Workforce Empowerment and Capability

Auswide Bank understands that the mental and physical wellbeing of people at work is good for everyone and enhances personal and organisational resilience and success.

Some of the key initiatives include:

• Ongoing education and training in mental health.
• Participation in wellbeing initiatives to raise awareness.
• Flexible working arrangements with staff taking advantage of a hybrid working model to support a work-life-balance.           
• Wellness days - staff are given four leave days per year, in addition to personal and annual leave.
• Employee Assistance Program provides staff access to three free personal coaching and counselling sessions per issue to help then deal with the challenges, concerns or issues that may be affecting them at work or at home.
• Paid parental leave - 12 weeks’ pay or 24 weeks at half pay.

The eight areas of assistance available to all staff and selected services for immediate family members are Employee Assist, Legal Assist, Family Assist, Money Assist, Nutrition and Lifestyle Assist, Conflict Assist, Career Assist and Manager Assist.

• Ongoing Workplace Health and Safety training to ensure understanding and compliance for a better work environment.
• Discounted private health cover and free annual influenza vaccinations.

Auswide Bank understands the importance of having the right people in the right roles. We value the contribution and dedication of all our people and recognise them as critical to our success. Auswide Bank strives to provide satisfying and rewarding career opportunities through:

• Linking recognition and reward to strong performance by providing competitive levels of remuneration to ensure that we retain capable staff at all levels.
• Assessment of our employees on their achievements and contribution to our strategic goals, as well as their demonstration of a key set of performance indicators.
• Rewarding employees for their efforts based on both their individual contribution to their team and the achievement of their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and/or targets.
• Direct communication with management through regular staff surveys and weekly intranet communications from leaders.
• A dedicated and skilled onsite recruitment team whose purpose is to ensure that we provide best practice with a structured and transparent approach to recruitment.
• Offering attractive staff benefits, including fee free transaction accounts, discounts on loans and general insurance and credit card fee waivers.
• Reimbursement of costs associated with approved professional development.
• The opportunity to participate in company success through a Staff Share Plan.

Auswide Bank is focused on creating a workforce that represents the varied cultures and life experiences of our staff and customers, as well as our greater society. We encourage our employees to champion our efforts to be a more diverse, inclusive and accessible bank.

We’re committed to pay equitably across our workforce and do not discriminate based on gender, background or identity. We continue to conduct a gender pay review each remuneration cycle, promote flexible working and support our people through the parental leave journey.

Each year we submit a report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency in accordance with the requirements of the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012.

Into the future we will continue to work on building a more diverse and inclusive organisation, as well as becoming part of inclusion networks, groups and communities of best practice and advocacy.

Our annual employee engagement survey measures overall levels of engagement.

When we asked our employees what they liked most about working at Auswide Bank, their responses included a sense of strong teamwork and collaboration and strong commitment to the Bank’s values. When we asked what we could do better, they highlighted a need for more investment in people capabilities, systems and processes.

We continue to act on their feedback by working across the bank to understand key themes and identify actions to address areas of concern.

Our people are highly committed to our values and take pride in supporting the community. We encourage our employees to support their community by offering two days of paid volunteer leave each year.