With the goal of achieving gender equality by 2025 and with only 2 per cent female representation in maintenance roles (Australia 2019), BHP, one of the world's largest mining companies, embarked on a challenge to radically change its approach to learning and attract a workforce where non-traditional and new to industry employees would feel welcome and ready to learn a trade. Traditional learning and development practices needed to be challenged and required leaders to think differently about their biases to hire and train. Four years on, the business and employees are benefitting from this bold change and have created a highly inclusive learning environment delivering tangible business benefits and social value.What does Inclusive Learning mean?Traditional trade apprenticeships have been in existence for hundreds of years typically targeted at young employees, craft or trade, based in the field, on the job and supervised by a skilled trade person or technical leader. Traditional apprentice programs see individual learners placed in a team of experienced practitioners. With the day to day production pressures experienced at site, this model isn't always the most conducive learning environment for a new to industry employee, making it more difficult for the new learner to experiment with new skills, resulting in lower engagement and retention rates. Being inclusive also means thinking about how to make someone feel welcome supported and valued. How do we best support apprenticeship learning and create an environment where individual learning styles are truly embraced and new learners feel confident whilst learning new skills and a new industry? BECOMING HR CHAMPIONS TODAYThis article is based on an interview between Manage HR and Deborah Lee.Deb Lee has spent 25 years working in HR and learning and development. She has led global teams in different industries, has broad experience across a number of people functions and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Your Career Journey, Current Role, and Responsibilities in the OrganisationI am the Group Chief People Officer at Compass Group a global leader in food and support services. Operating in around 35 markets globally and with a workforce of over 550,000, the role at Compass is hugely rewarding. I'm responsible for ensuring our people plans support and deliver the business's overall strategy, vision, and values. Ultimately, I am keen that we provide the opportunity of lifetime careers for the diverse talent we have working with us. Prior to Compass, I gained the majority of my HR experience in telecommunications before moving to a luxury fashion e-commerce organisation. I've been fortunate to work on some really interesting cultural and digital transformation projects as well as some game-changing business acquisitions, divestments, outsourcing and new sector entries. The silver thread to all of these has been talent and culture.Deborah Lee, Group Chief People Officer at Compass GroupDeborah LeeIn MyOpinion
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