‘Daughter Water’ Addressing Gender Pay Gap..
Daughter Water for CEOs uses humour to tackle the ongoing gender pay gap for equal work in Australia. International research shows that shortly after male CEOs become father to a baby daughter, his female staff get a direct benefit AND if it’s a firstborn the gap decreases by three per cent!
A Fun Campaign To Increase Gender Pay Gap Analysis
From today every CEO in Australia whose company has not completed a gender pay gap analysis will receive a bottle of Daughter Water to ‘result in a flood of daughters’!
Helen Conway, heading up the WGEA (Worplace Gender Equality Agency) hopes the humour will spark some discussion.
How Many CEOs Have Audited Their Organisation’s Pay Gap?
There are thousands on WGEA’s list who haven’t audited the pay gap.
You can check on your employer here.
The WGEA has also developed In Your Hands, a website where people can check if companies have competed gender pay gap analyses and there are tools there to show ‘the how, what and why of reporting on gender pay gaps’.
There is a list of enlightened companies and the WGEA is doing regular updates.
All the big banks? YES
Major insurers? YES
All the big media companies? NO (Except Fairfax – YES)
David Jones is a NO but Myer Is a YES having done a gender remuneration gap analysis in the last 12 months.
Helen Conway says that 32 business leaders have signed on to be Pay Equity Ambassadors to get the community thinking about pay equity and WGEA aims to get to 100 Pay Equity Ambassadors in the next 12 months.
Some Of The Good Guys
AGL CEO Michael Fraser, father of a boy, decided to become one of the first Pay Equity Ambassadors because he thought it was indefensible that in the 21st century, companies would not deliver equal pay for equal work. And he’s right on top of grappling with the data.
“I have come to realise, that unless we continually analyse our HR data and systems and validate the basis of our decisions as they relate to employees, we will continue to see gender inequity in business,” he said. AGL conducts an annual pay equity analysis, most recently in June; and its executive team follows up to address the areas where gender inequities have been identified. The company has also made a commitment to attract and retain women in non-traditional roles, particularly in the Merchant Energy and Upstream Gas businesses.
He’s joined in the foundation team by Chris Whitehead, the CEO of CUA, who found that while more than 60 per cent of CUA employees were women, that didn’t translate into the top ranks. It was in the low 20 per cent range when he took it on. Now he’s set up a diversity council to focus on talent and to raise awareness. He’s been very proactive in trying to fix the gender balance in leadership and now women at CUA account for just over 30 per cent in management ranks. He’s done it in record time.
It will be no surprise to learn, then, that Whitehead is the father of 19 year old twin girls. “I’ve been telling them for years that the world is their oyster.”
Now he is one of the business leaders trying to make that a reality for women everywhere.”
Go Daughter Water!
