Communiqué of the Gender Equity in the Workplace Summit 2012

our workplaces

Re-imagining

www.genderequity.ahri.com.au

PRinciPal PaRtneR

ContentsRe-imagining our workplaces 3

Maintaining the energy: empowering women to lead 4

Implementing a roadmap for flexibility 6

Turning mentoring meetings into leadership opportunities 8

Promoting gender equality through supply chain practices 9

Resilience: Women’s Fit, Functioning and Growth at Work 10

Message from Westpac 11

Peter Wilson aM

National President Australian Human Resources Institute

our workplacesGender equality is an issue that exists for every organisation. Yet, unfortunately for many organisations, it remains an issue that is not appropriately recognised or addressed. The leadership of these organisations is facing a serious loss of competitive advantage by not seeking to capitalise on the gender dividend.

The annual Gender Equity in the Workplace Summit is co-hosted by UN Women Australia and the Australian Human Resources Institute. It provides a space for Australian business leaders to discuss their joint leadership role in empowering women and ensuring gender equality in the workplace.

It is frequently cited that while over 50 percent of Australian university graduates are women, and many companies employ equal numbers of men and women at graduate level, the percentage of women drops sharply from the first team leader role, and continues to drop off as careers progress toward the executive levels. If we want to harness the full power of the workforce in these competitive times we need to change these statistics.

Australian law affirms women’s entitlement to equal opportunity and freedom from discrimination. Yet in practice inequality exists in many ways. Women continue to be disproportionately affected by issues of economic security, pay inequality, access to leadership opportunities, taking on the majority of caring responsibilities and a lack of representation in decision making.

Last year, Summit participants agreed that change was needed. They called on government to provide greater access to affordable child care, they called on employers to implement targets for women in leadership, and they called for education and stronger data.

This year, through a series of Thought Leader Workshop Groups, delegates set out to develop tangible recommendations for employers about how to further embed gender equity in the workplace. The recommendations in this document are based on that substantial contribution.

Complementary to these recommendations are the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs),1 developed by the United Nations Global Compact and UN Women, and the eight recommendations from the inaugural Gender Equity in the Workplace Summit in 2011.2 The WEPs share with the Gender Equity in the Workplace Summit an emphasis on the importance of courageous leadership in building gender equality at work. They are a further mechanism for leaders to demonstrate their commitment to equality by signing the CEO Statement of Support. We are pleased to commend to you the recommendations in this report and call on business leaders to commit to implementing them in their workplaces.

Julie McKay

Executive DirectorUN Women Australia

Re-imagining

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1. UN Global Compact and UN Women 2010, Women’s Empowerment Principles, Equality Means Business, http://www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/issues_doc/human_rights/Resources/WEP_EMB_Booklet.pdf.2. UN Women Australia and the Australian Human Resources Institute 2011, Equality Means Business, Communiqué of the Gender Equity in the Workplace Summit, http://genderequity.ahri.com.au/summit.php.

A SPECIAL INVITATION

Dear <first name>,

We are pleased to invite you to participate in an exclusive gender equity summit to advance the changes required to ensure that large private sector organisations in Australia significantly improve their representation of women in senior leadership positions during the coming decade.

Tuesday 8 March is the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day. As a prelude to the national celebrations, UN Women Australia and the Australian Human Resources Institute will host the inaugural Gender Equity in the Workplace Summit.

The 2010 World Economic Forum’s competitiveness survey ranked Australia number 1 in its participation of women in education but only 44th in their participation in the workforce.

As one of 150 specially selected guests, you are invited to set aside a day of your time to work with other senior business leaders. The aim will be to contribute to a set of practical recommendations that will lead to meaningful change in workplace gender equality. A Summit Report will be produced that will summarise proceedings and contain major recommendations for short and medium term actions and outcomes. Summit participants will be recognised as leading Australian supporters of gender equality in the workplace.

The program includes presentations from The Westpac Group CEO Gail Kelly, Sex Discrimination Commissioner Liz Broderick, non-executive director Helen Nugent and the male chief executive champions of change from the Australian Human Rights Commission. Financial Review BOSS magazine is the summit Media Partner and Narelle Hooper and Catherine Fox will moderate the proceedings. During the afternoon, syndicate groups will focus on questions in seven areas that we believe are central to improving the gender participation in corporate Australia.

