Our more than 90,000 employees and contractors around the world are the foundation of our business. We aim to attract and retain the best people.   

Our distinctive way of working through the BHP Operating System (BOS) empowers our people to bring the best of themselves to improve their work every day. We offer competitive remuneration and invest in the development of our people to build capability and drive stronger performance.

Developing our capabilities and an enabled culture

We invest in the development of our people to build capability and drive stronger performance.

Education

In support of work to deliver the capabilities for today and tomorrow, BHP’s FutureFit Academy (located in Western Australia and Queensland) provides a pathway for new employees, some of whom have never worked in our industry before, to join Minerals Australia through an accredited maintenance and production traineeship or a trade apprenticeship. Once trained and qualified, employees move to one of our Australian assets. The strong partnership between vocational educational institutions and our FutureFit Academy facilitates the provision of nationally accredited qualifications and is a unique attraction and retention lever for BHP.

The FutureFit Academy is designed as an inclusive learning environment, welcoming employees who are new to the industry and providing permanent employment from day one. As at the end of FY2024, our student cohort included 80 per cent female participation and was made up of over 20 per cent Indigenous intake. 

The FutureFit Academy expanded in FY2024 to provide a larger footprint in Perth, Western Australia, moving to a purpose-built learning centre that includes fabrication and auto electrical trades in addition to the core mechanical fitting and heavy diesel programs. A satellite FutureFit Academy was also established in Newman, Western Australia, providing a belt splicing program for experienced students. 

Our intern and graduate programs also serve to attract and develop emerging talent for critical skills we need for the future. In FY2024, we had 60 first-year university students participate as part of our First-Year Internship Program across Australia. The program aims to boost enrolments in Australian resource-related tertiary degrees by exposing science and engineering students to mining careers. In FY2024, an additional 147 university students joined the BHP Internship Program for five to 24 weeks to gain experience in their chosen field of study through on the job learning, working on mine sites alongside technical professionals. Our selected interns have early access to apply for our annual graduate program intakes. In FY2024, we onboarded 177 employees into our graduate program across Australia, Chile, Canada, Singapore and the United States, to meet the needs for future skills across our operations and functions in those regions.   

To support our focus to build leader capability and drive stronger performance, we conduct multi-level leadership development programs. The Senior Leadership Forum is intended to develop senior leaders through shared goals and context. In FY2024, this forum was delivered quarterly with a summit held in late FY2024 to further engage our senior leaders in relation to our purpose, strategy and operating system, and to launch the refreshed Our Values. Additionally, we also continue to facilitate an Integrated Leadership Forum for general managers on a quarterly basis to align this next critical cohort of leaders. Further, around 2,000 leaders including supervisors, superintendents and managers attended BHP Distinctive Leaders programs in FY2024, focused on developing their ability to lead inclusively, ethically and through complexity.

Worker experience

We ask our employees and contractors about their experiences working with BHP via an Engagement and Perception Survey twice a year. After each survey, our team leaders assess what is working well and what they can learn from others before taking action to address improvement areas. Additionally, this survey is used to measure progress against a wellbeing metric within the Safe, Inclusive and Future Ready Workforce pillar in our social value scorecard. In March 2024, we had a response rate of 82 per cent of employees, with 24,000 contractors also providing feedback. We achieved a strong result, with 80 per cent of participants responding favourably to questions related to their engagement and connection to BHP and 87 per cent to questions related to their wellbeing.

Our global recognition program, Big Thanks | Muchas Gracias, has been running since FY2021 to help embed a culture of recognition at BHP. The program supports leaders and peers to recognise employee actions that are excellent, values-based and go above and beyond what is expected of them. We also acknowledge and celebrate years of service through the program, which is aimed at making employees feel appreciated, do their best work and stay at BHP. 

Since Big Thanks | Muchas Gracias was launched, more than 437,000 individual recognition moments have occurred (through e-cards, nominations) and we have celebrated nearly 31,000 career milestones.

Inclusion and diversity

We believe an inclusive and diverse workforce promotes engagement, safety and productivity, and is valued by prospective employees as well as our current workforce.  

