognises the unique contributions and perspectives of our employees, working together to deliver extraordinary results.

Gender equality

Over the past five years, we have made significant progress in making Aurizon a more inclusive company where we provide the opportunity for all of our people to do their best work. We believe in gender equality. Some examples of our progress are listed below:

Women in the workforce: Since 2011, we have increased the percentage of women in the workforce from 11.6% to more than 21% today.
Parenting: In 2016 we introduced our innovative Shared Care program, which provides a financial incentive for a partner to take a leave of absence to stay at home and care for their child in their first year, allowing the mother to return to work full-time.
Gender pay gap: We have strategies in place to reduce the gender pay gap at Aurizon, and while we are making good progress, we recognise that there is more that we need to do to continually address the composition and pay of our workforce so that all our people receive fair pay for a fair day's work.
Workplace flexibility: We understand that our employees often need a more flexible approach to balance their work and life for a number of reasons. This could be to pursue a personal passion, further education, care for an elderly relative, child care, or transition to retirement. To us, flexibility is more than just good policies - it is about flexibility in thinking, challenging assumptions and being innovative, while meeting our customers' needs. We continue to challenge ourselves in exploring the type of roles that can be performed flexibly.

Promoting work-life balance

Meet Anne Woolley, Aurizon's Regional Operations Leader at Callemondah in Gladstone. Anne is in charge of a team of 35 employees, including train drivers, driver trainers, freight operators and operations co-ordinators.

As a mother of two teenage girls, Anne admits that shift work can be tough at the best of times especially for women who are constantly balancing home and work commitments. But working for a company that is focused on flexibility means that she can have a career that she enjoys and be there for her children when they need her.

Indigenous inclusion

At Aurizon, we have a long and proud history of employing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Since 2012, the percentage of our employees who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander has doubled from 2.5% to 5.6% in 2019.

In July 2018, we published our second Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), which articulates our commitments to reconciliation for the next three years in the areas of building relationships, fostering respect and growing opportunities.

Our RAP was endorsed by Reconciliation Australia as a Stretch RAP, reflecting the progress we have made to embed within Aurizon our commitments to reconciliation.

Who am I? Matt Ebbage

Meet Matt Ebbage - A Butchulla man from K’gari, also known as the Fraser Coast.

Matt is a Project Manager at Aurizon and a member of Aurizon’s Indigenous Reference Group.

Hear Matt’s story and learn more about his role at Aurizon and how the Indigenous Reference Group is guiding and delivering Aurizon’s Reconciliation Action Plan.

LGBTIQ inclusion

At Aurizon, our employee-led ALLin Network supports Aurizon's Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ) inclusion both at work and in the communities where we operate.

It operates with a goal of providing support and education, raising awareness and generally improving Aurizon's status as an employer for people of various sexualities, sexes and genders.

For more information on diversity at Aurizon, read through our Diversity Policy.