We acknowledge with gratitude the Summit Principal Partner, The Westpac Group, and Summit Sponsors Freehills, Melbourne Business School and Telstra. The Summit Supporters are The American Chamber of Commerce in Australia, the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Business Council of Australia, Diversity Council Australia, the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, and the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Your contribution to this important issue is valued and we sincerely hope that you can join us in contributing to the creation of a more equitable and prosperous Australia.

RSVP to Stephanie Regan at summit@ahri.com.au or phone 03 9918 9224 by Tuesday 15 February.

Yours sincerely,

Julie McKayExecutive DirectorUN Women Australia

Peter Wilson AMNational PresidentAHRI

Principal Partner

Media Partner

Summit Sponsors

Friday 4 March 2011, Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre

A SPECIAL INVITATION

Dear <first name>,

We are pleased to invite you to participate in an exclusive gender equity summit to advance the changes required to ensure that large private sector organisations in Australia significantly improve their representation of women in senior leadership positions during the coming decade.

Tuesday 8 March is the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day. As a prelude to the national celebrations, UN Women Australia and the Australian Human Resources Institute will host the inaugural Gender Equity in the Workplace Summit.

The 2010 World Economic Forum’s competitiveness survey ranked Australia number 1 in its participation of women in education but only 44th in their participation in the workforce.

As one of 150 specially selected guests, you are invited to set aside a day of your time to work with other senior business leaders. The aim will be to contribute to a set of practical recommendations that will lead to meaningful change in workplace gender equality. A Summit Report will be produced that will summarise proceedings and contain major recommendations for short and medium term actions and outcomes. Summit participants will be recognised as leading Australian supporters of gender equality in the workplace.

The program includes presentations from The Westpac Group CEO Gail Kelly, Sex Discrimination Commissioner Liz Broderick, non-executive director Helen Nugent and the male chief executive champions of change from the Australian Human Rights Commission. Financial Review BOSS magazine is the summit Media Partner and Narelle Hooper and Catherine Fox will moderate the proceedings. During the afternoon, syndicate groups will focus on questions in seven areas that we believe are central to improving the gender participation in corporate Australia.

We acknowledge with gratitude the Summit Principal Partner, The Westpac Group, and Summit Sponsors Freehills, Melbourne Business School and Telstra. The Summit Supporters are The American Chamber of Commerce in Australia, the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Business Council of Australia, Diversity Council Australia, the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, and the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Your contribution to this important issue is valued and we sincerely hope that you can join us in contributing to the creation of a more equitable and prosperous Australia.

RSVP to Stephanie Regan at summit@ahri.com.au or phone 03 9918 9224 by Tuesday 15 February.

Yours sincerely,

Julie McKayExecutive DirectorUN Women Australia

Peter Wilson AMNational PresidentAHRI

Principal Partner

Media Partner

Summit Sponsors

Friday 4 March 2011, Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre

BacKgRoundA mounting body of knowledge indicates that gender diversity in upper management and leadership leads to better decision making and increased performance in business. US research and lobby group Catalyst demonstrates that firms with three or more women on their boards achieve significantly higher returns on investment, return on sales and return on invested capital compared to those with fewer than three women on their boards.3 This is corroborated by studies by McKinsey and Columbia University.4 London Business School found that teams with a gender balance achieve the best results in most areas which drive innovation as they are more likely to experiment, share knowledge and complete tasks.5 Yet despite growing awareness that gender diversity makes good business sense, Australian businesses have been slow to adopt policies and implement changes

that build gender equality and improve gender diversity.

Delegates to the 2011 Gender Equity in the Workplace Summit recommended that organisations set targets to achieve a minimum of 40 percent of each gender in management, executive leadership and board positions. Businesses with diversity targets are more likely to actively seek to rectify gender imbalances and capitalise on the organisational benefits of diversity. Public attention has focused recently on increasing women’s participation on boards, with the latest figures showing women comprising only 15.1 percent of ASX200 boards (October 2012).6 There is now growing recognition of the need to increase women’s representation at all levels of an organisation in order to build a pipeline of female leaders and to realise the business benefits of diversity in leadership.

