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June is Pride Month
Reflecting on the achievements of the ExxonMobil Australia Pride Chapter
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Every June, Pride Month gives people around the globe an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the diversity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) community.
The ExxonMobil Australia PRIDE Chapter has made significant progress over the last 12 months, rolling out a number of initiatives aimed at supporting our company's goal to foster an inclusive workplace that values diversity.
Australian PRIDE Chapter Sponsor, Stuart Brown, said the Chapter’s PRIDE in Diversity training was eye-opening and highly valuable.
“Nearly 200 employees, including myself, participated in the training, which really helped me to better understand LGBTQI issues and perspectives,” said Stuart.
“I also appreciated learning about how things like the use of language in everyday interactions can have such an impact on people and the training definitely opened my eyes to some of my own unconscious biases to look out for.
“We hope to be able to roll out the training more broadly across the organisation in the future. In the meantime, employees interested in the training can access the training pack to read in their own time.”
The Australian PRIDE Chapter also held a number of events to increase PRIDE visibility and promote a sense of community throughout our organisation.
“We certainly had a busy year, setting up a new sharepoint site and beginning our roll-out of PRIDE visibility programs across our sites, starting with hardhat stickers at Altona refinery,” said Australian PRIDE Chapter Chair, Mandy Humphries.
“Despite the fact that many people were working from home we were able to participate in Wear it Purple day by encouraging people to send in a photo of themselves wearing purple which we then shared.
“We also held a number of virtual PRIDE events during the COVID19 lockdown, such as Scattegories and a Zoom quiz, which helped people to feel connected generally, as well as help achieve our PRIDE objectives.
“Importantly, we also participated in the Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI) benchmarking for the first time, as well as completing the employee survey for the second time,” said Mandy.
The AWEI is a national benchmark on LGBTQ workplace inclusion and comprises the largest and only national employee survey designed to gauge the overall impact of inclusion initiatives on organisational culture as well as identifying and non-identifying employees.
“The AWEI survey helps us to reflect on how we are performing as a company and identify areas where we could improve to become a more inclusive and diverse organisation.
“While it was great to see us build upon our results from the first survey, completing the second survey has also helped to inform some of the PRIDE Chapter’s future focus,” said Mandy.
“We are now developing a plan to help us address some of the gaps identified and I am looking forward to rolling out some of our new initiatives soon, which will be aimed at achieving meaningful, tangible and measurable improvements in our company culture.”
The ExxonMobil Australia PRIDE Chapter has made significant progress over the last 12 months, rolling out a number of initiatives aimed at supporting our company's goal to foster an inclusive workplace that values diversity.
Australian PRIDE Chapter Sponsor, Stuart Brown, said the Chapter’s PRIDE in Diversity training was eye-opening and highly valuable.
“Nearly 200 employees, including myself, participated in the training, which really helped me to better understand LGBTQI issues and perspectives,” said Stuart.
“I also appreciated learning about how things like the use of language in everyday interactions can have such an impact on people and the training definitely opened my eyes to some of my own unconscious biases to look out for.
“We hope to be able to roll out the training more broadly across the organisation in the future. In the meantime, employees interested in the training can access the training pack to read in their own time.”
The Australian PRIDE Chapter also held a number of events to increase PRIDE visibility and promote a sense of community throughout our organisation.
“We certainly had a busy year, setting up a new sharepoint site and beginning our roll-out of PRIDE visibility programs across our sites, starting with hardhat stickers at Altona refinery,” said Australian PRIDE Chapter Chair, Mandy Humphries.
“Despite the fact that many people were working from home we were able to participate in Wear it Purple day by encouraging people to send in a photo of themselves wearing purple which we then shared.
“We also held a number of virtual PRIDE events during the COVID19 lockdown, such as Scattegories and a Zoom quiz, which helped people to feel connected generally, as well as help achieve our PRIDE objectives.
“Importantly, we also participated in the Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI) benchmarking for the first time, as well as completing the employee survey for the second time,” said Mandy.
The AWEI is a national benchmark on LGBTQ workplace inclusion and comprises the largest and only national employee survey designed to gauge the overall impact of inclusion initiatives on organisational culture as well as identifying and non-identifying employees.
“The AWEI survey helps us to reflect on how we are performing as a company and identify areas where we could improve to become a more inclusive and diverse organisation.
“While it was great to see us build upon our results from the first survey, completing the second survey has also helped to inform some of the PRIDE Chapter’s future focus,” said Mandy.
“We are now developing a plan to help us address some of the gaps identified and I am looking forward to rolling out some of our new initiatives soon, which will be aimed at achieving meaningful, tangible and measurable improvements in our company culture.”