The Asset Management Diversity Award
The Diversity category recognises and promotes the positive contribution made by organisations that demonstrate a holistic and long-term commitment to diversity within the Asset Management community. Some key characteristics of workforce diversity may include race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, ability, and sexual orientation.
Introduction
Transurban is committed to developing diverse teams that are high performing, engaged, and feel valued and to maintaining a secure culture of inclusivity. Transurban has a longstanding partnership with AECOM who share a commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion and recognize the benefits of creating project teams that reflect the clients and communities we serve.
The project team, that has been created to support Transurban in its asset management practices as it prepares to expand its network, includes twenty-eight individuals from both Transurban and AECOM. This diverse team, of varying gender, ethnicity and educational backgrounds is led by Ant Campbell (he/him) who is focused on building a strong team culture to allow individual members to contribute to their fullest potential thus achieving successful project outcomes.
- Summary of your asset management team
The Transurban/AECOM asset management team is highly diverse and embodies a strong culture of inclusivity and collaboration creating a secure work environment for all. The team comprises sixteen core members with twenty-eight individuals contributing to the project throughout its lifecycle. The team embodies a wide range of personal characteristics including gender (52% female and 48% male), ethnicity, languages spoken, family status and cultural backgrounds as well as educational backgrounds, workplace experience and professional specialisms and diversity of thought and life experience.
- Demonstration of Organisational Leadership in creating and maintaining
- Your asset management team
- How does your leadership team invest and build talent to create an inclusive workplace and diverse asset management team?
- How do you attract and retain asset management talent?
Transurban is committed to maintaining a workplace culture of inclusivity and recognizes the benefits of a diverse, engaged and high performing team to facilitate the delivery of an outstanding service to the customer. Transurban demonstrates this commitment through the application of its Diversity and Inclusion Policy (May 2021).
The asset management project team, formed by Ant Campbell (Transurban’s Project Management Asset Lead), is made up of sixteen key members from Transurban and AECOM with up to twenty-eight individuals being involved at some point in the project lifecycle. The team is highly diverse, and Ant, recognizing that diversity of thought leads to creative solutions to asset management challenges, has worked to develop a strong team culture with true psychological safety and a sense of belonging for all. The team culture capitalizes on the strengths of individuals to achieve the optimal outcomes for multiple Transurban stakeholders and the high standards that Transurban are committed to delivering.
The team members bring a wide range of personal characteristics, including gender (52% female and 48% male), ethnicity (25% of the team being born outside of Australia and 8 languages spoken), family status and cultural beliefs as well as educational backgrounds, professional specialisms (8 specialisms across the team), employment arrangements (3 team members working part time) and diversity of thought and lived experience.
The team works collaboratively to ensure that individuals feel valued in the work environment to enable comfortable and confident contributions from all team members which enhances the outcomes of the project. Team members regularly recognize the positive work others are doing by calling this out in team meetings and nominating each other for AECOM Encore awards which reward employees for positive contributions to projects. Outside of the project environment, team members have a weekly team lunch together to build personal connection and increase the feeling of security within the team.
Flexibility was a key aspect to the way the team worked together, with team members recognizing individual commitments and ways of working and utilizing technology to maintain connectivity between all Transurban and AECOM team members regardless of location.
Team members:
Transurban: Ant Campbell (M), Glenn Brewster (M), Desiree Nortje (F), Caitlin Pradella (F), Lydia Hytounge (F), Hugh Ly (M), Rob Jorgensen (M), Danielle Graziani (F), Heidi Zakhary (F), Sonal Nalawade (F), Joel McCreanor (M)
AECOM: Amy Spark (F), Basel Aboud (M), Catherine Robinson (F), Farzaneh Salehi (F), Behnoush Navaee Fard(F), Thomas Lua (M), Lee O’Brien (M), Andrew Llewelyn (M), Jessica Perry (F), Marina Castelli (F), Chris Murphy (M), Mahbu Rahman (M), Quang Ly (M), Simon Keane (M), Phil Karajayli (M), Carey Thornton (F), Lucy Harrington (F)
- Demonstration of Innovation in your asset management team
- How innovative approaches have been used in achieving diversity
The innovation that the asset management team bring to this project is associated with the team set up and ways of working. The high performing Transurban team are complimented by AECOM staff who are embedded within the Transurban team and integrated into the organization in order to achieve an inclusive working environment and a cohesive project outcome.
To bring diversity of thought and to encourage the continual challenges of the approach taken and decisions made, the team has purposefully been built to include both asset management specialists as well as specialist asset engineers.
- Diversity benefits
- How has the diverse team had a positive impact on the organisation, stakeholders and its contribution to the community?
The Transurban/AECOM asset management team has used diversity to positive effect throughout the project. Through this high performing, diverse team, Transurban has been able to deliver high quality work and to maintain the high standards of service that the community expects.
Ant worked to create a secure team environment through developing a positive and encouraging atmosphere, facilitating the embedment of the AECOM team within Transurban to break down client/consultant silos and regularly pausing to look back on progress and build on any lessons learned.
The secure team environment that Ant has created facilitates the development of both junior staff and specialist asset engineers. The team environment empowers all team members to feel comfortable to ask questions, make comments and challenge the status quo, regardless of their level of experience and background. This allows the team members, regardless of which company they work for, or the fields they traditionally work in, to learn from each other. This approach positively encourages diversity of thought, thereby improving the quality of the outcomes and advancing the knowledge of asset management across the broader industry.
The team has included up to twenty-eight individuals across both organizations. The collaborative approach to working, and the embedment of the AECOM team within Transurban, has allowed these individuals to build professional relationships and an understanding of how each organization works and the challenges they face.
When asked about the success of the project, Ant said:
“The embedded nature of the team has supported the production of quality asset management outcomes to support Transurban as it expands its network. The diversity within the combined Transurban/AECOM team underpins the success of the project.
The diversity of specialisms enables the team to draw on multiple experiences of the practical application of asset management from both the asset management perspective and an engineering perspective. This has resulted in practical and scalable solutions that are easily integrated into the Transurban business.”
- General comments
This project is recognized as an innovative approach to the collaboration between client and consultant. The diversity within the project team has contributed to the successful outcomes of the project and the high standards of service Transurban is known for.
The Transurban/AECOM team has a passion to consistently deliver high-quality solutions through technical specialisms and a strong commitment to maintaining a safe work culture of equity, diversity and inclusion. Both organizations demonstrate this commitment through strong diversity and inclusion policies but also by practicing the creation and nurturing of successful teams that are inclusive and diverse.