The following is a transcript of a video made available to employees of BHP Group and Woodside on
February 9, 2022.
Wally Hay:
Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us. As we kick off the new year, wed like to provide you an update on how were progressing with
the integration. First of all, Id like to welcome... Daniel Kalms. Hes joining us here again in Houston, and hes been here for the week. Also this week, we had Meg ONeill in town, and she spent some good quality time getting
to know the Houston folks.
Until day one, we can only plan the integration. We cannot actually do integration. So thats really
important to note. So what youre going to hear from us today is everything is on a planning basis. A lot has happened certainly with the regulatory environment, the processes on track. Weve received approval from the ACCC and indeed the
other approval processes are progressing as we expected across the U.S.
Today, wed like to start to address where are we with the
org design and the selection process, and well hopefully give you some insights of what you can expect on that. So with that, Ill hand over to Daniel to say a few words as well.
Daniel Kalms:
Look, I know that
theres a lot of interest in org design. The operating models actually made up of three parts. Theres the org design, theres the people selection and theres the processes. Youve seen the org design at CEO-1 level. Thats been shared previously by Meg. And youre aware that Meg and the Board have been going through the process of selecting people to fill those roles. Everyone wants to know who it is. I
understand everyones impatient, but you need to work through this process properly. Its an important decision for the company. Its an important decision for the individuals, so I appreciate your patience. Its important that
we get the right people in those roles. That hasnt stopped us, however, from continuing to develop the org design at the next level down, which is CEO-2.
And where were at at the moment is were now testing those designs with the SteerCo, and the SteerCo is Geraldine and Meg. So
were in a bit of a review process to make sure that the principles and the culture that we want in this future company are enabled by that org design. What do we do with the org design then? We then have to assess who are the people who should
fill those roles, and thats the next step that well go through. So you can imagine were coming through February, weve got our org design coming together at that level. Well then get into the selection process. Once you
understand the org design at that CEO-2 level, youll have a bit more insight and ability to say, Im interested to work in that sort of pillar or possibly that one. And weve
committed to asking you what your expression of interest will be.
So youll get that chance.. For most of us, there will not be a
selection process prior to completion. Were looking to get the top couple of levels locked in with nominees, but for the rest of the organization, it will probably occur post completion. I hope you can be patient with that. Youll get a
sense of the organization. So thats how the org design is going. The third part of it I mentioned is the processes and the processes are being worked by the functional pairings, the 16 business streams. So maybe Ill hand over to Wally to
talking to bit more about that.
Wally Hay:
So let me provide you an update of what were doing across all the businesses and the functions. We have about 16 work streams. And
theyre looking at all the activities for the processes, the systems and tools, and how we bring those together for the merged co-entity going forward. Now, these activities range from ensuring that we
have the right user names, access passes, computers ready for day one, to how we ensure that the financial systems, our risk and management processes are also consolidated and harmonized. So before the holidays, a large amount of our focus had been
on prioritization of those tasks. And so thats an important note that not everything needs to be implemented by day one.
So to give
you an example with the separation of technology, we would expect that we will be having a ring fenced solution on Day 1 for all of the SAP processes that BHP Petroleum use. And it wont be until October that we will actually have a cloned and
carved solution fully separated and independent away from BHP proper. But its only at that point can actually we start the integration of bringing the BHP system and the Woodside system together onto one common platform. So we also have a
number of cross-functional projects that are underway. So examples of that is the coordination of the insourcing activities. So as many may realize, we have a number of offshore activities in BHP Petroleum, and weve made the decision that
were going to insource those over time. And they range from service activities across finance, HR, and also supply chain.
And a lot
of that needs close coordination to bring that together. Were also putting a lot of focus on change management, and weve kicked off a project to start to prepare that. And the intent of that is to ensure that there is a good employee
experience on day one. Now, for some people, there will be minimal change. You might expect definitely a change in your user log on, but probably reporting to the same manager and working within the same team. For others, there will be bigger
changes, maybe working across different teams, reporting to a new line manager, maybe working out of a different office. So in each case, we want to ensure that everyone is prepared for future, and were thinking about how to do that so that
the felt experience for everyone is positive.
Now we know that theres a lot of interest and questions on culture. So Ill hand
over to Daniel to give you a little bit of an update of what weve been doing in that space.