'Employers who do more achieve more'
A new analysis on business efforts towards gender equality revealed that employers who pursue a "deliberate strategy" on the matter will reap positive outcomes on gender pay gaps.
The latest report on the Gender Equity Insights series from the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC) and Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) analysed nearly 4,800 Australian employers to determine the factors closing gender pay gaps.
According to the report, the leading 25% of employers for improved gender pay equity were able to reduce gender pay gaps by at least 5.3 percentage points over three years.
The 25% of employers that increased the percentage of female workers were able to lift the share of women in their workforce by 2.5 percentage points in three years.
"Employers who do more, achieve more," said WGEA CEO Mary Wooldridge in a statement. "This analysis shows that when employers pursue a deliberate strategy of long-term, meaningful change they are achieving progress to close their gender pay gaps."
'Maturity framework' used
This year's report employed a new "maturity framework" that assists employers in identifying, measuring, and implementing policies and actions that can improve gender equality at work.
The framework has four maturity levels in their approach to gender equality, with the lowest being Base, then Foundation, then Growth, with Integrated being the highest.
BCEC director Alan Duncan, who also wrote the report, said businesses with higher maturity levels in their approach to gender equality achieve "far stronger results" than those with lower levels.
According to the report, businesses with the highest maturity reduced the share of female manager resignations by 0.3 percentage points, while it increased by 2.6 percentage points for those at base maturity.
Businesses that also improved their gender equity maturity by at least one level were able to increase their share of female board members by 3.3 percentage points in three years.
"When organisations implement pay equity audits and report gender pay metrics to their senior leadership and governing boards, we see a greater pace of change," Duncan said in a statement.
"The best performing businesses also have enhanced parental leave provision for secondary as well as primary carers, as well as reporting, training, and accountability for flexible work."
Wide disparity in equality performance
The report also unravelled a "wide disparity" in the gender pay equality performance of businesses across Australia, despite the national gender pay gap at 13% as of May 2023, according to WGEA data.
According to Duncan, industry-wide changes to gender pay equality and women's workforce representation can hide some "significant differences in progress between businesses."
"For example, the most advanced businesses in the mining sector are seven times more likely to set targets to reduce gender pay gaps and four times more likely to report pay equity metrics to senior executives compared to businesses that are early on in their journey towards workplace gender equity," Duncan said.
"While progress is being made, the reality is that closing the gender pay gap is still many years off for a large share of Australian businesses."
Wooldridge underscored the need to speed up the pace of change, as businesses gear up for the upcoming requirement to publish their gender pay gaps starting early 2024.
"Industry averages can mask the true picture of progress. Publishing employer gender pay gaps offers a deeper insight into industry performance and business performance that may have been hidden by averages in the past," the WGEA director said.
The report also offers a new roadmap for employers by comparing the policies and actions of companies that advanced their approach in gender equality.
"This new roadmap can help companies look at their policies and develop actions to better inform their own pathway for improvement," Wooldridge said.
Associate Professor Astghik Mavisakalyan, the report's co-author, added that gender diversity on Boards is a key driver of organisational change.
"While there's been progress in the past three years, employers must keep up the pace to avoid leaving women under-represented in the boardroom for decades to come," Mavisakalyan said.
However, the co-author also cautioned employers to avoid neglecting other employee groups when progressing gender equality.
"For example, a commitment to progress gender equality for managers and executives should not diminish the attention given to improving gender equality outcomes among non-managerial occupations," Mavisakalyan said.
