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Fortescue boss Nev Power
reflects on culture, success
Addressing the recent 2016 AMMA National Conference in Perth, Fortescue’s charismatic chief executive Nev Power outlined the company’s approach to culture, engagement and attaining the apparently unattainable.
On achieving stretch targets: Fortescue employees
Nev Power speaks with participants at Fortescue’s Trade Up launch
Fortescue’s success in identifying the disparity among its trade employees and developing a sustainable solution within a short timeframe also gained praise from industry when the company was awarded AMMA’s 2016 Indigenous Employment and Retention Award. “It’s wonderful that the industry recognises the importance of an initiative like this to help close the gap for unskilled Aboriginal people,” O’Farrell says. “We are delighted with the success of our Trade Up trainees, but perhaps the best endorsement of the program’s success is the trainees in the second intake who followed in the footsteps of their siblings in the first cohort. “The trainees appreciate the program could open up many opportunities for them and their families, and allows them to be role models both at work and in their communities. “It truly is a life-changing opportunity.” RP
I’ve been asked more times than I can remember why we don’t under-promise and over-deliver, but that belies the underlying culture and success of Fortescue. At Fortescue, we say everyone has two jobs. Firstly, we have our own job to do to the best of our ability. But secondly, we need to think of a way to do our job better tomorrow – more productively, more efficiently, at lower cost, more safely. Everyone that works around Fortescue knows when we have a target, that is the only target and we are going all out to achieve that. So, it’s about setting that target and using innovation or generating ideas to find solutions to that. If it wasn’t for the sheer determination of our founders, Fortescue would never had existed. It’s that determination that drives us and allows us to achieve those stretch targets. Leadership and accountability:
We know our culture is shaped and morphed every day by the attitudes that people bring to work. So, if people bring a positive, pumped up, energetic attitude to work and use that to lift people around them, then the whole workplace culture starts to mirror that positive energy. It is about setting targets, but also giving people complete ownership over the outcomes and inspiring them, engaging with them, encouraging and empowering them to achieve. We then recognise and celebrate successes for at least 10 seconds, before moving on. We recognise that success is about what we’re going to achieve in the future – that is what is going to define us. Community engagement:
The very success of our community engagement has been around a very different approach to engaging with Aboriginal communities. We try very hard to understand what we can do to bring benefit to those communities, (and) what we can do is provide real opportunity. We start by removing barriers to employment; by creating real jobs and then providing training to get into those jobs. Building capability in Aboriginal communities is also very important. Aboriginal companies employ a lot more Aboriginal people than non-Aboriginal companies. So, by helping build capability and capacity within Aboriginal contractors and suppliers, we know that the impact, the trickle-down effect or the multiplier effect in terms of employment is going to be much higher. So, today, while we employ directly 1100 Aboriginal people, some 14 per cent of our workforce, probably more important is the $1.8 billion worth of contracts that we’ve written to Aboriginal companies and their joint-venture partners. RP
RESOURCEPEOPLE | SPRING 2016 | www.amma.org.au