Maintaining the energy: empowering women to lead

The only way [businesses] can be smarter is if they’ve

actually got smarter teams functioning within their

organisation. And the best way to get smarter teams is to have diversity within those teams. The role of women in every level of

decision making in the business is going to be a

key part of achieving that.” DENISE GOLDSWORTHY, MANAGING DIRECTOR,

DAMPIER SALT.

Hard wiring measures like targets need to be

underpinned by programs which challenge personal

bias and long-held attitudes, build leadership confidence

and capability and ensure that gender diversity does not become something

with which people are merely compliant.

“How do we move our thinking beyond focussing on targets to addressing the cultural barriers that continue to hamper further progress?”

JANE COUNSEL, WORKSHOP FACILITATOR AND HEAD OF DIvERSITY AND FLEXIBILITY, GROUP PEOPLE CAPABILITY, WESTPAC GROUP.

Key RecoMMendations:

1 Listed companies to tie ‘at risk’ executive remuneration to the success of those companies at achieving gender balance targets in the top four layers of

management.

2Companies to define what the business case for gender diversity is and communicate to stakeholders in their annual report how gender equality

affects the bottom line .

3The Federal Government to run a national community campaign which promotes the importance of gender equity and in particular men taking on

a greater share of caring responsibilities to challenge the traditional roles which women play in the home.

3. Catalyst 2011, The Bottom Line: Corporate Performance and Women’s Representation on Boards (2004-2008),www.catalyst.org/file/445/the_bottom_line_corporate_performance_and_women’s_representation_on_boards_(2004-2008).pdf. 4. McKinsey & Company 2007, Women Matter, http://www.mckinsey.com/locations/paris/home/womenmatter/pdfs/Women_matter_oct2007_english.pdf and David Ross and Cristian Dezso 2011, Does Female Representation in Top Management Improve Firm Performance? A Panel Data Investigation, Strategic Management Journal, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smj.1955/abstract.5. London Business School & The Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business 2007, Innovative Potential: Men and women in teams, web.lerelaisinternet.com/114909462/CMS/modules/dl/2138661879/Innovative_Potential_NOv_20071.pdf.6. Australian Institute of Company Directors 2012, Appointments to ASX 200 Boards, http://www.companydirectors.com.au/Director-Resource-Centre/Governance-and-Director-Issues/Board-Diversity/Statistics.

suMMit discussionThought Leaders in this session argued that targets alone are not enough to drive sustainable change. Targets are the hard-wiring process; the soft-wiring processes that support targets need to be further explored. Greater internal accountability, consistency and reporting must be buttressed by a broader process of cultural change. Maximising community engagement should involve bringing gender into mainstream dialogues and breaking down stigma through role modelling and story-telling. Currently, the success of targets is tied to the level of commitment of the CEO. For targets to be sustainable beyond this model businesses need to drive broader acceptance of the business case for gender diversity.

Current leaders are still crucial in taking responsibility for change within organisations. The executive and senior leadership needs to drive the adoption of policies which support flexibility, even when employees do not actively demand it. While employees inevitably have a bottom-up role in advocating change, leaders have a top-down role in instituting it and going beyond current legislation to provide progressive, inclusive and productive workplaces.

Also part of the leadership challenge is removing internal barriers to performance, including facilitating individual work styles. Executive and senior leaders need to break down notions of the ‘100 hour’ working week and model flexible work practices. This is pivotal to ensuring flexibility’s legitimacy so that men and women feel confident in accessing it.

A key challenge is how to ensure objective recruitment that is based on skills and experience, not on candidates’ similarities to the person currently in the role or to the manager recruiting for the position. Ostensible acceptance of the merit principle needs to be supported by a genuine attitudinal shift which rejects out-dated cultural thinking and targets unconscious bias.

Another imperative is ensuring accountability for diversity at every level. The rapid spread of accountability that occurred for workplace safety should be emulated with gender equality so that every member of an organisation is aware of his and her responsibility. In many cases there is a high level of support for diversity and flexibility among senior leaders and in written policy, but change is not affected by line managers. Significant investment in training and equipping managers to capitalise on a changing environment is needed and managers need to be informed of the longer term benefits of a diverse workforce. Summit panellists also recognised the need for significant evidence-based research to record the productivity implications of achieving workplace gender equality.

