Above from L to R - Evelyn Ross, Chief People Officer, Olivia Dyet, Head of People Experience, Dina Gharbo, People Transformation Lead

The Warehouse Group has won the Diversity and Inclusion Initiative of the Year Category at the inaugural Humankind EX18 Employee Experience Awards.

EX18 celebrates New Zealand’s best employers, those who are leading the way in delivering exceptional employee experiences.

This award recognises our continued efforts towards being truly diverse and inclusive as an organisation, with particular focus on our ‘Family Violence Is Not OK’ initiative, which was launched in 2015 with the support of Women’s Refuge and White Ribbon.

Chief People Officer, Evelyn Ross says the team is delighted at being recognised for its work in this area.

“Our vision is to help Kiwis live better every day, and that starts with our people. We are taking the lead to offer a variety of policies and employee experiences that encourage individuals to bring their whole selves to work whoever they are and wherever they come from,” she said.

‘Family Violence, It’s Not OK’ has seen a high-level of engagement from not only The Warehouse Group’s employees, but also from other New Zealand businesses, government departments, and anti-violence organisations. More importantly, it’s had an impact directly on some of our team who have been affected by family violence.

The policy, which is offered in strict confidence, offers up to 10 days of paid leave, to provide family violence victims time to attend court, meet with Women’s Refuge or relocate if necessary. The initiative also provides unpaid leave for team members to act as a support person for anyone dealing with domestic violence. In addition, the Group allows for unpaid leave for anyone using violence so that they can seek help such as anger management or counselling.

As part of our work towards reducing family violence, we have joined with the Human Rights Commission and other large New Zealand businesses to share our policies and training materials. By doing this we hope that more businesses can adopt similar initiatives and together the issue can be addressed.

Most recently, we have worked with ANZ, Progressive Enterprises, Vodafone NZ, Fonterra, Ricoh NZ, EY and the Human Rights Commission to draft a family violence policy template for all businesses to use if they wish to. The model policy is available at Business Working to End Family Violence, a website which was created for the partnership.

Read more about our Family Violence policy here in the 2018 Annual Report