OZ Minerals directly employs over 5,700 people and approximately 3,100 additional contractors in nine countries.

OZ Minerals has a diverse workforce with good Indigenous, local community and female employment figures for the resources industry which demonstrates our commitment to the communities in which we operate. However operations have different employee profiles that reflect diverse geographic locations and local communities.

At Century, Prominent Hill and Golden Grove Indigenous employment is encouraged through active recruitment amongst the local communities. At Sepon, the vast majority of the workforce is Lao. This is detailed further in the discussion on local employment in the socio-economic contributions section of this report.

The average age of OZ Minerals employees is 39.68 years. The challenge is to develop and retain a highly skilled workforce. At Rosebery the mean age of our workforce is 45 with an average employee tenure of 14 years, and the challenge is to attract and retain younger, professional employees to the operation.

OZ Minerals also has a strong commitment to increasing its employment of women and the diversity of its workforce. We believe this diversity helps to achieve a healthy culture in a traditionally male-dominated industry. At the end of 2008 female employees represented 16.2 per cent of OZ Minerals employees.

A company-wide ‘Women in Mining’ strategy targeting increases in the number of female employees was developed during 2007 and 2008. Initiatives implemented in 2008 included the extension of three months paid parental leave extended to all employees and a review of proposed salary increases, as part of the annual remuneration review, to ensure that salary increases were uniform across gender for Oxiana originating employees. This allowed the company to review and make any necessary changes prior to payments being made.

The strategy was reflected in the company’s annual report to the Federal Government’s Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace agency, which demonstrated a strong commitment to women in the workplace. This resulted in nominations for an award in 2007 and 2008.

OZ Minerals has developed a number of inclusive employee-related practices tailored for the locality of employees, gender, age and nationality. All operations have a policy of preferential employment from local communities. The Human Resources and Community Development functions of each operation work together to promote employment at OZ Minerals, and to identify potential employees from the local community.

An example of this commitment exists at Prominent Hill where an initiative called Project Unity was implemented to delivering an equitable workplace and a diverse workforce reflective of the demographics of the broader external environment. The project aims to build a culture where all individuals respect and value diversity within the operation and reflect this in their day-to-day behaviours. Key activities included the development of programs to assist employees and managers better understand appropriate workplace behaviours, the provision of support mechanisms for new at-risk employees to provide a smooth induction to the operation and development of specific forums and profile building tools for individuals from disadvantaged or minority groups. As part of this, Prominent Hill developed a Memorandum of Understanding, declaring the operation’s commitment to the employment of women and Indigenous employees.