March 7, 2008
Point Henry Celebrates EOWA and International Women's Day
Alcoa of Australia has been named an “Employer of Choice for Women” by the Federal Government’s Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) for the seventh consecutive year.
Alcoa of Australia has been named an “Employer of Choice for Women” by the Federal Government’s Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) for the seventh consecutive year.

Alcoa’s Managing Director, Alan Cransberg said encouraging diversity and providing opportunities for women to realise their career potential have been central strategies to improving Alcoa’s sustainability and success for a number of years.

“Winning this award confirms my conviction that by developing an organisational culture that provides our employees with the opportunity to succeed professionally and maintain work/life balance, we all benefit – individually and as a business,” Mr Cransberg said.

“Culture change at Alcoa is built on a raft of work place policies such as paid parental leave, part-time work, job sharing, work at home arrangements and strategic recruitment.  These are regularly reviewed to improve workplace inclusiveness and flexibility for all employees”. 

“By addressing barriers to women’s full participation in the workforce we are implementing work practices that have the potential to benefit all our employees. This is becoming particularly important as we are seeing different generational expectations in the workplace as baby boomers begin to retire and generation Y continue to enter the workforce,” he said.

Mr Cransberg said Alcoa had made significant progress on providing career opportunities for women.  Now, around 20 per cent of managers at Alcoa were women, up from 3 per cent only a decade ago.

To celebrate this award, and to mark International Women’s Day (which is held annually on 8 March), Alcoa Point Henry will be holding a fundraiser for Ovarian Cancer. 

In partnership with the Kommercial Café, $1 from every coffee and pink cupcake sold at the café on Friday 7 March 2008 will be donated to OvCa – the National Ovarian Cancer Network.

Acting Smelter Operations Manager, Stewart Esdale said the fundraiser is a perfect way to celebrate the role women play in Alcoa’s Point Henry and Anglesea operations, and the broader community.

“We felt it was important that Alcoa not only acknowledges our own female workforce for International Women’s Day, but did something that will benefit many women across Australia.  The fundraiser does this and also provides us with an opportunity to officially celebrate our seventh consecutive EOWA listing,” Mr Esdale said.