The recent historic ‘transparency’ reveal of over 5,000 private sector employer gender pay gap data by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) in February is a wake-up call for us all as a nation. It is time to end the rhetoric and sharpen the pencil on setting bold targets and measurable actions to close the gender pay gap. Essentially, morally and financially, employers can no longer afford not to.
We’ve long heard the moral imperative for creating more equal opportunity for career and economic advancement being vital for women’s financial security and wellbeing.
Employers have also been catching on to the bottom-line imperative, with study after study presenting the business case for diversity and inclusion and the better decision-making, innovation and profits that come from tapping into a wider talent pool.
But soon there could also be the necessity imperative, with legislative requirements expected for large employers to demonstrate they are taking action, or lose access to lucrative government contracts.
The Albanese Government plans to legislate new requirements this year for large organisations to prove they are addressing and meeting at least three targets on initiatives that have been proven to support workplace gender equality. Those employers that fail to do so may find they can no longer access Commonwealth procurement opportunities that are, in some cases, worth billions of dollars.
As Mary Wooldridge, CEO of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), outlined during her National Press Club address last week and one month after WGEA published the gender pay gaps of more than 5,000 employers in Australia, “action now is preferable to excuses later.”
WGEA is urging employers with more than 500 team members to prepare for new legislative requirements on committing to and achieving targets against gender equality indicators, as the Minister for Women Katy Gallagher outlined last month when delivering the National Gender Equality Strategy.
While the exact compliance requirements are still being considered, Woodridge said she expects the legislation to look something like large employers being expected to select three targets from a menu of options, with a three-year timeframe to achieve them. The option provided will be informed by evidence on what improves gender equality, with the list to include numerical targets and action-based targets around things like enhancing flexible work options and addressing paid parental leave programs.
Sam Mostyn’s appointment as Governor-General last week is heartening given her extraordinary work in ensuring both workplaces and government keep addressing gender inequality as front and centre of the national agenda; including investing in our caring economy. How she will continue to influence greater outcomes and accountability to accelerate closing the gender pay gap moving forward will be one to watch.
As Woodridge noted during her address last week, workplace gender segregation and the unequal distribution of caring responsibilities are primary challenges to achieving gender equality. She described industries and workplaces’ failure to see that leadership opportunities need to go beyond the current “ideal” of a person available 24/7 who is typically a man and “burdened with less unpaid work and caring responsibilities than women.”
Reimagining how a senior leader or manager works means overhauling how organisations think about the responsibilities their team members have at work.
Since launching Family Friendly Workplaces in 2021, we’ve seen the power of organisations taking clear action when they benchmark their current family-friendly policies and then create action plans on how they will improve such policies and frameworks.
Some of the most meaningful actions and changes they take revolve around how they “reimagine” leadership, including creating policies that support men to better engage in care at home, enable real flexible work and part-time career opportunities, and consider a wide range of leave options to address varying employee needs. This happens by not only overhauling paid parental leave and flexible work policies to ensure they can be equally accessed by men but also by addressing the cultural shift required to ensure men actually access such policies.
The WGEA data made the path to closing gender pay gaps clear: Employers must increase the number of women in the higher-paid quartile of their workforce, which typically involves managerial and leadership positions.
This can’t happen if women are still taking on the bulk of the unpaid caring work. Men continue to account for just 14 per cent of those taking primary carer’s parental leave, while ABS data shows women spend an average of four hours and 31 minutes a day doing unpaid work compared to three hours and 12 minutes for men. Mothers are also spending more than an hour more in child care activities than fathers every day. Men generally, meanwhile, spend an hour more than women generally in employment-related activities. Women make up the majority of the part time workforce where the rewards and promotions are limited, with WGEA finding just seven per cent of managers are working part-time in Australia.
The gender gap in paid and unpaid work in Australia is clear, but it can be proactively addressed – creating more opportunities for everyone in the process, and enabling employers to access the financial rewards of gender diversity in leadership and later ensure they retain their ability to procure for government contracts.
Some of the most powerful levers we’ve seen at Family Friendly Workplaces for closing this divide in paid and unpaid work include providing true flexible work arrangements, as well as gender-neutral paid parental leave that encourages men and women to share the leave, a leadership culture that understands caregiving demands and role models healthy work-life balance.
As we’ve seen, those organisations with robust mechanisms in place for tracking the effectiveness of family-inclusive policies and practices enable them to continually improve on what they have created and also accumulate reportable evidence on how they are addressing and meeting their ESG and gender equality targets.
You can read Family Friendly Workplaces’ free guide on transforming family-friendly policies and practices into gender equality solutions here.
Feature Image: Emma Walsh with Mary Wooldridge, CEO, Workplace Gender Equality Agency in Canberra at the National Press Club Address In Canberra last month on “Accelerating gender equality in Australian workplaces”.