sustainability report 2022
Our people are our greatest asset. Their determination and innovation combined with the strong relationships they build with our customers and partners, push our business forward. That’s why we work hard to create a culture that enables our people to realise their ambitions. It’s integral to who we are and what we stand for. We encourage innovation and we offer skills development and challenging work opportunities that advance people’s careers.
Goodman people work as a collaborative and engaged team. We strongly believe that using a team-based approach, where our people, customers, partners and contractors work together, is the way we can all perform at our best.
To support and retain our people and attract new talent, we foster a diverse and inclusive culture. Our people participate in the Group’s long term incentive scheme, in part to build collective responsibility, and to align with the interests of our stakeholders.
Goodman actively supports a strong culture in many ways. To keep our people healthy, connected and motivated, we provide regionally specific online and interactive health and wellbeing initiatives. These initiatives have become even more important during the pandemic. Incorporating health and wellbeing features into our properties for our customers is also a focus. These include facilities like recreational and fitness facilities, break-out spaces and garden areas.
We focus on our safety standards and monitoring to prioritise the safety of each team member and contractor. And we are seeking to protect human rights by mitigating the risk of modern slavery in our global supply chains, and continuously improving our business ethics and processes.
We operate a hybrid working model globally. Our commitment to flexibility allowed us to adapt and successfully work through lockdowns, travel restrictions and home schooling, while continuing to meet our customers’ needs during the pandemic.
Our remuneration strategy is designed to attract the best talent and retain our people. We invest in retaining our people through our unique long-term employee equity plan. This gives all our people a material stake in the business.
We value and welcome diversity. We recognise the need to increase our female senior management representation and to reach our target of 40% by 2030. We are actively working towards this target through succession planning, promotions, recruitment and employee development. We are also providing this cohort with increased direct involvement with large customers and investors, and additional talent management opportunities.
Promoting workplace safety and wellbeing for all |
Demonstrating Goodman’s values and promoting diversity, inclusiveness, and social equity |
Group and regional leadership |
Influencing the sustainability practices of our value chain. |
Safe working environment
In FY22, zero fatalities occurred on construction projects under the control of our Principal Contractors.
This achievement was supported through the launch of a Return to Zero program for our contractors which increased operational monitoring of safety standards.
We also developed specifications for minimum contractual safety standards on construction projects for Principal Contractors.
Improve supply chain business ethics
Development of our Sustainable Sourcing Framework, including updates to our Supplier Code of Conduct. These commitments will assist us in protecting human rights within our supply chain and to mitigate the risk of modern slavery.
A comprehensive modern slavery training module was launched in FY22.
Gender ratio of 50/50, with 40% female senior executives by 2030
We reached a gender ratio of 44% female and 56% male.
Goodman maintained 30% female senior executives.
100% of employees assessed as demonstrating Goodman’s values
As of September 2022, 98% of employees had been rated as at least ‘demonstrate’ or above of the Group’s values.
Sustainability, innovation, determination and integrity – Goodman’s values are integral to the success of the business. They shape our culture and focus our teams on delivering high-quality service, and innovative property and investment solutions over the long term. As part of the annual performance review process, our people are assessed on their demonstration of the Goodman values.
Our wellbeing offering evolved during the year to respond to the ongoing nature of the pandemic. Our people in some regions took part in anonymous mental health surveys with the results helping our managers better understand the indicators of mental health in our people, and how to support their team members across the globe.
We encouraged our managers to have more regular check-ins with their team members to better support them throughout the pandemic and beyond. We continued to provide counselling for our people and their families, as well as tailored online educational support on a range of health and wellbeing issues. In some regions these programs were run by an expert external provider.
Goodman continues to offer flexibility and remote working. We are strong supporters of flexible work and the benefits it brings. Plus, our people like the flexibility and we want to support them in this. Now, our people typically work in a hybrid arrangement depending on their commitments. Both options have benefits for our people, customers, relationships and our culture.