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Left to right: Carmel McGregor, Martin Portus, Kathy Hirschfeld.

BacKgRoundTo increase workforce productivity, women and men need access to flexible work arrangements. This is a critical element in ensuring equal opportunity. It is also an opportunity for businesses to enhance employee satisfaction and productivity through acknowledging the need for work life balance broadly, as well as the individual needs of employees with family and other responsibilities.7

The 2011 Gender Equity in the Workplace Summit recommendations included establishing scorecards at

leadership levels that promote flexibility practices. Driving flexibility from the top acknowledges the business case for flexibility while initiating the kind of cultural change needed to make flexibility accessible.

suMMit discussionIn seeking to envision the workplaces of the future, flexibility arose as a core focus of the Gender Equity in the Workplace Summit 2012. Men and women need flexibility as a necessary enabler of change, diversity and women’s empowerment in Australian

“Innovative companies are offering flexible working and careers to attract and retain talent. This flexibility has benefits for employers and employees alike.”

NAREEN YOUNG, WORKSHOP FACILITATOR AND CEO, DIvERSITY COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA.

Key RecoMMendations:

1The government to provide tax incentives to employers supporting women to come back from parental leave through payroll tax reductions or similar means.

2Organisations to commit to reporting on their flexibility policies along with their gender diversity policies through their website and public materials.

3Organisations to train and skill managers and other staff to manage in a flexible work environment.

It’s become so familiar so quickly I think we

underestimate just the profound impact that

technology can bring.” MARK SCOTT,

MANAGING DIRECTOR, AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING

CORPORATION.

a roadmap for fLExIBILITY

Implementing

Left to right: Mark Scott, Michael Rose, Denise Goldsworthy.

7. Diversity Council of Australia 2012, Get Flexible: Mainstreaming Flexible Work in Australian Business, Sydney, Diversity Council of Australia.

workplaces. Further, opportunities for flexibility need to be equally embraced by men and women. Many employees feel restricted by stigma around working flexibly, meaning all members of an organisation have a stake in driving change and supporting their colleagues to do so too. Flexibility’s success is dependent on the mindset of the entire organisation, from leadership through teams to employees.

Technology plays a pivotal role in enabling flexible work practices. The kinds of technology that were unthinkable a decade ago are now facilitating flexible work practices in organisations across Australia. Flexibility is challenging traditional notions of the nine to five working day in the office. Technology allows organisations to explore options for teleworking and virtual collaboration and to reconsider questions about where, when and how it is necessary to meet.

The challenge is whether organisations can redesign the measurements around performance to take advantage of the opportunities flexibility and technology bring.

Businesses need to re-evaluate time based performance assessments and reconsider the way they rank and value experience over time. They must contend with how to measure and appreciate the reality that many women will not have 20 years of unbroken service, but are nevertheless fundamentally capable of the job. They need to challenge notions that flexible work is less valuable and provide access to opportunities and promotions for employees working flexibly.

The economic and managerial implications of flexible workplaces must be considered. There are still disproportionate economic returns for constancy and intensity of work, including faster career progression. There are also structural disincentives around the cost of employees if multiple employees working flexibly mean multiplying costs.

The challenges underscore the importance of redesigning productivity measures. Recognising the value of employees’ work life balance is beneficial not only to employee health, satisfaction and productivity but also to the business bottom line.

Are businesses too focussed on headcount and traditional measures of productivity and missing the chance to achieve greater productivity through flexibility?” MICHAEL ROSE, CHIEF EXECUTIvE PARTnER, ALLEnS.

Summit participants acknowledged the need for robust and open discussion around the challenges without losing sight of the reasons for change. Business decisions that have short term costs associated with them are made every day for long term gain and for principled reasons around equality, human rights and best practice. The answer involves being realistic about challenges, costs and risks while keeping in mind the fundamental goal of equality.

Summit delegates were keen to hear about flexibility policies working in non-professional, blue collar environments. Denise Goldsworthy offered examples from the mining industry demonstrating that flexibility can work across industries. She recounted instances of high voltage electricians in Perth assisting with repairs at remote mines using a camera and ear-piece to communicate with on-site electricians. She described fly in fly out rosters with some employees working one week on, four weeks off. She also mentioned cases of mothers at residential sites working three hours in the day while their children were at school, driving trucks while other truck drivers were having lunch breaks or doing training.

