Leading Australian energy company AGL is proud to announce that it has won a major award recognising its credentials as a highly desirable place to work for women.

AGL has received a 2012 Employer of Choice for Women Citation from the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA), acknowledging it is a women-friendly organisation with equal opportunity programs in place to advance its female workforce. The Citation was announced in Perth today.

Jane Thomas, AGL's Group Head of People and Culture, said the citation was a strong endorsement of AGL's efforts to build a diverse and inclusive workplace culture.

"We are incredibly proud to have received this award, but we know that we still have a long way to go," she said. "We have a clear strategy to increase the representation of women in leadership positions and our board has set clear objectives for increasing gender diversity.

"Like other Australian corporates, AGL faces the challenge of attracting and retaining the best female employees and I believe this citation will help us to recruit the best talent in the market."

Ms Thomas said AGL had actively reviewed its workplace policies to ensure they were flexible and responsive to change.

"For example, AGL's flexible working arrangements toolkit was developed in response to an emerging need to put a fair and transparent process around the increasing number of requests for flexible work arrangements in our customer service centres," she said.

"We have added a new 'Careers' page on the AGL website which features career stories and video content from women who describe in their own words the reasons they joined and have stayed with AGL, which has the added challenge of attracting women to non-traditional female roles in the Upstream Gas and Merchant Energy businesses."

The EOWA identified AGL's annual diversity conferences as a unique and compelling aspect of the company's submission.

The most recent AGL Diversity Big Day Out was titled "Gender equity - it's everyone's business", and aimed to enrol men as advocates for women in the workplace. The conferences are an opportunity for senior leaders of AGL, including CEO Michael Fraser and his executive team, to share their career stories and personal commitment to gender diversity.

For more information about working at AGL, visit www.agl.com.au/careers

About AGL

AGL is one of Australia's leading integrated renewable energy companies and is taking action toward creating a sustainable energy future for our investors, communities and customers. Drawing on 175 years of experience, AGL operates retail and merchant energy businesses, power generation assets and an upstream gas portfolio. AGL has one of Australia's largest retail energy and dual fuel customer bases. AGL has a diverse power generation portfolio including base, peaking and intermediate generation plants, spread across traditional thermal generation as well as renewable sources including hydro, wind, landfill gas and biomass. AGL is Australia's largest private owner and operator of renewable energy assets and is looking to further expand this position by exploring a suite of low emission and renewable energy generation development opportunities.