Gender Equality Strategic Plan:
At John Holland we’re up for the challenge of transforming lives. We recognise that gender equality leads to better performance, diversity of thought, improved decision-making, and enhanced team performance. Gender equality also embodies our values of caring, empowering, imaginative, and future-focused.
That’s why we’re committed to becoming an industry leader and being an employer of choice for gender equality. It will allow us to create a stronger business, attract the best people, and provide fantastic opportunities for top talent already within our ranks.
This Strategic Plan has been revised to reflect a summary of the work we have undertaken , lessons learnt and opportunities for 2026 as we develop our next Gender Equality Strategic Plan.
Our goals
Two years since launching our Gender Equality Strategic Plan we’ve reflected on our goals and achievements. We’ve re-aligned our five key aspirational goals to reflect learnings, business changes and respond to external developments such as WGEA Employer of Choice and compliance reporting. We have also reported on our progress against the key goals we wanted to achieve by the end of 2022.
We’ll keep embedding the practices set out in these goals so that we can achieve our longer-term aspirational goals.
We set out to achieve five key goals by the end 2022
1. Upskill our leaders on the importance of leadership in diversity and inclusion across the employee lifecycle.
2. Focus on increasing the pipeline of women joining John Holland.
3. Review recruitment processes to remove bias in our talent programs and succession planning.
4. Assess why our people are leaving John Holland and support on retention.
5. Track progress against participation.
How these changes have been embedded in our ways of working to drive gender equality
- Face to face and e-learning training on breaking bias (3388 employees completed) and workplace behaviour training (2149 employees completed) across our business
- Flexibility training for managers
- With the launch of our capability framework our focus of inclusion, diversity and equity has been captured with the capabilities that set us apart.
- Adopted the 40/40/20 framework across the employee lifecycle
- Continue to build on engagement with schools and universities to support the pipeline of talent
- Analysis of employee exit-data has identified further work to improve employee retention, including an increased focus on flexibility
- Tracking tool launched in 2022 for employees, capturing actions from across the company
- Interactive dashboard that generates monthly data across gender equality indicators
From the midpoint of our strategy, we focussed on longer term aspirational goals leading to 2025. Below we outline how these goals have progressed and the key insights gained along the way.
Aspirational Goals Set to meet from 2022-2025
1. Achieve a minimum target of 40% women in staff roles overall to ensure equal representation of genders across John Holland.
2. Embed targets at leadership levels and job families where women or men are underrepresented, and measure progress.
3. Achieve overall gender pay equity.
Throughout the cycle of the Strategic Plan, we continued to align the goals and the actions with the John Holland Inclusion Strategic Plan (2023-2025), WGEA Act (2012) compliance reporting and the WGEA Workplace Gender Equality Citation Program.
How we have embedded these
- While we did not reach the 40% target for staff roles, the overall number of women employed at John Holland has increased year on year as shown in the data later in this summary.
- Since 2022, the proportion of women engaged in non-staff roles has more than doubled to 7.3%, from 3%.
- We’ve learned the importance of setting realistic interim targets and taking incremental steps to achieve longer term outcomes.
- Moving forward we’ll set targets aligned with WGEA guidance for manager and nonmanager roles, with a long-term ambition of achieving gender balance across our different workplace cohorts.
- Across the life of this strategy, we introduced a number of gender targets. We saw positive outcomes when clear targets were set to increase the representation of women in senior leadership roles, although recent organisational changes impacted progress in this area.
- We remain focussed on growing the number of women in senior leadership and have recently established new gender targets for manager and non-manager role types as part of our WGEA Citation Application.
- We conduct annual reviews to ensure we meet our obligations to pay people equally for comparable work. We regularly report any differences to leadership and the Board and adjust any identified gaps.
- We also undertake a comprehensive annual gender pay gap analysis, report outcomes to leadership and the Board, and actively engage leaders, hiring managers and employees on actions to support continued progress toward gender pay equity.
4. Ensure flexible ways of working are the norm for everyone.
5. Maintain the WGEA Employer of Choice for Gender Equality citation and lead through our sphere of influence.
- During 2023 and 2024 we undertook an evaluation known as Flex from the Start to better understand what enables effective flexible working on projects. The insights and recommendations from this work have been shared across the business. We also contributed to the development of the CICT Time for Life implementation materials and continue to promote a range of flexible working options to our employees.
