Entrepreneur, former state MP and LookSmart founder Evan Thornley has rightfully copped a lot of flack for showing a slide at The Sunrise conference last Friday with the words, ‘WOMEN: Like men, only cheaper’.
However, the sad reality is that there was a lot of truth in the image depicted on Thornley’s slide.
Women really are cheaper than men when it comes to paying them, 18.2% cheaper according to the latest ABS figures on the gender pay gap. And in the tech sector specifically, they’re cheaper still. According to August figures from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, women in ‘information media and telecommunications’ are paid 19.5% less than their male counterparts, a 1.7% increase since May 2013.
The problem is that the fact this gap exists is seeing many organisations miss out on some excellent talent.
And the problem for the entire industry is that the perpetuation of certain stereotypes regarding who works in technology, the responsibilities they have and the pay they receive in return – and this slide from Thornley could certainly contribute to that – is seeing many young women never even consider such careers in the first place. WGEA has projected that most ICT occupations will suffer significant talent shortfalls by the year 2025.
Meanwhile, in the technology start-up community, male-dominated conferences are hardly encouraging for women. The Sunrise conference which aimed to “re-tell the early years of Australia’s iconic startups” featured one woman among the thirteen entrepreneurs speaking – Melanie Perkins from Canva. If the stories can’t even include women, why would women want to be involved?
And a quick scan of the boards and leadership teams of those involved in this conference says a lot about the male-dominated stories a number of technology companies are still telling. LookSmart has an all-male, four-person board and male CEO (although has previously had a female CEO). Atlassian’s entire leadership team and board is male, Freelancer features one woman, Nikki Parker, on its page of directors while Envato appears to have a more realistic gender mix, including a number of women among its team of directors.
Women ARE like men. We are just as talented, skilled, committed and ambitious for a great career.
The fact we’re still even considered as being ‘cheaper’ simply highlights the fact that while some men are at least acknowledging the gender pay gap really does exist, they’re not taking the necessary action required in order to help close it.
At the conference, Thornley said that he took the opportunity to hire women by offering “more responsibility and greater share of the rewards than they were likely to get anywhere else” – who were still “relatively cheap to what we would have had to pay to someone less good of a different gender.”
Thornley has since admitted that he “stuffed that up”, and was actually trying to get across the fact the technology industry can do more to combat gender inequality. He has also since declared he pays women and men “the same for the same work”.
Still, we wanted to offer a couple of pointers to Thornley on closing the gender pay gap – and anyone who sees the opportunity in hiring women:
Note that closing the gap is actually possible. Yep, even really, really large organisations like Westpac, Telstra, Woolworths, ANZ, NAB, CSR, KPMG and BP are achieving pay equity for men and women who are doing similar jobs.
Make pay and position criteria transparent. Establish pay scales, let employees see which skills and what experience gets them a particular salary. Allow them to see how and where they can go up the scale.
Acknowledge differing negotiation styles. It’s not just men and women who negotiate differently, but introverts versus extroverts, younger employees versus older employees and others. Assuming the biggest bonus goes to the best pay negotiator could very well see you overpaying for someone who will under-deliver.
Value diversity across decision-making positions. If your entire leadership team and board features white men in their thirties, then you have a problem.