Our offices are designed for collaboration, health, wellbeing, connectivity and sustainability. We provide a mix of quiet spaces and areas to connect and collaborate –all in contemporary and sustainable surroundings.
Where possible, we design our workspaces to maximise natural light and fresh air. We use natural non-toxic materials and incorporate plants and trees to lower stress and improve mental clarity. Several of our offices have yoga rooms, gyms, multi-faith rooms and end-of-trip facilities.
Our workplaces also allow for limited physical contact, which helps prevent the spread of illness. We have touchless entry to our buildings, and our people use their own technology equipment. There is also plenty of physical space between people in the office.
Flexibility allowed Goodman to adapt and successfully work through lockdowns, travel restrictions and home schooling, while continuing to be productive and meet our customers’ changing needs in a time of global disruption.
Where the pandemic impacted our people’s work and home lives, we offered region-specific online and interactive health and wellbeing initiatives to keep them physically and mentally healthy, connected to their colleagues and motivated. These included virtual fitness sessions, karaoke competitions, walking groups, cooking competitions, book clubs, guided meditations, wellness talks, and other initiatives.
In Greater China, we provided additional support for our people during the extended lockdowns through tutoring services for children who were unable to attend school, and other opportunities for regular communication with management and colleagues across their region.
At Goodman, we are committed to enhancing diversity and encouraging inclusion. We each bring unique perspectives, experiences, knowledge, backgrounds and thinking. Diverse teams foster a rich mix of differing views and ideas, all of which challenge our thinking and result in better decision making and business performance.
Diversity allows our people to know they genuinely belong and feel included. Diversity of thought is greatly valued at Goodman. Our success depends on it.
Our diversity policy supports:
In FY22, Goodman undertook several diversity and inclusion initiatives to enhance our workplaces. These included:
Building an inclusive workplace at Goodman starts with our leaders. They lead by example when creating the culture of our business.
In Continental Europe, our management and reporting structure continue to evolve to strongly encourage teamwork. In Australia, we facilitated leadership workshops that focused on the value of inclusion.
This is important long-term work. We know by leveraging diverse thinking and enriching our capabilities, we can create a positive work and team culture, improve collaboration and positively impact the performance of our global business. The result of this work creates a culture where our people realise their potential and are empowered to pursue leadership.
We have a global workforce of approximately 1,000 people and a relatively flat organisational structure. So when evaluating if an employee should be categorised as a senior executive, we consider:
Encouraging leadership styles that recognise the importance of inclusion, supports our aim of creating a more diverse workplace by lifting the representation of females in leadership roles. We are committed to 40% of females in the senior executive category by 2030. In FY22, this was maintained at 30% through targeted recruitment, talent reviews and promotions. We also continued to upskill senior female employees, where opportunities become available, by giving them more responsibility and exposure to major customers, investors or corporate activity.
To foster engagement, promote a greater work-life balance and enhance productivity, Goodman provides a range of activities for our people around the world.
In Australia, Goodman’s health and wellbeing program, the (good) life, supports our people through six pillars:
In the last few years we have expanded this program so that our people can take part while working from home with a focus on exercise and education.
Goodman is proactive about identifying and managing human capital risks. As our business evolves, this risk management approach includes identifying potential gaps in available human resources. A recent example includes the recruitment of specialist personnel with experience managing life cycle carbon assessments.
Goodman operates with global mandates to provide technical expertise and alignment across the Group. For example, the Group Technical Director, Group Insurance Manager and Group Safety Manager engage with our regional teams. Goodman’s Group Head of HR reports to the Remuneration Committee on any material employee relations and HR issues, along with gender equity and related matters. The Nominations Committee oversees the Group’s succession plan at senior levels.
Online learning provides an effective platform for learning and training for Goodman’s global teams. However, we also consider it a positive sign that there was a return to more face-to-face learning for key technical requirements in FY22.