Our Inclusion and Diversity Position Statement confirms our vision, commitment and contributions to inclusion, equity and diversity. Since 2016, we have been embedding flexible working, ensuring our facilities and equipment are purpose-fit by partnering with our supply chain partners, and undertaking work to mitigate bias in our systems with the aim of creating workplaces that are safe and inclusive for a diverse range of people.  

Our goal is to attract and retain a workforce that is representative of society. We do this by implementing measures designed to address the barriers and impacts of bias and discrimination experienced by people within underrepresented groups, through listening to their experience and gaining insights from our engagement surveys and our voluntary self-identification survey, ‘Tell Us About You’. As of February 2024, over 11,000 of our employees had completed the survey. 

We also recognise pay is a critical mechanism for creating gender equality. To help mitigate gender pay disparities and prevent the creation of pay gaps, we continue to drive improvements in our systems and processes to remove systemic bias. As an example, our recruitment processes include a ‘blind reward’ process, which is designed to reduce potential bias in remuneration offers at the time of hire. We use global best practice methodologies to calculate the pay gap between men and women in like-for-like or comparable roles. We analyse our pay data and conduct gender pay equity reviews at least annually. The results of the pay equity reviews are reported to the BHP People and Remuneration Committee. Our FY2024 employee remuneration data, including a breakdown by gender, is available in the ESG Standards and Databook 2024.

Gender balance¹

In CY2016, we announced our aspiration to achieve gender balance within our employee workforce globally by the end of FY2025, which we define as a minimum 40 per cent women and 40 per cent men. This has also been included as one of the key metrics we measure progress against our Safe, Inclusive and Future Ready Workforce pillar in our social value scorecard.

We increased the participation of women working at BHP in FY2024 by 1.9 percentage points compared to FY2023, with around 10,500 more female employees at the end of FY2024 than FY2016. As at 30 June 2024, women represented 37.1 per cent of our employee workforce. Since we first set our gender balance aspiration in 2016, BHP has more than doubled the participation of women (from 17.6 per cent to 37.1 per cent). We also reached a significant milestone during FY2024 achieving over 40 per cent participation of women in our employee workforce across the Minerals Americas operations in Chile, and as at 30 June 2024 this was 40.9 per cent.  

The gender breakdown of new hires in FY2024 was 48.1 per cent men and 51.9 per cent women. We improved our participation of women in leadership in FY2024 by 2.0 per cent compared to FY2023. As at 30 June 2024, 31.7 per cent of people leaders were women and of our senior executives 40.9 per cent were women and 59.1 per cent were men.  

In FY2024, our Bamboo flexible work program was a finalist in the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia Women in Resources Awards. Founded in 2019 at Newman Operations, the Bamboo program is a residential gender diversity initiative that supports the attraction and retention of women in historically male-dominated roles. The Bamboo program is targeting an 80 per cent female intake from the Newman township,  creating an opportunity for new-to-industry and existing workers to have flexible work options with reduced shift hours, enabling them to actively maintain a career in mining production, specifically haul truck operations.  

¹ Based on a ‘point in time’ snapshot of employees as at 30 June 2024, including employees on extended absence, as used in internal management reporting for the purposes of monitoring progress against our goals. New hires is based on a 12-month period from 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024. ‘People leaders’ are defined as employees with one or more direct reports. ‘Senior executives’ are defined as employees in the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) and direct reports to the ELT in grade 15 and above roles. Figures reported do not include employees of BHP Mitsubishi Alliance’s Blackwater and Daunia operations, sold to Whitehaven Coal during FY2024.

For information on our approach to addressing workplace sexual harassment, please refer to the BHP Annual Report 2024, Operating and Financial Review 6.6  People - Sexual harassment. 

Indigenous employment  

Indigenous peoples are critical partners of BHP across our operations. We recognise, as part of our global Indigenous Peoples Policy Statement, we can contribute to the economic empowerment of Indigenous peoples by providing opportunities for employment, training and procurement and by supporting Indigenous enterprises. 

We have set targets to increase Indigenous employment in our Minerals Australia operations, Minerals Americas operations in Chile and our Jansen potash project in Canada.

For information on our 2030 goals related to Indigenous partnerships refer to the BHP Annual Report 2024, Operating and Financial Review 6.12 – Indigenous Peoples. 

