AWARDS FINALIST: Firstgas Group

In 2020, Firstgas Group implemented their wellbeing programme based on the Māori health model of te whare tapa whā. Following the success of this programme, Firstgas launched its Building Belonging or Whakawhanaungatanga, programme in 2021.

Its aim is to ensure Firstgas Group is a workplace where people feel they belong and are connected and supported to be themselves.

Building Belonging – Whakawhanaungatanga

The key design principles to Building Belonging included introducing the programme at a pace that felt right for employees. The developers wanted the scheme to raise awareness, build connection, weave in lived experience and personal interaction, and to have a means of measuring the change.

The first stage of work focused on setting up legislative and organisational expectations of inclusive behaviour, which involved the development of policies and training programmes. Several streams of work since then have targeted building inclusiveness.

During 2022, Firstgas Group released videos showcasing members of the executive team interviewing someone with life experience to share. To date, eight building belonging interviews have been completed exploring a range of topics including neurodiversity, gender, and heritage.

An online module and awareness booklets have been developed, drawing heavily on Firstgas Group’s values.

The company’s recruitment policy and practice was reviewed to include gender-neutral language and balanced panels, regular reporting on candidate and appointee information as well as gender pay gaps.

The company developed a “This is Us” report to place on the Mind the Gap – the country’s first pay gap registry. Firstgas Group also partners with Sacred Heart Girls’ College in Taranaki to further efforts in pipelining wāhine into the industry.

In October 2022, Firstgas held their first Building Belonging Day, which was open organisation-wide, and attended by almost a fifth of employees. The day focused on interactive learning and shared personal stories. Feedback was positive, with 90 per cent saying they would recommend the day to colleagues.

Since 2021, leadership objectives centred around building belonging have been included in manager personal development plans, and targeted campaigns have been run using a combination of media.

Firstgas Group has partnered with experts to deliver workshops focusing on sharing a deep whakawhanaunatanga, reinforcing commonalities, and getting to know each other beyond normal work interactions.

It has worked to build cultural competence, including increased use of te reo Māori, in-house and external training, utilising Māori approaches to wellbeing, introducing some Māori protocols into the business, and bringing te ao Māori design principles into a recent building refit process.

Results

Firstgas Group says the programme has made a significant impact on company culture in a short period of time.

The male to female ration has improved, with 41.5 per cent of hires in 2022 being women. The gender pay gap has also narrowed to 10 per cent from 26 per cent in 2020.

Since 2022, weekly staff surveys have included specific questions on belonging, fairness and inclusion. The fairness and inclusion category currently receives an overall rating of 8.5/10 and the wellbeing category sits at the same.

The next focus areas for the programme include ongoing awareness campaigns, folding in a diversity and inclusion component to the company’s onboarding process, further education, and metric development to help inform future efforts.

Firstgas Group says it is proud of what has been achieved so far and the ongoing positive impacts of this work.

The Well-being Award category is sponsored by nib