Melbourne Racing Club
Melbourne Racing Club has been selected as an Employer of Choice in The Australian Business Awards 2022. The Australian Business Award for Employer of Choice [EOC] recognises organisations that develop workplaces that maximise the full potential of their workforce through established policies and practices which demonstrate effective employee recruitment, engagement and retention.
Melbourne Racing (MRC) is one of three metropolitan horse racing clubs in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and is one of the largest horseracing Club in Australia with 15,000 members. The MRC hosts race meetings each week across its three premier racecourses – Caulfield, Mornington Racing Club and Ladbrokes Park. The MRC also operates a profitable event and functions business hosting a variety of functions for the community in conjunction with racing related events. Due to the highly successful management of the MRC, the business has diversified to include 13 hospitality venues known collectively as Pegasus Leisure Group (PLG). In addition, the property function of the MRC announced in 2019 its $300m vision for Caulfield to help guide and inform future development activities and ensure the continued success of the venue for generations to come. Under the plans, a complete repositioning and redevelopment of the site is to be undertaken to further cement Caulfield as a world class racing, event and recreational destination for members, participants, guests and the local community.
The MRC are proud of the culture for which the Purpose, Vision and Values are the foundation. The culture at the MRC is both collaborative and highly focused on enabling employees to achieve. Open communication across all levels of the organisation is a strength which is revered. The MRC is also strongly committed to promoting from within the MRC wherever possible and there is strong evidence of multiple promotions across the organisation to support this commitment to career development within the Club.
Leadership development at the MRC is delivered primarily under our MRC DRIVE Development program, which is a comprehensive leadership development program based on purpose driven leadership. The effectiveness of this program is understood to significantly contribute to the number of internal promotions noted above. The wider program of online training provided to the employee group has been recognised by the achievement of a Gold Award for Best Learning & Development Project: Compliance Training as part of the LearnX Awards 2021. Through effective performance reviews and an ongoing feedback model, the MRC is committed to understanding the needs of its people and driving their development through a highly engaged workforce. A detailed process has been undertaken for Engagement, including education sessions for leaders on the purpose and importance of the Engagement survey process, how they can utilise the results to strengthen the performance of their team and how they can action plan with their team to further improve the results over time.
New and ongoing initiatives at the MRC continue to show a dedication to meeting the needs of the workforce, through recognising Safety as an integral part of every activity performed and new Diversity and Inclusion Strategies to better support employees the commitment to putting people at the centre of everything we do is clear.
For more information about Melbourne Racing Club, visit mrc.racing.com