Racial equity program 

There is no place for racism at BHP or anywhere in the community. We recognise and acknowledge racism impacts our people’s sense of identity, value, feelings of respect and psychological safety. We are taking action to better understand the prevalence of racism at BHP to promote racial awareness and equity in our workplace, and we recognise there is more still to do.  

We continue to take action to increase awareness of and promote reporting, response and investigations in relation to racial harassment matters. In FY2024, across our global operations and offices:

• 109 reports of racial harassment were received into BHP’s reporting channels for raising misconduct concerns.
• 42 per cent of the reports received were logged by leaders, on behalf of others.
• 23 investigated cases of racial harassment conduct were established as having occurred.
• Of the 23 established cases, 21 individuals responsible had their employment terminated (or were removed from site if a contractor) or resigned.
• 19 reports of racial harassment were dealt with by a non-investigative resolution pathway at the impacted person’s request.

Our racial equity working group is led by Chief Financial Officer Vandita Pant as the executive sponsor and oversees work with a focus on eliminating racism and striving to create an environment free from racial discrimination. As part of its work, this group works alongside our Indigenous engagement teams in Australia, Chile, Canada and the United States. 

Throughout FY2024, we continued to progress our work in identifying and addressing structural barriers to equity, and in building awareness and capability in our leaders. We also continued to improve our grievance processes to better support people who tell us when they have experienced racism. Our work in FY2024 included:

• commencing the refresh of a central online platform called RespectHub, including the development of a new virtual assistant RespectChat, aimed at providing information and tools to our workforce to prevent and respond to racism, including support options, response pathways and reporting
• launching new chapters of EmBRace (Employees Beyond Race), our employee resource group focused on discussions around race and racial diversity. Local chapters have now been set up in Canada and South Australia, in addition to existing chapters in Western Australia, Queensland, Singapore and Manila
• continuing our internal and external global awareness and communication campaign, the ‘people of BHP’ series, which aims to celebrate our diversity
• recording and launching a four-part podcast series on racial awareness, with a series of BHP leaders in conversation with external subject matter experts, to continue to support our people to develop a racially aware mindset
• signing up to the RISE Project run by Diversity Council Australia, to commence work in FY2025 to implement organisational change interventions that will help address systemic and organisational barriers for women from culturally and racially marginalised (CARM) backgrounds
  
   

Disability access and inclusion  

At BHP, our commitment to a diverse and inclusive work environment involves measures to improve the accessibility of our workplaces for people with a disability. In support of this commitment, our Accessibility and Inclusion Network, Amber, was established in FY2023.

Amber is an employee-led network sponsored at the executive level, designed to drive change through leadership and influence. The network was named after the amber gem, which often contains fossilised material called ‘inclusions’. Due to these inclusions, the amber gem can be found in a diverse range of shapes, shades and colours, which enhance the value of the gem. The name of the network reflects the diversity of the disability community and how its inclusion can enhance the workforce.

Our Amber Accessibility and Inclusion Network provides a platform for employees to share their perspective, connect with others who have similar experiences and provide peer support. Amber is focused on those who identify as having any kind of disability, as well as carers and allies. The network also encompasses our already established Neurodiversity@BHP group, which supports all neurodivergent people at BHP, as well as our commitment to mental health and wellbeing.

To foster a workplace where people with a disability can fully participate and thrive, during FY2024 we progressed the development of our first global Disability Action Plan, which is expected to be launched during the first half of FY2025. The plan seeks to address three strategic pillars – people, culture, systems – to encourage, recognise and promote an active commitment to improving accessibility and disability inclusion. 

Though we are early in this journey, recognising that everyone has unique needs and strengths, our ambition is to address and remove barriers so that people with a disability can equitably participate in our workforce.

In 2024, we proudly launched our first-ever Disability Action Plan (English | Spanish). Our Plan is guided by the Australian Disability Network's priorities to set the foundation for a more inclusive and accessible BHP. This is an important step towards making our workplace a place where everyone can join in and thrive. 

LGBT+ inclusion 

Our LGBT+ ally employee inclusion group, Jasper, established in 2017, is a natural extension of our inclusion and diversity aspirations.  Its membership base grew to around 2,900 at the end of FY2024, with 16 chapters globally.

