Consultation in action

Clough is an engineering and construction firm based in Western Australia. The Executive team at Clough recently identified the need to improve their workforce gender balance, viewing it as business imperative.

To do this, they designed a staff program in collaboration with CEO’s for Gender Equity Perth. The program involved ongoing employee consultation and engagement, aimed getting all staff, including male leadership, on board to understand the business case and support efforts towards gender equity.  

The begin, CEO’s for Gender Equity Perth facilitated a series of Accelerating Gender Equity focus groups with Clough employees—the executive team as well as separate women’s and men’s groups. These consultations sought to understand levels of inclusivity and awareness of equity in the organisation. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and identified that there was much more Clough could do as a business to improve gender equity.

Following this, Clough held an Executive Committee workshop to reaffirm the leadership team’s commitment to gender equity and a way forward.

Next, they held a series of workshops with the executive team, line managers, and employees across the business, to develop their capacity to lead and support Clough’s commitment to gender equity. A follow-up action from the workshops was to review their HR, sales and marketing policies and procedures to ensure these support their gender equality efforts.