When Graeme Beardsell was appointed chief executive of the Australia and New Zealand operation of Japanese multinational Fujitsu in the middle of the pandemic, he knew he had a skills problem.
Beardsell said they also changed their leave entitlements to work better for women by adding longer parental leave, carer’s leave and domestic violence support. Fujitsu also created a fully flexible work policy to allow employees to work anywhere, anytime and has seen female staff climb to close to 30 per cent.“We have really opened the door on flexibility and that has been really well received by women who have caring responsibilities,” he says.
“I gave Nicole Forrester, the Wurundjeri woman I appointed to the role, a challenge to find a way to create digital jobs for Indigenous communities,” he says. “None of these folks had degrees or an IT background, but they are now working with us for Australia Post and their customer satisfaction ratings are in our top 10 in Asia Pacific.”