Inside the hidden people strategy powering Australia's fast-moving logistics sector
Australia’s logistics sector has never been more visible to consumers – but the people strategy behind getting a parcel from cart to doorstep in a matter of hours is still largely invisible.
For Jo Cairns, CPO at Team Global Express, that hidden complexity is exactly what makes the role compelling.
Sitting above a bustling parcel facility, she can literally watch the work happen in real time: parcels racing down chutes, being sorted into trucks and heading back out onto the road.
For HR, she said, the challenge is turning that fast‑moving, highly distributed operation into a safe, connected and sustainable workplace.
A high‑risk, low‑margin, always‑on environment
Cairns describes the business as “hugely complex” – a national network spanning multiple time zones, facilities of varying size, and heavy reliance on shift work and lone workers.
On top of this, the industry is heavily regulated, with stringent and fast‑evolving safety requirements, highly unionised, with the powerful Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) a constant presence, and structurally low margin, where small hits to productivity can have outsized financial impact.
Further, the safety risk profile is unusually broad: long‑haul trucks crossing the country, containers being lifted onto trains, forklifts weaving through warehouses, and constant people‑plant interaction.
“It’s a very, very risky business,” Cairns noted – and that drives the people agenda.
Doubling down on frontline leadership
For Cairns, the single biggest lever HR can pull in this environment is leadership capability at every layer of the organisation.
“By the time there’s a dispute, or someone’s unhappy, or a grievance has come up, it’s almost always because something wasn’t handled in the moment in the right way by that frontline leader,” she said.
That has driven two parallel priorities:
- Building stronger leaders at every level – from line leaders on the floor to executives – with clarity on expectations, skills and decision rights for each layer.
- Redesigning roles so leaders actually have time to lead, rather than being consumed by day‑to‑day operational noise. “It’s one thing to have a capable leader. But if they’re caught up in the day‑to‑day running of the business, they actually don’t have time to lead,” she says.
Getting the spans and layers right is critical: enough hierarchy to cascade information and support, but not so much that executives become disconnected from the floor – or that bureaucracy creates even more complexity.
Safety: from compliance to visible leadership
In such a high‑risk industry, safety is more than a compliance exercise; it’s become a core platform for culture and engagement.
Cairns’ organisation has tiered safety governance – local safety committees and councils at frontline level, an executive safety council composed of the C‑suite and senior leaders, and regular executive‑team safety meetings focused on data, lead and lag indicators, and deep dives into priority risk areas.
Executives also spend structured time “on the floor”, conducting safety walks and talking directly with frontline leaders about critical risks.
This is supported by a deliberate separation of operational safety – the day‑to‑day “churn” of safety activity – from safety strategy and frameworks, ensuring both execution and forward planning are properly resourced.
While logistics businesses often benchmark themselves only against industry peers, Cairns says that bar is too low. The aspiration is to be “the best in Australia” on safety – not just the safest transport company.
Psychosocial risks in a male‑dominated, high‑pressure sector
New psychosocial risk legislation is adding another layer to HR’s remit – and in logistics, the risk factors are pronounced. The workforce is predominantly male, long hours and high pressure are common, and many roles involve isolation, such as long periods of solitary driving.
Cairns has responded by appointing a dedicated resource for wellness and psychosocial risk, engaging external experts to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment, and developing targeted action plans supported by clear lead and lag measures.
Key initiatives include:
- Partnership with Healthy Heads in Trucks & Sheds to leverage sector‑specific resources
- A refreshed Employee Assistance Program
- Leader capability building around recognising and responding to psychosocial risks
- The introduction of wellness champions across the network to keep mental health “part of our daily dialogue”
For Cairns, this is as much about performance as it is about care. Getting psychosocial risk right “supports a much more productive organisation” as well as healthier employees.
Resetting the union relationship
With the TWU set to negotiate a wave of enterprise agreements nationally, industrial relations is another area where HR must be both pragmatic and proactive.
Cairns is frank that the union has a stronger presence in her organisation than she would like – but she sees that as a symptom of where the company itself needs to improve.
“Unions really have a presence to represent the rights of their members when the organisation hasn’t done the right thing by the member,” she said.
The response is twofold: strengthen internal employee relations and culture, so issues are resolved early and trust is rebuilt and maintain open, regular engagement with the TWU, treating it as an important stakeholder while taking more proactive ownership of employment standards and communication
With multiple EBAs timed to conclude simultaneously across the sector, that relationship – and the internal culture supporting it – will be heavily tested.
People at the heart of productivity – even in the age of AI
Logistics may be a natural home for automation and AI, from route optimisation to customer self‑service, but Cairns is clear that technology will never replace the human core of the business.
“At the end of the day… it’s the person in the truck driving through the city to deliver the parcel. That’s where the real human factor is,” she explained.
AI is firmly on the agenda, but the focus is on using it as a “third workforce” to streamline indirect roles, improve billing and customer interfaces, and allow growth without endlessly adding headcount.
Cairns co‑owns the AI strategy with the Chief Innovation Officer, leading the cultural side of AI adoption so employees see it as an enabler, not a threat.
The CPO’s real job: choosing the few things that matter
With safety, psychosocial risk, union negotiations, AI, leadership development and financial turnaround all in play, Cairns says the hardest – and most important – work of a CPO in logistics is prioritisation.
Cairns added: “You can major in the minors, you can do all of this activity, but at the end of the day, what are the things going to really move the dial on culture, financial performance and the safety and well‑being of our people?”
In a sector where consumers now expect near‑instant delivery, HR’s task is to ensure the human systems behind that promise are resilient, safe and sustainable. For leaders like Cairns, that means treating people strategy not as a support function, but as the engine room of logistics performance.
