An interview with Leigh Dunlop, Chief People Officer at Future Super
What were you like growing up?
I've always loved team sports and have played hockey since I was in school. I've also got a bit of a competitive streak. When I was four, I used to play Ms Pac-Man on the Atari — the superior Pac-Man version, I might add — and if I didn't get the start I wanted, I would reset it!
At university, I did a lot of volunteering with new students, helping them get settled in. I ended up coordinating the orientation week program, which included 180 student volunteers. More recently, I've volunteered for Lifeline and the Rural Fire Service
Why do you think volunteering was so important to you?
I grew up in the Sutherland Shire [south of Sydney] and in 1994 my cousins lost their house in the awful bushfires we had. I just wanted to help and contribute to the community. Volunteering allows you to do that and gain a really broad range of experiences. You also meet a range of people that you ordinarily mightn't, which I really enjoy.
How did you get started in HR?
I'd done a psychology degree at university and a friend, Kirsten Hunter, who I'd volunteered with at uni, saw a job in graduate recruitment with the law firm Freehills [now Herbert Smith Freehills] where she was working.
“At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to work in HR but not long after I started, I found myself getting a lot of energy and enjoyment from it, which was completely unexpected. I realised that I could have a huge impact on people’s enjoyment at work and a tangible impact on people’s one-on-one relationships.”
Kirsten then moved across to Future Super, and reached out to see if I would help set up the HR function. Future Super only had 20 people at that time, and it was quite unusual for a startup to bring a dedicated HR person on at that stage of growth. To put that in context, the HR team in Sydney at Freehills was about 40 people when I left.
The idea of working for a purpose-led business that was unapologetic in its beliefs was really exciting. I could weave in all of my experience as well as align my personal values with my employer and the work that Future Super did day-to-day. And I could do that at a micro and a macro level.
What are some of the more macro changes you can make?
My role at Future Super allows me to put in place policies and processes that impact our entire team, while also providing the opportunity to create broader systems change.
The menstrual and menopausal leave we enacted is a good example. We put the policy together with the help of the Victorian Women's Trust and launched it in January, 2021.
We made the policy open source because we wanted to encourage other businesses to take it up and to talk about it. We garnered a whole range of positive coverage from a LinkedIn post written by our HR coordinator, Khi Prasser.
Internally, the reception from the team has been really, really positive. And while I know I work in a purpose-led organisation, there have been some amazing conversations and feedback within our group driven by this policy.
“It has sparked a whole conversation and removed a lot of stigma. One of the men in our team actually made a little bloodied period pad emoji that people now use in their Slack status when they’re on menstrual leave. About 42% of our team to whom the policy applies have made use of this leave since it was introduced.”
Obviously there is the work that we do as a superfund and as an employer, which is where I'm focused, but we're also all about encouraging other businesses to introduce these policies as well, to amplify that change.
Do you think that being purpose-led has been one of the main reasons you've been able to implement this policy so quickly?
Absolutely. The purpose of Future Super is to create a future free from climate change and inequality. So if I think about the work that my team does, we want to reduce inequality within our team — that can be via policies and targets around gender diversity, cultural diversity and pay gaps, or trying to effect systemic change by sharing our work and sparking conversations and change, with the the menstrual and menopausal leave being a good example of that. It's our purpose translating into our policies.
What's really refreshing about working at Future Super is that when I've come with these sort of initiatives, I'm pushing on open doors. I'm very lucky that the organisation I work for is extremely open to hearing about and implementing these initiatives.
What are some other examples of Future Super's purpose being reflected in your approach as an employer?
Around the time I started at Future Super, the super gender gap across Australia meant that on average, women retired with 47% less super than men. It's down in the low forties now but it's still a horrific figure.
Off the back of a broader report discussing the issue, some members of the team had gotten together to discuss what we as an employer could do, to address some of the key drivers of the super gender gap: women on average earn less than men, women are more likely to take parental leave and, upon returning from leave, they often return on a part-time basis, further compounding the problem.
“To address this, Future Super introduced a policy that anyone on $80,000 or less would be paid an additional 1% super above the guarantee (just recently, we’ve increased this threshold to $120,000, in order to ensure more of the team has access to this benefit). If any individual — regardless of gender — takes parental leave, they receive super payments for 12 months of parental leave, whether it be paid or unpaid.”
And, if we advertise a role that's full time and someone says they can only do three days a week because they're taking care of their kids, we bring them on at three days a week but pay them super as if they're working five days. It's so refreshing to work in an organisation that tries to translate their purpose into every facet of the way they operate.
Over the past few years, we've also halved our gender pay gap and we've started really drilling into our engagement scores for marginalised groups across the business, to see how we can create more supportive policies.
How has your approach changed during your time with Future Super?
Working at Future Super has allowed me to really clarify the changes that I'm trying to make and the impact that I want to have. Before I started, I wanted to have an impact but it was certainly less conscious and less deliberate.
“I’ve also learnt that some of the best ideas for improvement as an employer come from the team. Very early on, one of the team came to me and asked me when we were going to introduce full pay transparency, with greater transparency having been shown to be a really powerful tool in addressing the gender pay gap. Over time, we’ve been able to introduce greater transparency to our pay processes, with the team always holding us to account and pushing us to do better. ”
This also goes to where we as an organisation should try to have an impact: how we can have impact as an employer for our employees; as a Superfund for our members; as an Investor and shareholder; and as a member of the broader business community. It means that when we're asked to respond to certain issues in any of those realms, we need to be very clear which realms we can play in and have a voice. Equally, we need to understand the areas where we are not qualified to speak.
There's always great work to be done but we have to come back to our purpose: climate change and inequality, and especially climate change and the divestment movement — taking capital out of fossil fuels. The temptation is to try and do as much as possible but if you spread yourself too thin, you're never going to have a meaningful impact.
Being clear about that has really helped me understand exactly how I have an impact in my role as well.
Source: Future Super Carbon Transparency Report 2020. These figures are annual and based on the average financial Future Super member’s account balance of $32,631 as at 31 December 2020, switching their account balance from the relevant benchmark fund.
You founded the Not Business as Usual group that supported employees taking time off to support the global School Strike for Climate. How did that happen?
Before the global School Strike for Climate in September 2019, some of the students came to Future Super to discuss how we could support them in their work. We certainly didn't want to take any focus away from the students or their demands so we thought the best way we could play in that space was as an employer and member of the business community, by encouraging employers to pledge their support and then allow their employees to participate in the strike that was organised by the students.
We launched Not Business as Usual, which saw about 3000 businesses across Australia and New Zealand pledge their commitment to allow their employees to participate in the school strike.
I think sometimes the temptation is to get out in front and we certainly wanted to avoid that, we were very conscious that our role was to amplify and support the work of the students.
If you're looking back in 20 years time, what does success look like to you?
I don't necessarily know where I'm going to be but I hope I look back and am proud of the work that I'm doing.
Right now, I get a lot of energy building out the way that we operate as a business. I'm proud of the deliberate choices that I'm making, driven by a greater awareness of how I want to make an impact. And if I can help others develop the awareness of their decisions and their potential impact, I'll be pretty proud of that.
Learn more about Leigh Dunlop
Learn more about Future Super