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8. UN Global Compact and UN Women 2010, Women’s Empowerment Principles, Equality Means Business, http://www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/issues_doc/human_rights/Resources/WEP_EMB_Booklet.pdf. 9. Nancy Carter and Christine Silva, 2010, Mentoring: Necessary But Insufficient for Advancement, Catalyst.

BacKgRoundThe Women’s Empowerment Principles call on businesses to promote professional development for women.8 Mentoring and sponsorship programs present opportunities for businesses to build women’s professional development and ensure their advancement. A range of mentoring schemes, both formal and informal, inside and outside of organisations, have been instituted across businesses with the aim of supporting and retaining female talent. Yet much of the literature around mentoring for women points to its limited effectiveness, despite growing access. Research also suggests that demographic factors are less relevant than structural factors in determining mentoring’s success: having a mentor in a senior position, who takes on a personalised, sponsorship type role is more likely to open avenues for women’s advancement.9

suMMit discussionThought Leaders in this session advocated the importance of mentoring and sponsorship in driving leadership opportunities for women. Mentoring is the most important form of learning in the workplace after ‘on the job’ experience. It can also be helpful in enabling women to navigate issues of male dominance in workplaces.

Despite this, women tend to underestimate the value of networking and mentoring compared to men. Women also tend to attribute success to higher levels of technical excellence, while men tend to place a higher value on mentoring and sponsorship as a means of reaching this success. further, many businesses report stop-start behaviour, difficulties in implementing effective or sustainable programs or outright failure. There is evidently more

“How we can, particularly in the Australian environment, really put mentoring in the forefront of what we’re doing as an opportunity for women.”

SONJA PRICE, WORKSHOP FACILITATOR AND BOARD DIvERSITY MANAGER POLICY AND ADvOCACY, THE AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF COMPANY DIRECTORS.

Key RecoMMendations:

1Organisations to embrace a range of customised mentoring and sponsorship options including identifying profiling and networking opportunities to

broaden individual visibility and enhance leadership skills.

2Organisations to invest the necessary time and money in mentoring and sponsorship programs, including training and education for mentors and

mentees and implementing structures and processes that facilitate effective matching, manage expectations and support goal setting.

3Board members, CEOs and senior management to take a leading role in making mentoring legitimate, creating an open culture around mentoring

and making their own mentoring relationships explicit.

4Organisations to support and encourage women to seek and develop strong mentors and advocates throughout their careers.

Turning mentoring meetings into LEADERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

that can be learned in Australia about how to make mentoring worthwhile.

Many Australian workplaces have taken strides towards implementing effective mentoring programs. A key success factor for mentoring is the commitment of the organisation to making the program work, to engaging mentors in training and equipping them to effectively support their mentee. Mentoring fails with a lack of training or formal structures and diverse expectations or misaligned values. Businesses need to ensure that mentoring is focused on the success of the mentee and does not become an attempt to socialise women to a male dominated workforce.

One future challenge for Australian businesses is translating the work done in the gender space from large corporate organisations to small and medium businesses. The national Small Business Summit reports that 70% of the Australian workforce is employed in small and medium-sized business and the majority of women are employed in small business. There is perhaps an opportunity for engaging small businesses with the gender diversity conversation through inter-business mentoring.

10. UN Global Compact and UN Women 2010, Women’s Empowerment Principles, Equality Means Business, http://www.unwomen.org.au/Content%20Pages/Get%20Active/weps.11. Rich Morin and D’vera Cohn 2008, Women Call the Shots at Home; Public Mixed on Gender Roles in Jobs, Pew Research Centre, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/967/gender-power.

Key RecoMMendations:

1Organisations to audit their current suppliers against organisational

values, brand proposition and diversity strategies.

2Organisations to integrate gender diversity requirements into their

tendering process and communicate this publically in their annual report, on their website and in other public materials.

3Organisations commit to educate potential suppliers about the value

of gender diverse workplaces and help them achieve the new requirements in the tendering process.

4Organisations to challenge their own approach and the approach of

companies in their supply chain as to how they portray women, especially in advertising.