Goodman’s Continental Europe business ran the Goodman Academy again this year, where internal subject matter experts present to peers on technical aspects of their roles. These sessions provide employees the opportunity to present and engage within the business.
These types of peer-to-peer training sessions are highly valued by Goodman, and we run similar programs in other regions, such as the ‘In Focus’ program in Australia.
This year we also launched a global communications training program, facilitated by an external writing expert. The program has been rolled out in Australia, New Zealand, Continental Europe and North America – with remaining regions to be trained in FY23.
Goodman’s people can also access a comprehensive catalogue of LinkedIn Learning content via the Group’s global learning system, Aspire. Aspire is the gateway to a range of professional development and skills training relating to compliance, technical and management skills. It’s the backbone of Goodman’s human capital skills offerings. All content is kept current and it remains a popular method of self-paced learning among our employees.
During FY22, 69% of Goodman’s global workforce accessed LinkedIn learning to view 9,565 hours of training across both internal and external courses. The most popular online modules were communication and negotiation, personal coaching, and leadership.
Goodman’s Greater China team has developed its own competency framework designed to assist employees identify what skills and experiences they require to progress their development and learning pathways.
Goodman’s human resources team manages our human capital including the global performance management process in place for our workforce.
We do background checks on new employees where relevant and ongoing checks on employees where required by regulatory bodies. Our Code of Conduct covers all employees and regular governance compliance training takes place to boost awareness, among employees, of their obligations.
We look at human capital metrics including gender representation, gender pay equity, remuneration, diversity, learning, turnover and absenteeism. Voluntary turnover across Goodman Group is around 6.4% per annum.
Across the Group, we prioritise equal fixed remuneration for employees who do similar work within the same region. Differences in total remuneration, including incentives, are based on performance.
These performance-based incentives are a large portion of our remuneration. All employees globally participate in our LTIP and it is a critical element of the Group’s remuneration philosophy. The structure and long-term nature of the LTIP is fundamental in generating the type of culture that we want for long-term success. It creates significant long-term alignment between the sustained financial and operational outcomes of the business delivered and the returns to securityholders.
It is important to Goodman that we recruit, engage, develop and retain the best people in the market.
We focus on providing development opportunities for our people throughout their career with Goodman. This includes setting clear performance expectations from the outset. We induct new employees with face-to-face and e-learning modules during their early months at Goodman.
Crucial to the development of our people is monitoring performance and providing competitive remuneration and benefits. To develop careers, we offer learning and development opportunities that help build new and existing skills. We prioritise talent and use succession planning to make sure we build a strong workforce and leadership team for the future.
Employee development plans are reviewed each year with managers. These focus on career aspirations, goals, and potential training. Our people are offered incentives to study during their career at Goodman. This includes study support schemes, which in some regions includes an allowance of up to AU$8,000.
The annual performance review and development process helps identify and plan for role progression and identify what specialised management training is required. This training includes peer-to-peer engagement with Goodman’s senior leadership team and management committees, which helps identify succession opportunities and creates a diverse leadership team for the longer term.
Our holistic approach to sustainability not only focuses on Goodman’s business but also supports sustainability actions for our people.
To help our people access more sustainable transport we continued offering electric vehicle (EV) incentives. Our people who purchase an EV are offered a financial subsidy by the Group, with the popularity of this scheme gaining momentum each year.
We are also transitioning Goodman’s global vehicle fleet to electric, with programs in place in Australia, Continental Europe and New Zealand to upgrade their fleets. In addition, Goodman’s developments globally increasingly feature EV bays with battery charging stations.
Goodman sees it as our responsibility to listen to, learn from and amplify First Nations voices where we work and live in Australia.
We are at the beginning of realising our ambitions in this space. Our focus this year has been on moving through the Reflect stage of our Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). A RAP is designed to provide tangible and substantive benefits for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples around the core pillars of relationships, respect and opportunities. Like anything we do, it’s important that our first RAP is authentic and ambitious – we’re determined to make a difference.