Jasper has a global committee, which works across seven key pillars that map to the Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI) areas:

• HR policy and diversity practice 
• Sustainability, strategy and accountability
• Employee and leadership engagement
• Visibility and awareness
• Education, training and professional development
• Data collection and reporting
• Community engagement

In February 2021, we launched our Gender Affirmation Policy and leader toolkit outlining how we will support employees affirming their gender. The Gender Affirmation Policy reflects BHP’s commitment to creating a culture that is inclusive of transgender and gender diverse team members – where everyone is treated with dignity and respect and can realise their full potential without discrimination or harassment. 

In FY2024, we continued to advocate for LGBT+ inclusion and partner with charities throughout the communities where we operate, to help our LGBT+ employees develop a strong sense of belonging inside and outside of our offices and our mine sites.  

Working with suppliers 

Employee relations 

 In Australia, the Federal Government has introduced several tranches of significant industrial relations legislative reforms. In June 2023, this included the introduction of changes to the enterprise bargaining framework with multi-enterprise bargaining. During FY2024, the Federal Government enacted the ‘same job same pay’ policy, enhanced workplace delegates’ rights and empowered the Fair Work Commission to make workplace determinations in the case of intractable bargaining. Not all the legislative reforms have fully commenced operation and we will continue to monitor how they are applied to further our assessment of impacts on BHP and our contracting partners, including the potential to increase labour costs. 

In Chile, the 40-hour week regulation was enacted in April 2023 and requires a gradual implementation over the next five-year period to move from 45 to 40 working hours per week. During FY2024, implementation commenced for the collective agreements that were completed, which now include mandatory shift reductions to 42-hour weeks in April 2026 and 40-hour weeks by April 2028. We continue navigating and monitoring progress on a number of legal developments that may have implications for employee relations in Chile, for example, pension reform and branch negotiation regulation.  

During FY2024, Minerals Australia participated in 11 collective bargaining processes, with seven enterprise agreements completed (with 23 presently in operation) and four subject to ongoing negotiations as at 30 June 2024. In Minerals Australia, there was one round of collective bargaining where protected industrial action occurred during FY2024 (BMACo OCO Enterprise).

Minerals Americas participated in four collective bargaining processes during FY2024, with three completed prior to 30 June 2024 and one concluded subsequent to 30 June 2024. No protected industrial action occurred during FY2024 at our Minerals Americas operations in Chile.

Our people policies 

We have a comprehensive set of frameworks that support our culture and drive our focus on safety and productivity.

Our Charter is the foundation of what we do at BHP. It describes our purpose, Our Values, how we measure our success, who we are, what we do and what we stand for.

Our Code of Conduct (Our Code) demonstrates how to practically apply the commitments and values set out in Our Charter and reflects many of the standards and procedures we apply throughout BHP. BHP’s reporting channels to raise misconduct concerns comprise an online portal and a confidential, 24-hour, multilingual call service which are open to all, including employees and contractors and members of the public for reporting queries and concerns relating to the interpretation and application of Our Code. 

Our Human Rights Policy Statement outlines our commitment to respecting human rights, which includes rights related to workplace health, safety and labour. For more information refer to the Human rights webpage. 

The Global Standards outline the mandatory minimum standards we expect of those who work for or on behalf of BHP. Some of those standards relate to people activities, such as recruitment and talent retention. 

We offer market-aligned benefits for our employees, reflecting the standard practice and applicable legislation in each jurisdiction where we operate. For full-time and part-time employees, these may include retirement/pension benefits, parental leave and other leave categories, recognition program benefits, share ownership via our all-employee share purchase plan, Shareplus and, in some locations, medical/health/life insurance benefits. For employees on fixed-term contracts and casual employees, these may include retirement/pension benefits (as per standard market practice and applicable legislation), recognition program benefits, share ownership and some leave entitlements (as per standard market practice and applicable legislation).  

Permanent full-time and part-time employees are eligible to participate in the short-term incentive plan (variable pay), subject to the terms of the plan. 

People data 

For more data on our people, refer to the ESG Standards and Databook 2024.

Case Studies