BacKgRoundThe Women’s Empowerment Principles also call on organisations to consider the gendered implications of their supply chain practices and the diversity policies and strategies of their supply chain partners.10 Businesses’ commercial weight and purchasing power positions them strongly to take a stance in setting policy standards which promote gender equality. Where businesses can hold their commercial partners and other key stakeholders in markets and the community to these standards, there is an opportunity to make real traction in the gender space.

suMMit discussion Implementing supplier diversity has a social benefit, but it also has a credible business case. In terms of market share, employee value proposition, employee engagement, access to greater supplier choice and cost efficiency, the value of implementing supplier diversity policies has enormous potential to improve business practice and bottom line.

Thought Leaders in this session emphasised the need for supplier diversity to stand up on its own two commercial feet in the corporate sector. The current supplier diversity model in Australia is limited, but there has been progress around ethnic minority supplier diversity. Businesses seeking to exploit the commercial opportunities of supplier diversity can adapt and build on the current model to incorporate organisations promoting gender equality into their supply chain.

There are also immediate sector based opportunities: organisations can look to sectors where there are a higher proportion of female business owners and leaders. Further, Australian businesses can learn from more advanced approaches, particularly in North America. This is especially pertinent where international companies operating in Australia can import practices from other parts of the organisation.

Ideally, supplier diversity needs to be owned by the procurement process within organisations, rather than by human resources, diversity or community teams, or be seen as a separate entity. Internal support for the concept is crucial in changing the thinking around procurement performance indicators to add suppliers that would normally be overlooked.

Promoting gender equality through supply chain practices

In promoting gender equality, business can learn from other sectors including the environmental sustainability movement. The rapid changes which made organisations more accountable for their environmental impact were driven by employee and consumer demands. Building community awareness of gender inequality, so that consumers and employees can start making choices based on a company’s equity and diversity commitments, is essential in driving behavioural change.

Supplier diversity represents an opportunity. It’s one of the relatively untapped parts of the diversity agenda that we really aren’t seeing much leverage in within Australia at the moment.” NEIL COCKROFT, WORKSHOP FACILITATOR AND HEAD OF DIvERSITY AND CULTURE, KING & WOOD MALLESONS.

Behaviour is driven by consumers and if women make or influence over 70% of consumer choices then diversity credentials could be a very powerful value proposition.11

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Women’s Fit, Functioning and growth at Work

“Research shows that being made aware of your membership of a stereotyped group leads you to behave in ways that are in line with other people’s stereotypical expectations of you. This is stereotype threat and it can ultimately reduce the performance of individuals who belong to a negatively stereotyped group.”

REBECCA BOSE, WORKSHOP FACILITATOR AND PROGRAM FACILITATOR, GENDER EqUALITY PROJECT, MELBOURNE BUSINESS SCHOOL.

Key RecoMMendations:

1Organisations to commit to building internal awareness through training on unconscious bias, including self-awareness assessment for male and

female employees.

2Organisations to strive for corporate maturity by implementing and continuously managing a policy of zero tolerance toward micro-aggressions in

the form of ‘just joking’ behaviour. CEOs to take a leadership role in enforcing this zero tolerance policy.

3Organisations to integrate genuine consequences for this behaviour, holding accountable all members of an organisation, including the executive suite.

4Business education institutions and higher education regulators to develop a policy which requires all accredited business education courses to contain

some content on the issue of gender equality as it links to productivity and business success.

We will struggle to have gender equity in the workplace as

long as we don’t have gender equity in

the home.”

TIM ORTON, MANAGING DIRECTOR,

NOUS GROUP.

Stereotype threat is the greatest risk factor for women’s performance at work, while increased control over work life and opportunities for development constitute the two key protective factors.

RESILIEnCE:

Left to right: Nareen Young, Sonja Price, Neil Cockroft, Rebecca Bose, Jane Counsel.