- After being awarded the Employer of Choice Citation in 2023, we maintained it until December 2025 and are currently under assessment for the new WGEA Citation framework, with an expected outcome in 2026.
- Through sharing practical examples of gender equality, speaking at external events, and being involved in industry groups, we continue to demonstrate leadership while recognising there is more to learn and improve.
The 40/40/20 framework
This framework helps deliver equitable outcomes for men and women by appointing and promoting 40% men and 40% women. The remaining 20% allows flexibility in hiring and promoting people of any gender, taking account of pipeline/labour supply challenges, and making meritbased decisions.
To be a leading organisation we need to recruit the best people for the job – regardless of gender. Potential conscious and unconscious biases can hold us back when choosing the ‘best’ person for the job, and science confirms that we are drawn to those who think, look and act like us.
This plan therefore focuses on training our leaders in diversity and inclusion to reduce the impact that bias can have on our people processes including performance and reward.
Since we developed this strategy the Australian Parliament passed the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill March 2023, which means WGEA will now be publishing gender pay gaps. It’s important to clarify that our goal for achieving overall gender pay equity for this 2025 strategy looks at two dimensions.:
- continuing to monitor equal pay across roles
- monitoring and closing our overall gender pay gap. This means decreasing our 2021-2022 gap of 31.3% by at least 2%pt by the end of 2025 (for mean total remuneration).
Current gender statistics
We continue to meet our legal obligations of remunerating people performing the same or comparable work. We have well-established processes to ensure remuneration is graded and within bands and that annually, gaps are checked and analysed for how they occurred.
Since the 2021-2022 reporting period we have reduced our overall gender pay gap, (mean total remuneration) from 31.3% to 25.1% - a reduction of 6.2% pts. This improvement reflects sustained, organisation-wide action by leaders, managers and employees to embed gender equality over the last three years.
Women and men representation in December 2025 compared to August 2021.
August 2021
5,554 employee base
December 2025
5,753 employee base vs
Actions since the Gender Equality Strategic Plan launched:
- Leadership training and skill development for all managers and People teams to ensure 40/40/20 framework is well understood and supported.
- Strengthening the understanding of belonging, inclusion, diversity and equity (including gender) and zero tolerance of any gender-based, sexual harassment, discrimination and bullying.
- Applying a gender lens (aligned with 40/40/20 framework) to all John Holland talent programs, development opportunities and talent discussions.
- Actively challenging bias during talent review conversations, succession planning, promotions and restructures.
- Visible targets for all business units on gender participation and tracking relevant gender data through dashboards that are accessible to all employees.
- Ensuring gender equality is factored into tender processes.
- Meeting our equal pay obligations through annual reviews and action.
- Embedding flexible working throughout the business, particularly on our projects.
- Focused programs for leaders on the importance of inclusion, diversity and equity, building inclusive behaviours and challenging unconscious biases.
- Running successful annual initiatives such as Women’s Mentoring Program.
- Partnering with high schools, external providers, universities and trade schools to promote a career in construction for women.
- Deeper analysis of why our people are leaving the business and appropriate interventions to address retention issues.
- Embedding additional employee benefits and/or initiatives targeting people with caring responsibilities.
- Ensuring work sites cater to all genders and applying zero tolerance to gender-based harassment, discrimination and bullying and any other negative behaviours.
- Continuing to improve our parental leave policy and better supporting people returning to work.
- Supporting our people who experience family and domestic violence through improved policies, education and awareness.
- Annual analysis of our overall gender pay gap (as per WGEA reporting) and clear actions to address.
- Sharing our learnings and knowledge across our industry and sphere of influence.
- Building greater understanding for managers and senior leaders in their roles to support respectful workplace.
Progress to date
- The proportion of women employed at John Holland increased to 26.3% in December 2025, up from 21.4% in 2021.
- For staff roles (excluding our frontline workers) women represented 31.7% in December 2025 compared to 30.2% in August 2021. Whilst our overall headcount has increased during this period, the proportion of women in staff roles remained broadly stable year on year.
- Achieved the WGEA Employer of Choice Citation for 2022-2024 with the citation extended through 2025 and a further application submitted to WGEA at the end of 2025.
- Women comprised 49% of the 2025 graduate intake, up from 20% in 2018. In 2026, women will represent 48% of new graduates.