Relationships
We are actively engaging with Indigenous organisations to assist us with our Reflect RAP, including cultural immersion and building relationships with Local Land Councils in the areas where we operate.
To understand the right training and immersion opportunities to offer, we surveyed our people and offered senior leadership briefings on reconciliation and the RAP process. Both will enable our people to be a part of our engagement with First Nations peoples.
Respect
Acknowledging Country at Goodman’s official investor events such as the AGM and results presentations is an important mark of respect. For new developments, we conduct a Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony officiated by Local Land Councils.
During NAIDOC Week and National Reconciliation Week we worked to further facilitate greater understanding and respect through cultural immersions, communication, Indigenous movie screenings and food workshops.
Goodman is engaging with Indigenous suppliers where possible and seeking opportunities to employ indigenous people within our Australian team.
Through the Goodman Foundation we are committed to education support programs like the Clontarf Foundation and other culturally safe initiatives as with the Stepping Stone House Bawaga program.
More information about our broad indigenous support can be found in the Goodman Foundation section.
NAIDOC Week is a time to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It seemed the right moment to conduct a Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony at Goodman’s flagship workspace, The Hayesbery in Sydney’s Rosebery.
Uncle Allen Madden from the Metro Local Aboriginal Land Council conducted the Welcome on behalf of the Gadigal people.
“ABORIGINAL CULTURE IS EASY TO UNDERSTAND. IT’S ALL ABOUT SHARING AND CARING, AND RESPECT. THAT’S SOMETHING THAT’S ALWAYS IN YOUR HEART AND MIND.”
Goodman is a global business and our commitment to safety is consistent across regions. Our global safety framework helps us implement our approach to safety management for all construction and maintenance activities in our portfolio.
The major risks for life safety, and a key area of our focus, are in the development and construction of our properties on sites under control and supervision of Principal Contractors.
Goodman is committed to positively influencing high safety standards in our contracted workforce. We also actively monitor safety standards to minimise incidents and achieve our objective of zero fatal accidents in our supply chain.
During FY22 our priority was achieving zero fatal accidents on construction projects controlled by Principal Contractors. We launched a ‘Return to Zero’ program to directly influence contractors and increase operational monitoring of safety standards.
We developed specifications for minimum contractual safety standards on construction projects for Principal Contractors. The standards outline our expectations for contractors as they provide control measures for high-risk activities. During FY22 we proactively monitored the implementation of these contractual safety standards during construction.
During our ‘Return to Zero’ program, we conducted frequent safety inspections and issued non-conformance reports and stop work orders to Principal Contractors. This not only enforced our standards but also served to influence contractor safety standards overall.
We also developed a program to provide increased powers for our site safety representatives and initiated penalties for contractors deemed to be non-compliant with Goodman expectations. Our combined approach helped us achieve zero fatal accidents on contractor-controlled projects this year.
Our commitment to sustainable properties means we develop and own buildings that are great places to work in and support the health and wellbeing needs of our customers.
We believe that our commitment to providing healthy, sustainable buildings makes it easier for our customers to attract their own workforce to our properties. In turn, our business benefits from high occupancy levels and sustained rental growth.
In Hong Kong, urban density means our properties are central hubs and home to bigger workforces than many other locations.
The globally-recognised WELL Health-Safety Rating, from the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), guides, validates and recognises the efforts of building owners and operators on critical health and safety issues. This year Goodman submitted 10 of our Hong Kong properties for the rating. We became Hong Kong’s first logistics developer in our asset class to achieve it.
The WELL rating assesses more than 20 features across five core areas:
Health, safety and wellbeing is a priority at Goodman. Now, when customers, suppliers or our team walk into our Hong Kong properties and see the WELL certification logo, they can be reassured this remains a key commitment.
