People - Social Responsibility
Despite the challenges the pandemic presented to us at Nine, we grew stronger because of it. We made significant changes in our workplace to create a more flexible environment for our people to thrive, perform and to be recognised and rewarded for their success.
Our People and Culture strategy reflects our organisational strategy to Create, Distribute and Engage, whilst evolving to meet the dynamic nature of the industry and the requirements of the business.
Create competitive advantage through attracting, retaining and developing the best talent in the industry;
Distribute efficiencies across our business through strong, enabling infrastructure to drive high performance, building strong collaboration and leveraging our scale;
Engage all our people by evolving our workspaces, to create an environment that allows for flexibility, efficiency, and productivity. We want everyone to feel they can bring their whole self to their work.
Investing in our People
We recognise that our people are our source of competitive advantage. It is their energy, passion, creativity and ambition that drives our content, our reach and our results.
We track the engagement our people have with Nine, through our annual Nine Connect survey. We measure against globally recognised media industry data. This information informs our People and Culture strategy and initiatives.
Previous surveys have informed company-wide initiatives like the Take the Lead leadership program, improved internal communications and flexibly on how our community connects each day.
Investing in Diversity and Inclusion
We are Australia’s Media Company, and our vast audience reflects the diversity of our country. They engage across a variety of platforms and seek choice in our reporting, our voice, and our stories. We connect with all of Australia, from the news we broadcast and publish to the wide range of entertainment we create.
We believe it is essential we continue to challenge ourselves in reflecting the diversity of our audiences, and that our people also feel supported to reflect who they are.
We recently asked new questions on diversity, equity, and inclusion across our workforce, in our national Nine Connect survey. The results provide us with a set of data that is helping us on our DEI journey.
Employees had the optional opportunity to share information on gender, sexual orientation, ancestry, disability and caregiving responsibilities. Of those who took part,
• 51% of our people with ancestry other than Australian.
• 73% of our people felt comfortable expressing their true selves.
We are accelerating progress on our strategy, having engaged Diversity Partners, one of Australia’s leading diversity and inclusion consulting firms in 2021.
They have conducted workshops and interviews with a rich cross section of our Nine community. They have also reviewed policies and processes alongside progressive global standards in DEI. We are on track to launch our three-year diversity and inclusion strategy, in Q2 2022.
Nine was also included in the 2021 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (‘BGEI’), a voluntary disclosure of gender-related metrics providing a comprehensive review of investment in workplace gender equality.
The reference index measures gender equality against five areas: female leadership and talent pipeline, equal pay and gender pay parity, inclusive culture, sexual harassment policies and pro-women brand.
Alongside this important work, we continue to build on our successful existing initiatives, including our Women Leading at Nine program. Seven new leaders commenced the Future Women Platinum+ program in 2021, with anticipated growth expected in 2022.
In recognition of the important life stage so many of our employees are living, we built further on our paid parental leave, providing 16 weeks paid primary parental leave across all of Nine. We also extended our popular partnership with KidsCo to provide onsite vacation care particularly following the relocation of our Sydney HQ to 1 Denison St.
Our Diversity Policy
Nine has created a Diversity & Inclusion Policy that recognises the value of a workplace that is genuinely inclusive and respectful of diversity.
We acknowledge the positive outcomes a diverse workforce creates, and we recognise the contribution of diverse skills and talent that come together to make Nine Australia’s Media Company.
In the context of the policy, diversity includes gender, age, ethnicity, cultural background, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and mental impairment.
The Diversity Policy requires the Board to set and monitor Nine’s performance against measurable objectives on an annual basis.
As at 30 June 2021, Nine employed men and women as follows:
Board Of Directors
Senior Executives
Total Nine Workforce
“Senior Executives” are the Chief Executive Officer and his direct reports.
Nine’s performance against the objectives for achieving gender diversity is defined as follows, and as at 30 June, 2021, have been exceeded:
Objective 1. At least 30% of board positions to be held by women and at least 30% of such positions to be held by men.
Objective 2. At least 40% of senior executive positions (CEO and direct reports) to be held by women. 5 out of 11 of these positions are held by women.
Objective 3. At least 40% of management positions to be held by women. Representation of women in management has remained stable at 41.5%
Objective 4. Gender balance in leadership and talent development. Representation in our leadership program was 63% female and talent development was balanced.
Investing in Health, Safety and Wellbeing
The ongoing management of health protocols, mental health and wellbeing, and balancing COVID outbreaks with returning people to the workplace has been a core focus of the business over the last 12 months.
The Nine Work Health and Safety (‘WHS’) strategy was endorsed by Nine’s People and Remuneration Committee in 2020 with three main areas of focus over the coming few years:
- Governance of our WHS Framework, including reviewing our policy to be reflective of the needs and demands for WHS thinking and practices in a multi-faceted media organisation.
- Fostering a WHS leadership and culture, with a focus on educating our people leaders on the core elements of WHS and how it forms part of decision making and risk management.
- Promoting Health and Wellbeing. There have been significant achievements made, namely the creation of our wellbeing strategy Thrive at Nine. We have streamlined our Employee Assistance Program offerings across Nine and appointed Converge International as our preferred Group-wide provider.
To enable our leaders, education session were piloted to give our leaders the understanding of mental health in our community, our people and how to support them in the workplace. This program will continue rolling out across the next few years. In addition, we continued our support of Mental Health First Aid and trained an additional 25 people this year based in NSW.
The Fairfax Foundation
The Fairfax Foundation, established in 1959 with an independent charter, provides assistance to current and former employees and their dependants through a range of grants and other benefits. Grants can assist individuals who are in financial hardship, facing significant out-of-pocket medical costs, or seeking support for education costs or personal development activities.
The Foundation provided almost $800,000 in financial grants and other benefits to eligible beneficiaries during the 2021 financial year. This included a special program of small grants for staff in Melbourne who were impacted by the extended lockdown, and emergency grants for staff in NSW affected by floods and in WA affected by bushfires.
CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY
People | Community | Governance | Environment
Nine’s Corporate Responsibility strategy is based on four key pillars, People, Community, Governance and Environment. Corporate Responsibility is an ongoing focus for Nine and is under ongoing review to ensure Nine plays a valued role within the community within which we operate.