Gender Equality at Fisher & Paykel Appliances

We strive to create a sense of belonging and opportunities for all.  Our CEO, Dan Witten-Hannah, is a member of Champions for Change. Alongside a diverse group of leading CEOs and Chairs, Dan is committed to supporting our own diversity and inclusion initiatives to build inclusive and diverse leadership. 

Over the past years, we have done a lot of reflection and work as an organization. In particular, we have been focused on gender and cultural diversity as two key areas.  

So far on our journey we have: 

• Established a global employee-led Gender Inclusion and Cultural Diversity network, as well as a Māori and Pasifika network in New Zealand 
• Developed and implemented Thrive, a mentorship programme for women 
• We continue to identify and improve opportunities to encourage diversity across all stages of the talent acquisition process 
• Updated key policies and practices, like flexible working and Whānau (Family) Leave, to enable greater participation 
• Launched an annual Global Diversity Survey to help us understand the diversity of our people and the progress we are making towards becoming a more diverse workforce 
• Designed inclusive Leadership Development Programme for all our leaders globally 
• Implemented Unconscious Bias training for everyone (mandatory for hiring People leaders) to raise awareness and provide education around appropriate workplace behaviours 
• Hosted internal cultural, religious and social events such as Māori, Samoan and Tongan language weeks and Matariki (Māori new year) in New Zealand, International Women’s, Men's Days and Lunar New Year Globally – all to raise awareness of the diversity within our teams 
• Introduced global language courses: Te Reo Māori courses in collaboration with Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, as well as Chinese (Mandarin)  
• Sponsored and attended events with Women in Engineering at Auckland and Christchurch universities 
• Launched a new People Networks portal for all Fisher & Paykel employees who wish to contribute their voice and vision towards the future of our organization 
• Developed a new DEI playbook to support teams with implementing good DEI practices, including information and ideas to help teams start and/or progress their DEI learning journey. 

While we are proud of how far we have come as an organization, there is still more we want to achieve. Through global and local initiatives and ongoing ‘business-as-usual’ activity we aim to: 

• Strengthen, embed, and sustain DEI across the employee lifecycle 
• Lift DEI awareness, engagement, and communication. 

You can view or download our Diversity Policy here.