Why diversity is important to Fonterra

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International Women's Day is the perfect time to start a conversation about how important diversity is in the workplace, Fonterra's managing director, people and culture Kate Daly says.

Having a diverse workplace brings many benefits to a company and its employees, Daly told The Country Sport Breakfast's Brian Kelly.

"Having a variety of people from different backgrounds and cultures brings a diversity of thought and approach and that's really beneficial for everyone."

Companies with greater diversity delivered better outcomes for their shareholders, had greater levels of innovation and creativity and had higher levels of productivity because their employees were more engaged, Daly said.

There were also other benefits.

"You're more likely as an employer to be attractive to a wider talent pool. If you don't value diversity, people from diverse backgrounds are less likely to want to work for you. So that's pretty important.

"Really, all those differences, I think, bring communities together and make for a vibrant workplace."

Diversity was vital to Fonterra, as one of New Zealand's largest employers, Daly said.

"It is really important for us that we're an attractive employer, we provide a great place for our people to work and we have access to as wide a talent pool as possible."

In order to achieve this, the co-op was promoting its early in-career opportunities for women to build a more "diverse pipeline" for the future, she said.

"One example of what we've been doing has been focusing on employing women into roles that have traditionally attracted more men, for example, our apprenticeships programme."

The move was already working.

"This year, from the total number of apprentices recruited, 30 per cent are women and that actually compares really favourably against the National Industry average for apprenticeships of 5 per cent women."

Fonterra is promoting apprenticeships as a valuable career pathway through regional engagement, specifically at girls' schools.

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"We've had some really, really positive engagement from those interactions and it's starting to come through, in terms of, not only the number of women applying for jobs for us but also being successful."

Though this was a long-term approach, the co-op had already seen results from challenging accepted norms around women working in trade roles, Daly said.

Another example is Fonterra's Graduate Technical Programme.

"We've been focused on removing bias from our interview process, so all our interview panels and recruitment panels have a 50/50 gender split."

This approach has been successful, with half of the graduates being women, a trend that has continued for the past five years.

Having a diverse workforce meant the future looked bright for Fonterra, Daly said.

"The exciting thing is we are starting to see these women moving into senior leadership roles across the business and internationally."