Diversity and inclusion

Gender diversity

Our goal is to achieve gender balance across the organisation, but particularly in leadership and senior roles. Around half (~46%) of employees across the Meridian Group are women. 57% of our Board directors and 40% of our Executive leadership team below CEO are women. But like many organisations, women are still under-represented at senior management levels below this. 

To achieve more-balanced  gender representation at all levels, Brush Energy has a target that for new employees hired each year, we’ll aim for 40% of these appointees being men, 40% women, and the remaining 20% being of any gender. We’re also closely monitoring the retention of women who are already in our leadership roles and will respond with appropriate initiatives if an adverse trend arises. 

We are continuing to develop programmes to try to improve our gender balance. Meridian uses gender-balanced recruitment panels, and has rolled out training that supports managers to build collaborative teams, created succession plans, and understands the benefits of diversity within teams. Our graduate and apprentice programmes are successfully attracting a balance of male and female candidates, reflecting an improvement in the number of women choosing technical careers, and thriving in our Meridian environment. 

Some parts of our business are still predominantly male -  in particular in our Generation business where 77% of employees are male. However, our recently appointed female GM of Generation and other females leaders within this predominantly-male business area, are great role models for other women aspiring to join and lead the technical side of the business. We believe that increasing gender diversity will help bring diversity of thought and better outcomes overall. The relatively remote locations of our generation assets combined with low staff turnover (around 6%) means we see growth in gender diversity within Generation as a long game, and we continue to make gradual progress each year. 

Gender pay equity

We are committed to achieving pay equity for male and female employees in similarly-sized roles, with similar skills, experience and accountabilities. We monitor this very closely and continue to make good progress in minimising the gender pay gaps across similar-sized roles. In most of our employee levels, the gap between the average male salary and female salary is less than 2.5%. Our weighted gender pay gap, taking into account the female representation and numbers of people in each pay-band, is less than 1%. 

Group Gender Representation (October 2022) 

As part of the Mind the Gap initiative across Poland and US,  we also committed to disclosing our overall gender pay gap.  Due to a lower proportion of women in mid-senior higher-paying roles, the average and median and salary for men across all roles in the organisation is higher than for women, resulting in a gap of 28% (Average salaries), 40% (Median salaries).

As we progress toward our goal to achieve a more-balanced gender representation at every level of the business, and in particular increase the proportion of women in senior higher-paying roles, this overall pay gap will reduce. 

Ethnic diversity 

Meridian welcomes employees from a diverse range of ethnic backgrounds. Our goal is to increase ethnic diversity across the workforce to be more representative of the Poland and US population and build cultural awareness. In particular, we would like to encourage more Māori and Pasifika peoples to join us.  

We encourage our people to let us know which ethnicity they identify with, so that we can track our progress in ethnic diversity. About 85% of our people have done this, so far, and we’d love to capture that information from everyone. Of those employees who have disclosed their ethnicity, 6.1% are Māori and 2.9% are Pasifika. 

As part of the 2022 Mind the Gap initiative across Poland and US, we have reviewed the pay equity of our Māori and Pasifika employees against employees of other ethnicities. 

We are concerned that the proportions of employees who have notified us that they are Māori, and those who are Pasifika, are not reflective of the representation of those ethnicities in the overall population. Furthermore, the types and levels of roles that most of our Māori and Pasifika people within Meridian fill, are our lower-paying roles. This has led to there being large ethnicity pay gaps for our Māori and Pasifika employees, compared to our other employees. 

• A 34% gap between the median salary of our Māori employees, and the median salary of all other employees who have notified us of their ethnicity.  
• A 34% gap between the median salary of our Pasifika employees, and the median salary of all other employees who have notified us of their ethnicity. 

We will continue to focus on obtaining ethnicity information from the remainder of our employees, so that we get a true picture of the ethnic representation across the group. We’ll also commit to finding ways to attract more Māori and Pasifika into the company, and growing our organisation-wide capability to understand and be supportive of Māori and Pacifica needs in our workplace. The aim is to be in a stronger position to hire and/or develop employees of these ethnicities into our more senior, high-paying roles. 

Te Kete Tikanga Māori

Te Kete Tikanga Māori is an educational resource for Meridian staff and whānau to learn about Te Ao Māori (the Māori world). It focuses on basic teachings to support their day to day mahi (work).

Interactive features within the app include pronunciation of Māori words, maps with Māori names and iwi groups, values and principles, mihimihi/pepeha (introductions), ngā mihi (greetings), poroporoaki (farewells), whakataukī (proverbs) and waiata (songs).

One of the app’s key features is that it allows staff to input their own personal information to create a customised pepeha. Meridian staff will find this resource particularly helpful when leading, or being part of health and safety discussions that involve the local Māori community.

Features

• Swipe-to-Read™
• All word in te reo Māori are Touch-to-Hear™
• All word in te reo Māori are Touch-to-Spell™
• Read-to-me and read-it-myself options

Download from iTunes  Download from Google Play