At the end of 2014, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency of Australia produced a thorough and comprehensive set of reports that map gender equality in the Australian workforce. Australia’s gender equality scorecard provides two things: an illustration of how far we've come, as well as a stark reminder of haw far, even in the year 2015, we still have to go in closing the gender gap.
In anticipation of Avril Henry's next paper in the Thought Leadership Series: The Gender Equation, let's take a look at the data from the gender equality scorecard, which takes the pulse of the Australian workplace.
Key Findings - All Industries
The following statistics outline the key findings of the Australian scorecard:
- The representation of women steadily declines when moving up the management levels, with women comprising only 26.1% of key management personnel (KMP) positions, and 17.3% of CEO positions.
- One-third (33.5%) of employers have no KMPs who are women, and 31.3% of organisations have no ‘other executives / general managers’ who are women.
- Less than one in 10 (8.8%) organisations have set a target to lift the number of women around the boardroom table despite only 23.7% of directorships being held by women, and just 12.0% of chairs being women.
- 19.9% the gender pay gap – full-time base remuneration. 24.7% the gender pay gap – full-time total remuneration.
- Only 13.6% of employers have a strategy for flexible working and only 13.2% of employers have a strategy to support employees with family or caring responsibilities.
- Less than one in four employers have conducted a gender remuneration gap analysis to check for potential pay equity issues.
- Few employers are taking a strategic wholeof-enterprise approach to gender equality. Only 7.1% of employers have a standalone overall gender equality strategy.
Gender Composition Of The Workforce
The graphic below (taken from the scorecard), outlines the gender composition of the workforce by employment status in Australia.
- There are broadly even numbers of female (48.5%) and male (51.5%) employees in the Agency’s dataset.
- Full-time employees comprise 57.6% of employees, part-time employees comprise 20.3% and casuals comprise 22.1%.
- Women comprise only 35.8% of fulltime employees. They make up 75.3% of part-time employees and 57.2% of casual employees.
Avril Henry's Gender Research
Avril Henry is one of Australia’s leading experts on achieving gender equality and diversity in the workplace. In 2013 she was appointed as an advisor to the Chief of Army on projects including gender diversity, values and culture. Based on over two decades of research and experience, Avril believes that men have a vital role to play in sponsoring women to help them to get to the top. 'Senior male leaders sponsoring women will have the greatest immediate impact on the number of women in senior positions,' says Avril.
'Women can stand up for themselves, but when we have a stronger person (male leader) standing up for us, we are more likely to succeed,' writes Elizabeth Broderick, Sex Discrimination Commissioner.
We all know that what gets measured is more likely to get managed. Business, policy-makers and the broader community now have the data to improve understanding of gender equality and put in place measures to address inequities including the longstanding under-representation of women in management and the low representation of men in traditional female-dominated roles and industries. We are yet to reach the tipping point in Australia where equality is championed by more than a minority.
'A tipping point is that moment in time when a collection of ideas and behaviours reach an acceptance by more than a few people that something is a good idea worth pursuing, and it goes from a small group of committed people believing in something and supporting it, to everyone wanting to be part of it. Once this happens it spreads faster than an Australian bushfire!' says Avril.
In her latest book, Leadership Revelations III: How We Achieve The Gender Tipping Point, Avril Henry shares the views of 91 successful female leaders from 10 countries and across four generations.
Key findings include:
- Women need to become greater, more active champions of other women. Women need to recognise that the pie is big enough for everyone, and to shift from a 'scarcity mentality' to one of 'abundance.'
- The distinct generational shift from Veteran women not being 'allowed' to work, to Baby Boomer women fitting into the male environment to survive and progress, to Generation X women demanding greater support to enable combining motherhood and a meaningful career (not just a job), to Generation Y demanding equal pay and equal promotional opportunities, or they will simply not join the organisation.
- Men are promoted on potential, while women are promoted on proven performance. Men are better at self-promotion and apply for a job if they can spell the job title, women wait until they meet 100% of the criteria, and then in my opinion there is nothing to learn.
- Lack of respect for women leaders is rife, and is at the heart of the problem for women. Note comments made about Australian female leaders in recent time, e.g. Anna Bligh, Julia Gillard and Julie Bishop.
- Leaders need to take care of all of the people, not just a select group!
- Unless organisations and men practice active inclusion of women, they may well make the mistake of unintentional exclusion.
Avril advocates an approach of small incremental changes executed consistently and done well. Such changes create momentum that enables the achievement of a tipping point and when senior male leaders sponsor women, this will have the greatest immediate impact on the number of women in senior positions. To see Avril speaking about the gender equation in the Australian Army, please watch the latest episode of Australian Story on the ABC website, titled 'Boots and All.'
The Bottom Line
At an organisational level, employers increasingly recognise their future growth depends on their ability to maximise the full potential of the best female AND male talent. The future of work, and future workplaces will need to take both halves of the equation into account to create a balanced, harmonised and holistic environment that is equally beneficial for all employees, regardless of gender. After all, when you move beyond labels and view everyone as a human being, we all want access to the best possible environment to work in. We spend a considerable amount of our lives at work, and making sure that all employees have access to better work and better workplaces, will surely create a better world for all.
If you missed the latest paper in the Thought Leadership Series on Performance Management, you can download it here. To receive a notification about when the paper on gender equality is released, make sure you subscribe to the Blog.
To discover more about Avril's work around gender equality in the workpalce, download her paper on 'The Gender Equation.'
