A SUCCESSION OF
enormous yellow
trucks powerfully hauling tonnes of rock,
ore and coal is an iconic image of the
Australian mining industry.
Caterpillar, the global company behind
these impressive machines, is the world’s
leading manufacturer of construction and
mining equipment, diesel and natural gas
engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-
electric locomotives with 2013 sales and
revenues of over $55 billion. The company
employs about 115,000 people worldwide.
While staying at the top of its game
requires innovation in engineering and
product development, its latest global
pursuit is in gender diversity.
“Caterpillar has been very clear in its
strategy that people are the key to everything
we do,” says Scott Latham, country manager
for Caterpillar’s human services division in
Australia and South-East Asia.
“We believe that by focusing on
increasing diversity in our workplace,
we will achieve greater talent attraction,
development and retention outcomes
than our competitors.”
Caterpillar isn’t only now coming out
of its cocoon in workforce diversity – the
company established its Global Diversity
and Inclusion Office 10 years ago.
In most countries, it has created
Women’s Initiative Networks and regularly
undertakes an inclusion survey to identify
strengths and disparities across different
employee demographics.
Feeding from this global vision, it is no
surprise that Caterpillar’s 1,400-strong
Australian arm achieved the first gold
rating in the Australian Women in
Resources Alliance (AWRA) ‘Recognised’
assessment of organisational gender
diversity capability.
Taking part in the first round of AWRA
Recognised assessments, Caterpillar had its
CATERPILLAR GEARS UP
for gender diversity
Being the first to achieve a gold rating in Australia’s only resource industry
assessment of gender diversity capability has provided Caterpillar with
further motivation to get more women behind the company wheel.
Australian workplace policies, procedures
and practices evaluated against a rigorous
model of diversity capability developed by
research and consulting body the Centre
for Gender Economics and Innovation,
and based on international best practice in
diversity and inclusion.
A tiered system of bronze, silver, gold
and platinum indicates the position of an
organisation to leverage gender diversity
to drive business performance and
profitability, attract talent and innovate.
As Australia holds its own unique set of
talent attraction and retention challenges,
Latham says it was important for the
Caterpillar’s local operations to undergo
We found it difficult to recruit female talent to our
autonomous mining trucks area. So our recruitment team
reviewed the language used in job advertising to focus on
inclusive skills and attributes and ensure ads were more
appealing to women.
Caterpillar Australia
received AWRA
Recognised Gold
SUMMER 2014-15 RESOURCE
PEOPLE
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DIVERSITY
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