Around the world, workforce management has evolved with time and Australia remains no exception to this. As businesses undergo a dramatic change led by technology, social culture and globalization, job roles now demand new skill sets, such as extensive problem-solving capabilities, cognitive reasoning, creativity and leadership abilities. Over the last few years, Wipro Australia has embarked on a journey to change the face of its workforce. The approach has been to progress on a number of concurrent themes:

• Employee localisation
• Employee diversity
• Pay equality
• Graduate opportunities
• Education development
• Community involvement

Employee localisation

Since 2016, Wipro Australia rolled out localisation programs that had set quarter on quarter achievement targets and continues to do so for its rolling two-year horizon. We follow the approach of a ‘hire first’ policy when seeking to fill new roles, across functions, including Sales, Support and Delivery and new graduates. 
The result has been a steady growth in local employees who have Australian Permanent Residency or Citizenship. Our ability to retain talent has ensured our localisation drive hasn’t floundered even in a single quarter. Currently our localisation footprint in Australia stands at over 35%.

Employee diversity

As part of our localisation program we also sought to ensure our ratio of female employees improved. A simple step includes ensuring female applicants are always equally considered for roles across functions and departments. This has enabled a step change in the diversity of our new employees that we hire. Owing to the positive implementations in our Maternity and Paternity policies, our female recruitment has witnessed a good growth, which currently stands at 40% of the total new hires.

But diversity is much more than just addressing gender bias issues. It’s about broader gender identification, race, ethnicity, physical ability, religion, sexual orientation, and we purposely strive to ensure no one is treated differently for employment opportunities due to their potential diversity.

Pay equality

Across our various employment grades, Wipro Australia has always stressed upon pay equality. With improvement in paid maternity leave, and positive actions to ensure a mix of candidates are being considered for all recruitments, we are finding the attrition of female employees is now much lower than that of males.

Graduate opportunities

Over the last year, we have reinvigorated our Graduate program. In the last financial year, Wipro Australia hired 43 new graduates, and our ambition is to hire at least a further 100 this year. The focus is across industries and importantly, on providing training and experience in ‘digital’ technologies. This encompasses leading CRM solutions, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation, data analytics, cyber security and integration technologies to name a few.

Education development

Our associations with educational institutions have been stronger than before. Our tie ups with academia have moved from strength to strength. A very good example is our partnership with Swinburne University. Swinburne University of Technology has offered a select cohort of Wipro, an opportunity to experience Swinburne micro units in a cost effective way. Our training incorporates online examinations and accreditation, to align pedagogy to employee’s grade and designation at the company,E.g indepth technical, management overview, sales propositions. We have also built Topcoder, Wipro’s crowdsourcing technology, which allows community of designers, developers, and data scientists to deliver all things novel and digital.

Community involvement

Earlier this year Wipro has taken its first steps towards turning good intentions into positive actions, to help build higher trust, lower prejudice, and an increase pride in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures by joining the Reconciliation Australia and establishing a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). Our first steps on this journey are mapped out for this year and next and will lay the foundations for future RAPs and reconciliation initiatives in the years to come.

Like Wipro, our customers are committed to engage with partners who demonstrate a commitment to maximize indigenous participation in the delivery of work, training, employment and businesses.

Additionally, for several years, Wipro has undertaken its Spirit of Wipro fun run in cities across Australia. This global event has received mass support and contribution from stakeholders across our ecosystem of partners, clients, employees and students in Australia. Through these initiatives our communities have always connected and resonated strongly with the purpose of giving back. Including our employee volunteering initiatives towards alleviating the drought crisis in New South Wales and partnering with Foodbank, The Good Company, Salvation Army among many others to support under-privileged communities.

These initiatives are in line with our vision of becoming an ‘employer of choice’ to anyone from any background and a true representative organisation of the Australia society. We already have 25 nationalities working for us in Australia, and this diversity enriches our daily lives and helps to build a new face of Wipro in Australia.