Highlights

People, Risk and Wellbeing developed Council’s inaugural Workforce Plan 2021–2025 in line with the new requirements set out by Victoria’s Local Government Act 2020. The Workforce Plan aims to establish workforce planning as an integrated process to assist in delivering the strategic objectives identified in the Council Plan 2021–2031. To achieve this aim, People, Risk and Wellbeing reported on comprehensive data on Council’s organisational structure and workforce data as of 30 June 2021 to develop a 4-year action plan to be implemented through a staged annual process. In addition to the Workforce Plan, People, Risk and Wellbeing also developed Council’s Gender Equality Action Plan 2022–2025 in March 2022. The Plan, alongside the Gender Equality Act 2020 (VIC), provides a means of addressing longstanding gender inequalities within the community. Consultations and collaborations with staff members across our whole organisation informed the strategies listed within the Plan. We reviewed Council’s Recruitment and Selection Policy and Procedure to provide clearer guidance and assistance to hiring managers in how to recruit high calibre and skilled employees through a fair and non-discriminatory process based on merit. The updated policy was sent out for consultation through our Senior Leadership Team and Staff Consultative Committee before being endorsed by our Executive Leadership Team in March 2022. In accordance with the Local Government Act 2020, we developed our inaugural CEO Employment and Remuneration Policy. The Policy establishes a Governance framework and guides in managing the employment cycle of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to recruitment and appointment, establishing the CEO’s performance plan, reviewing performance against the plan and determining the CEO’s remuneration. The Policy was adopted in December 2021 and is to be reviewed every four years. We began negotiating our Enterprise Bargaining Agreement 2022 as our current agreement expires on 30 June 2022. We held information sessions detailing the Enterprise Bargaining process in April 2022, a recording of the Kyneton session held on Thursday 21 April 2022 is available on our intranet for staff. All staff were sent an email on Tuesday, 10 May 2022 with the Notification of Employee Representational Rights attached, this allowed staff to nominate themselves or another staff member to represent them at the bargaining table. On 30 June 2022, we provided an update to all staff detailing who is part of the negotiating (e.g. representatives from each union, management representatives and staff representatives) and a summary of Management’s log of claims.

Volunteers

In early March 2022, the Executive Management Team approved a project to inform the development of a business case to support implementation of best practice in volunteer management for Council. The Community Wellbeing department led this project with People, Risk and Wellbeing gathering key data. Council also engaged Volunteering Victoria to undertake an internal process to provide recommendations on how we can achieve this. This project will assist in developing a volunteer database and reporting framework that captures and reports on data similar to what is currently present for our paid workforce.

Professional development

We invested in a new learning management system and expanded our internal learning and development resources. These improvements increased our professional development capability and capacity to provide developmental opportunities to all staff. There were several legislative compliance-based workshops conducted including: • Workplace Manslaughter Legislation Briefing — responding to the inclusion of workplace manslaughter as a criminal offence in the Occupational Health and

Safety Act 2004 (VIC). Two sessions were held on 23 July and 11 August 2021 for Executive, Senior

Leadership and Operational Leadership teams. • Emergency Management 101 Workshop — on 24

November 2021 a session was held for all staff that held the position of Municipal Recovery Manager (MRM) or Municipal Emergency Management

Officers (MEMO). • Gender Impact Assessment training — related to the Gender Equality Act 2020. Two workshops were delivered by Dr Genine Hook, from Loddon Mallee

Women’s Health with the first workshop held on 3

February for the Executive Leadership Team and the second on 4 February for all Senior Management Team and Operational Leadership Team.

In addition to our compliance training, which ranges from mandatory e-learning modules, first aid/CPR training and internal system training via our corporate training calendar, we also offered sessions encouraging professional development. Below are some examples of these sessions: • Conflict Management for COVID Conversations was provided on 2 November 2021 to provide strategies for using a calm, factual, positive and respectful approach when managing conversation around COVID-Safe directives in Local Government. • Training and consulting was held on 8 March 2022 to provide staff with techniques and confidence to de-escalate conflict situations. The training addressed conflict resolution and worked through how to manage conflict by negotiation. • Mental Health First Aid training was held on 29 and 30 March 2022. This session was available to all staff, giving the opportunity to become a designated Mental

Health First Aid Officer. Other training and workshops offered included assessing, analysing and treating risk, workplace behaviour and discrimination, mental health and wellbeing, leadership skills and people management. In the week commencing 1 November 2021, we successfully launched our new eLearning platform. We successfully imported all the data from our previous eLearning platform. We currently have 32 courses on offer, with a mix of mandatory compliance modules and optional professional development modules.

Equal Employment Opportunity Program

A council with 40 or more staff members must have developed and implemented an equal opportunity program. We provide an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) program to promote equal opportunities for all employees. Staff are provided with our Equal Opportunity Policy and EEO training at the commencement of employment as part of the induction process. The training, which is provided via our eLearning platform, ensures employees have an understanding of the characteristics that are protected attributes under EEO legislation and their obligations as an employee and/or supervisor. In-house training outlining responsibilities is given to supervisors and managers. The objective of the EEO program is to eradicate discrimination relating to the characteristics listed under the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (VIC), such as race, colour, sex, marital status, parenthood, physical or mental impairment, age, religious or political affiliation, gender identity and sexual orientation. Further objectives free the workplace from bullying and harassment. The Recruitment and Selection Policy endorsed in March 2022 outlines the makeup of selection panels to ensure gender diversity in all internal and external recruitment panels allowing all applicants to undergo a fair and nondiscriminatory recruitment process. The development of the Gender Equality Action Plan 2022–25 also outlines strategies to address three key priorities that relate to Equal Employment Opportunity: 1. Leadership in the promotion of diversity and inclusion and offering equal opportunities for all genders. 2. A gender-balanced workforce that supports our staff members through our flexible work options. 3. Zero tolerance towards bullying, discrimination and sexual harassment of our staff members. In addressing the three key priorities, People, Risk and Wellbeing identified a development opportunity for female leaders to participate in the Leading Edge Program developed by Women and Leadership Australia. The four-month Program was designed to assist the transition of aspiring and early career female Managers to transition into confident, capable and motivated leaders. One of our staff members participated in the Program. Our Executive team was finalised in March 2022 with the successful recruitment of three female Directors.

Health and safety

At Macedon Ranges Shire Council, we strongly commit to providing a safe and healthy workplace for Councillors, employees, volunteers, contractors and visitors. We aim to integrate physical and psychological health and safety into all Council activities to reduce the incidence of injury and illness. In 2021/22 Council saw an increase in incidents compared to 2020/21. This increase is attributed to the easing of COVID-19 lockdown and restrictions where both staff and public resumed normal activities. During 2021/22, the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) team has been focussing on increasing compliance activities at the Woodend operations centre and supporting staff across the organisation to understand their OHS obligations and how to use the incident reporting system. We had consistent Workcover claims during 2021/22 and 2020/21. Through staff engagement, prevention and early intervention the OHS team aims to create a downward trend in incidents with initiatives to support and inform staff and managers on health, safety and wellbeing in the workplace.