Vector committed to increasing the number of women employed from 30% to 50.
The Supreme Winner at the 2019 Diversity Awards NZ was Vector Limited who demonstrated excellence in more than one diversity category and a commitment to integrating an inclusive culture right across its business.
Moreover, the energy and communications services provider won the Empowerment and Diversability categories, which recognise innovative responses to gender equity and positive employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
Vector committed to increasing the number of women employed from 30% to 50.8% to be representative of New Zealand’s working age population after acknowledging it operates in a male-dominated industry where gender diversity has been an issue for many years.
It also developed a Women in Leadership programme, to identify and grow female leadership at all levels of the organisation and undertook a pay equity audit.
It set about to close that gap with a raft of changes including making workspaces more accessible and introducing new technology for hearing and sight-impaired employees, revising recruitment practices, training senior staff in unconscious bias and supporting employees with mental health challenges.
Judging Convener Neil Porteous said, “It’s fantastic to see a large organisation in a male-dominated industry making a genuine commitment to improving gender equity and showing the way for other large organisations to stop seeing employment of people with disabilities as a burden.”
Additionally, in the disability space, the company realised there was a gap between its policies and its goal of becoming a truly accessible workplace.
