Three key actions to further gender equality in your workplace

Today is International Women’s Day.

Rather than handing out cupcakes and pretending that everything is rosy, we’re rounding up the top three insights and actions from our 2020, 2021 and 2022 Gender Equity Insights reports with the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA).

Our world-leading report series, Gender Equity Insights, analyses WGEA’s unique data on workplace gender equality covering more than 4 million employees in Australia to create insights and actions to drive gender equality in Australian workplaces.

NUMBER 1 – Diversity is good for business

Our 2020 report, Gender Equity Insights 2020: Delivering the business outcomes, found a strong and convincing causal relationship between an increase in the number of women in key decision-making positions and subsequent improvements in company performance.

KEY FINDING
An increase in the share of female ‘top-tier’ managers by 10 percentage points or more led to a 6.6 per cent increase in the market value of Australian ASX-listed companies, worth the equivalent of AUD$104.7 million.

KEY ACTION
Companies should reflect on barriers or biases that prevent women from accessing leadership roles, and act to level the playing field opportunities. It’s good for business.

NUMBER 2 – Consistency is key to achieving gender equality in Australian workplaces

Our 2021 report, Gender Equity Insights 2021: Making it a priority, found that consistency is the key to implementing gender equality policies and practices if you want to achieve gender equality in workplaces.

KEY FINDING
Companies with the most consistent and comprehensive implementation of gender equality actions and policies over time have lower pay gaps and more women in senior leadership roles.

KEY ACTION
Businesses can’t afford to take their eye off the ball when it comes to gender inequality. Company leaders need to make sure that gender equity actions within their businesses are structural and systemic.

NUMBER 3 – 40:40:20 for super charging gender equality

Our 2022 report, Gender Equity Insights 2022: The state of inequality in Australia, found gender segregation across industry sectors to be one of the strongest drivers of gender pay gaps in Australia.

KEY FINDING
Australia’s gender pay gap would fall from 23.3 per cent to 15.6 per cent if a more balanced gender concentration – 40 per cent women, 40 per cent men and 20 per cent any gender – were achieved across all industries and occupations.

KEY ACTION
We need to do better in recognising the true value of the roles traditionally undertaken by women. Work value is a too often framed in terms of narrow, myopic, and fundamentally gendered concepts of labour productivity based on annual turnover or profit.

WANT TO KNOW MORE? FIND THE FULL GENDER EQUITY INSIGHTS REPORT SERIES AND MEDIA RELEASES HERE.