- As of December 2025, 20.9% of women at John Holland are employed in engineering roles, up from 8.6% in 2016).
- Developed and continue to embed key policies that strengthen inclusion and gender equality including: the Working Flexibly Procedure, Family & Domestic Violence Procedure, Gender Affirmation & Gender Equality Procedure.
- Enhanced Parental Leave by increasing paid leave for primary and secondary carers, paying superannuation on unpaid components of primary carers leave, and supporting new parents with 15 keep-in-touch days.
- Since the policy change, the number of men taking primary carers leave increased from 7 in 2021 to 89 in 2025. You can read more about that in a 2023 case study here
- In its second year, the Schools Engagement Program continues to support the Gender Equality Strategy by equipping John Holland teams with ready-to-use materials to independently deliver school sessions. Between July 2024 and December 2025, the program reached more than 2,500 students, with female participation estimated at 50%, including targeted sessions for young women and outreach in regional communities such as rural Victoria.
- Launched our Celebrate Women Network in 2020, which remains one of the largest Employee Resource Groups at John Holland, providing resources, education, and forums to strengthen understanding and support for gender equality.
- Our Celebrate Women and Pride Networks collaborated to highlight the intersectional experiences of LGBTQ+ women, hosting an informative and engaging webinar to mark Lesbian Visibility Week 2025 titled Breaking Biases: Empowering Women and Non-Binary Leaders in Construction.
- Continued delivery of the Women’s Mentoring Program, with 19 women participating in 2025 and a total of 281 women supported since the program commenced in 2019.
- Strengthened identification of potential bias in recruitment through enhancements to recruitment systems and reporting metrics.
- Delivered a new Women in Leadership program in partnership with Lysander, with, 15 Women completing the program in 2025.
- Trialled a Women’s Sponsorship Program with seven participants in 2020, using lessons learned to improve future design.
- Delivering Breaking Bias training through e-learning and virtual face to face sessions for employees and managers.
- Introduced the Gender Equality Strategic Plan Tracker and Gender Profile Dashboard in 2022 to track and improve transparency and accountability, with access provided to all employees.
- Continued to reduce the organisational-wide gender pay gap, exceeding the target by achieving a 6.2 percentage point reduction in mean total remuneration.
- Equipped all managers with training on flexible working to clarify their role in supporting it, with guidance updated in 2025 following changes to our Flexible Working Procedure.
- Launched a partnership with AFLW in 2022, enabling players to work at John Holland in flexible roles to support their careers on and off the field, with 20 players employed across a range of roles by 2023.
- Recognised as a finalist and winner of multiple awards for our work in inclusion and diversity, and gender equality, including finalist status in the NAWIC 2023 Business Awards, and winner of the Best Workplace Flexibility Program at the 2025 Australian HR Awards.
- Individual employees have received external recognition for leadership and commitment to gender equality, inclusion, and diversity, including Kate Hogan (Social Procurement Manager – Building VIC/TAS/SA) being recognised in the Property Council Victoria 2025 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award.
- Seconded an employee to the Culture in Construction Taskforce to contribute to industry-wide approaches to wellbeing, diversity, inclusion, and flexibility.
- Partnered with the ACA Culture Committee and CICT on a range of initiatives to supporting the industry change including the ACA Culture Pledge and contributions to the Culture Standard Implementation materials.
Next steps
As part of our WGEA Gender Equality Citation application, a key priority for 2026 is the development of our next Gender Equality Strategic Plan. This plan will be informed by lessons learned from the current strategy, emerging legislative requirements and employee engagement insights.
Contact
inclusion@jhg.com.au
- Revised and strengthened our Inclusion Strategic Plan to reflect an intersectional approach and clear ways of working that support everyone to feel a sense of belonging at John Holland.
- Awarded three NSW Government Women in Construction Industry Innovation Program grants over two years to evaluate flexible working on construction sites, enhance women’s health and wellbeing resources on projects, and deliver a program inspiring primary school-aged girls into STEM pathways.
- Remained compliant with the WGEA Act 2012 including all reporting obligations and engagement with employees, shareholders, and employee organisations.
- Since 2023 we’ve produced an annual Employer Statement outlining initiatives and practices over the previous 12 months to support the continued embedding of gender equality.
johnholland.com.au
Contact: inclusion@jhg.com.au