The national gender wage gap is currently sitting at 14.1 per cent – a 0.3 percentage point increase over the past six months. To mark Equal Pay Day, HR can lead conversations about ‘remuneration levelling’ to end this disparity.

The latest wage earnings and conditions report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that men are still out-earning their female counterparts by approximately $264 per week. 

According to the recently released figures, which are up-to-date as of May 2022, the average male public servant was bringing in $2,075 each week, compared to $1821 for female counterparts. The private sector told a similar story, with men earning $1835, while women earned $1,523.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) says women would have to work an extra 60 days following the end of the financial year (June 30) to match the salaries of their male colleagues. That’s why it’s marking 29th August as Equal Pay Day.

It’s troubling, but it’s not surprising. This is a tale as old as time. As former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark stated at AHRI’s Convention, the decade-long struggles women have faced to achieve equality was exacerbated by the pandemic.

“The World Economic Forum has said that pre-pandemic it would have taken 100 years to reach full gender equality. They’re now saying 132 years. As an overarching figure, that’s quite disturbing,” Clark said at the time.

This has led to what some people are labelling a ‘pink recession’. Research from the Grattan Institute shows that more women lost jobs than men during COVID-19 (8 per cent compared to 4 per cent). Women were also more likely to take on unpaid domestic work and less likely to receive government support during lockdowns, due to working on casual contracts or in volatile industries.

Pair this wage gap with the current economic crisis and the statistics are even more concerning.

“Looking at regular expenses like food, petrol, electricity and rent, the $264 less in a woman’s weekly pay makes a big difference,” says Woolridge.

“When you’re finding it tough to meet the essential costs of today it leaves little room to plan for tomorrow. Prioritising daily essentials means putting money aside in case of an emergency, for children’s education or saving for a house deposit, is forced to take a backseat.”

This ‘sheflation’, as WGEA puts it, will put further financial pressure on single-parent households, and leave women with less discretionary funds which will have an impact on the broader economy.

Businesses must take immediate action to address this, says Woolridge.

Incentivise women to apply

Part of lessening the 132-year gap Clark referred to could mean encouraging more women to pursue careers in traditionally male-dominated industries, such as technology and cybersecurity.

Jacqueline Jayne, Security Awareness Advocate at technology company KnowBe4, is a proponent of this, but says employers need to think about how they’re incentivising women to want to join their ranks.

“Businesses have a role to play ensuring that as well as being paid equally, women are equally represented in leadership positions; recruiters receive unconscious bias training; and there are fair policies around parental leave,” she says.

Read HRM’s article on progressive parental leave policies.

We also need to make these industries more appealing to female talent, she adds. 

“There needs to be a concerted effort to make the technology and cybersecurity professions more enticing to young women and girls.

“STEM needs to become available to girls early in their school curriculum, and cybersecurity needs to become more accessible as a whole. The latter requires more understanding and opportunity at a grassroots level to not only level the gender playing field but to address a rapidly growing skills gap.”

“It’s difficult to believe a gender pay gap still exists in 2022, but organisations have to take action. Words are not enough. The pace of change has been so slow.” – Alex Pusenjak, Global VP, People & Culture at Fluent Commerce

There are myriad ways to do this, but Jayne suggests setting up mentoring programs to help nurture up-and-coming female talent and “make the industry more inclusive and far less daunting for young women”.

“This is necessary not only to make women feel like the technology industry is a good fit for them, but to give them more confidence when it comes to salary and role negotiations. Women are increasingly finding their footing in the technology sector, but there remain legacy issues that should be dealt with today to eliminate gender from every technology conversation.”

Remuneration levelling

Alex Pusenjak, Global Vice-President of People and Culture at Fluent Commerce, an order management tech platform, says you need to embed a culture of belonging at work in order to truly walk the talk of gender equality.

“The first step… is to educate your leadership team on what it is and why it’s important before you get to the how,” he says.

“It’s important to make the ‘business case’ for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB), so it’s baked into everything from the beginning. That way the accountability lies with everyone, rather than trying to create a program and implementing it on your own.”

“Many Australian women have to work harder to make ends meet with very little room for discretionary spending or saving once they’ve covered the cost of daily essentials.” – Mary Wooldridge, Director, WGEA

Once this is done, Pusenjak says it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work – remember, done is often better than perfect.  

“You can waste time creating a complicated program that ultimately doesn’t see the light of day. Or, you can jump in and start somewhere. What helps you do this is to take a barometer reading of where the organisation is in relation to DEIB. Employee engagement surveys are a great way to do this.” 

Fluent Commerce started its process of “remuneration levelling” in July 2021. It was critical that the team eliminated biases that would impact decisions, so Pusenjak and his team removed everyone’s personal details from their systems.

“We didn’t know whether a person identified themselves as male or female. We could then compare their salaries to others in similar roles in their respective countries. This resulted in ‘levelling up’ a number of people in roles, across the US, Europe and Australia. We have committed to doing this process company-wide twice a year.”

Fluent Commerce has also committed to incremental salary bumps throughout the year.

“For example, if one of our senior leaders knows someone in their team is being targeted on LinkedIn by other companies, we can respond and remunerate accordingly.” 

Read HRM’s article on making a counter-offer to employees.

Level the playing field

If you want to start taking steps to offer more equitable salary packages, Pusenjak suggests forming a DEIB resource group made up of your employees.

“[That group is] tasked with proactively working on positive initiatives to create lasting and meaningful change. 

“Our Employee Resource Group has been in place now for 18 months and has successfully implemented a range of measures, including our Work180 employer endorsement, an education campaign about pronouns and the promotion of nine women across the business in the past nine months.”  

Sometimes the best way to move the needle is to partner with organisations that live and breathe the values you’re trying to instil.

“If your organisation is committed to gender equity and provides a flexible and supportive environment for men and women, seek out organisations to partner with that align with your values. For us, those organisations are ‘Girls in Tech’ – [who] use our office space in Sydney to host  events – and Work180, [which has] endorsed us as a great workplace for women.”

Finally, while days such as Equal Pay Day and International Women’s Day can spark broader conversations, these discussions need to happen year-round.  

“It’s difficult to believe a gender pay gap still exists in 2022, but organisations have to take action. Words are not enough. The pace of change has been so slow,” says Pusenjak. 

“DEIB isn’t an issue for the CEO or senior leadership team to ‘resolve’ – it’s everyone’s responsibility. Systems and processes have to be adopted where everyone has accountability to ensure employees are being remunerated fairly and equally, regardless of their gender, and this needs to be assessed at regular intervals to enable real change to be made.”

Are you a female HR professional looking to elevate your career? AHRI’s Women in HR Leadership course will help you to develop strategic leadership skills, influencing techniques and much more. Sign up for the course on 6-13 October.