A long way to go
By Joan-Maree Hargreaves | smh.com.au | 09 June
Equality for women in the workplace has come a long way in the past few decades. However, the battle continues as women still earn considerably less than their male counterparts and are barely visible in executive management and board positions.
Organisations such as the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency work with employers with more than 100 staff to identify areas of discrimination that women face and to help remove the barriers that prevent them from participating to their potential.
The agency’s director, Anna McPhee, says there has been a signifi cant improvement for women in the workplace in the past 20 years, particularly in the past fi ve years. “In the last fi ve years the provision of paid maternity leave has doubled and the provision of part-time work has increased signifi cantly,” she says.
However, only 8.7 per cent of board directorships and 12 per cent of executive management positions were held by women in the ASX200 companies, according to the agency’s 2006 Australian Women In Leadership Census.
McPhee says the major barriers against women in the workplace are the assumptions businesses make about women and their commitment to their careers: changing these assumptions would allow more women to reach the top. Also, improving women’s access to informal networks and generally changing the culture within organisations to one that is open and tolerant of diversity would go a long way to seeing more equality for women at executive levels, she says.
Chief Executive Women is an organisation of 131 women leaders from corporate Australia, academia and public and not-for-profit sectors that promotes the development and effective use of Australia’s leadership talent.
Chief Executive Women council member Jane Bridge says a changing labour market may lead to an increase in women at the top levels of management. “The current and looming skills shortage has presented a great opportunity for employers to rethink their recruitment practices and also to reconfigure the way work is done and the rewards that are offered,” Bridge says.
McPhee believes businesses now recognise that, in order to remain competitive and sustainable, they need to attract and retain the best talent, whether male or female, and that to rely, as they have in the past, on only 50 per cent of the population is not smart business.
“Also, on the demand side, we have more women today who are educated than ever before. We have more women who are seeking to participate in the paid workforce whether it be full-time or part-time and families that are needing or wanting two incomes and this demand is driving women’s workforce participation.”
Pay equity still remains one of the biggest issues in the workplace for women.
According to the latest fi gures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there is a pay gap of 34.9 per cent between men’s and women’s average weekly earnings.
“We’re certainly focused on bringing this to the attention of employers and having them address and identify issues of pay and equity, like job segregation, access to bonuses, access to overtime, which are areas that prevent pay equity,” McPhee says.
Changing the culture from within is the way forward, according to Bridge. “This is complex and very slow and very diffi cult to change; so not an easy one to fi x quickly,” she says.
McPhee believes women need to work with employers to create a fairer workplace culture.
“For 2008 and beyond, women in the workforce should be working with their employer to create a work environment that enables them to succeed in their chosen fi eld, that enables them to balance their work and other priorities, whether that’s family, study, travel, friends, and they need to encourage their employer to introduce greater fl exibility in the workplace.”
First published by Smh.com.au on June 09 2008
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