BacKgRoundA new report from the Melbourne Business School’s Gender Equality Project looks at the factors that affect women’s resilience within organisations.12 The research defines eight key indicators of women’s fit, functioning and growth in workplaces. Indices of women’s fit in an organisation include experience of sexual harassment, a sexist climate and women’s attitude to their work. Indices of women’s functioning include health, performance, recruitment and retention. Indices of women’s growth include compensation level and managerial levels. These factors are the most commonly reported in the research as statistically significant indications of women’s resilience at work. The report also defines 17 significant predictors of women’s fit, functioning and growth at work. It divides these into protective and risk factors which operate at the organisational or personal level.

suMMit discussionThe strongest risk factor for women in workplaces is the insidious and detrimental effect of stereotype threat and the associated behaviour of micro-aggression. While in small and medium businesses sexism often can be overt, in large corporates women are up against more subtle forms of sexism that harassment legislation does not touch. Such challenges to resilience can

come from all parts of an organisation and are likely to adversely affect women’s performance and make them less likely to stay in a role. Ensuring women are represented and promoted across the organisation, rather than being concentrated in certain areas, is part of breaking down these barriers to women’s performance.

The Melbourne Business School research found that the second largest risk factor for women’s resilience in the workplace is associated with family stress and work-family conflict. The family unit plays a large role in shaping women’s experiences in the workforce, and there is much opportunity for improvement in this area. The 2011 Gender Equity in the Workplace Summit called on the Federal Government to provide 100 percent tax deductibility for child care expenses. 2012 Summit delegates echoed this, calling for greater diversity and availability of child care. Businesses also need to better embrace returning and ageing employees.

While women still can’t ‘have it all,’ the reality is nor can anyone. The focus should be on how men and women can have access to anything, not have access to everything. However, women’s choices are limited by a range of social and structural constructs, including social norms, history and ethnicity. This is where workplaces need to take a greater level of accountability for gender equality more broadly rather than just gender equality in the workforce.

12. victor Sojo and Robert Wood 2012, Resilience: Women’s Fit, Functioning and Growth at Work: Indicators and Predictors, Melbourne Business School Centre for Ethical Leadership.

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PRInCIPAL PARTnERThe Westpac Group has a long history of supporting women in leadership, demonstrated by the fact that it has been acknowledged on EOWA’s Blue Ribbon list since its inception in 2002. The Westpac Group recognises that it makes good business sense for its workforce to reflect the diversity of its customer base.

The Westpac Group is committed to helping lead the gender equality debate both nationally and internationally. Its support of the Gender Equity Summit and International Women’s Day are important ways in which it can continue to challenge itself, and the rest of corporate Australia, to take real action to drive a positive change for the future.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Summit Organising Committee: Sandra Cormack, AHRI; Rebecca Bromhead, Jessica French, Olivia Rothnie-Jones, UN Women Australia; Jane Counsel, Westpac Group.

UN Women Australia and AHRI would like to thank workshop facilitators: Jane Counsel, Westpac Group; nareen Young, the Diversity Council of Australia; Neil Cockroft, Kind and Wood Mallesons; Sonja Price, the Australian Institute of Company Directors and Rebecca Bose, Melbourne Business School.

We are grateful for the invaluable contributions of the workshop thought starters: Carmel McGregor, Department of Defence; Dr Lucy Burgmann, Australian Institute of

Management NSW and ACT; Jennifer Levasseur, Corporate Express; Peter Wilson, AHRI and Dr Jennifer Whelan, Melbourne Business School.

We would also like to thank the Keynote Panel: Michael Rose, Allens; Denise Goldsworthy, Dampier Salt; Tim Orton, Nous Group; Mark Scott, Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Julie McKay, UN Women Australia.

We also thank all event scribes and volunteers. Finally, thanks go to Olivia Rothnie-Jones, Julie McKay,

David Wakeley and Ali McTaggart for their contributions to this communiqué.

As the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, UN Women Australia brings together experts in the gender sector to progress gender equality and empower women to reach their full potential in contributing to our communities at work, home and in public life.

Australian National Committee for UN Women GPO Box 2824, Canberra, ACT 2601 Phone (02) 6225 5810 www.unwomen.org.au

As the national association representing human resource and people management professionals, AHRI leads the direction and fosters the growth of the HR profession through actively setting standards and building the capability of the profession.

Australian Human Resources Institute Level 13, 565 Bourke Street, Melbourne vic 3000 Phone (03) 9918 9200 | Fax (03) 9918 9201 www.ahri.com.au

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