Gender survey opens Be part of women in the workplace research
A new women-focused survey aims to understand women’s workplace experiences.
Executive recruitment firm Convergence Partners and Massey University have teamed up to do research about women in the workplace.
They are launching a survey, titled ‘‘Women’s Career Realities and Aspirations‘‘, to look at how women feel about their jobs and work goals, and what they see as key influences on their career development.
Specific issues it will look at include whether survey participants’ demographics relate to their career progress and aspirations, how important women feel their careers are, what more they think can be done to make workplaces more inclusive and to facilitate their career advancement.
Massey University professor Jane Parker, said the evidence from the survey will add to existing studies about the current status of women in the workplace and their career hopes.
The findings will also help inform workplaces and policies to better use, retain and further female talent.
‘‘Official statistics tell us that women form nearly half of all those employed in New Zealand, yet they remain underrepresented in senior roles, often even within femaledominated occupations,’’ Parker said.
‘‘The rate at which this is changing is fairly unspectacular.’’
This was despite the increase in women leaving high school with qualifications and those going on to complete tertiary studies, as well as the number of women in the labour market (64 per cent compared with 75 per cent for men).
This year, the gender pay gap worsened, from 11.8 per cent in 2015 and 9.9 per cent in 2014, to 12 per cent in 2016.
Dave Rees of Convergence Partners said from his recruitment experience, there were large gulfs between male and female job applicants.
Men tended to back themselves no matter what their actual skill sets were, whereas women leaders were not necessarily the same.
There was also some unconscious bias in the way companies wrote ads, where they ask for certain competencies that might naturally exclude women.
An example is when an ad asks for an assertive leader, but assertiveness was largely a positive quality for men and a negative one for women.
Rees said they wanted to learn more about the reasons behind the lack of diversity in organisations.
He said the results will hopefully be used to provide greater insight into the issue and highlight areas that need more work.
‘‘I think by giving organisations a better understanding of areas that need to be addressed, it almost gives them a tool to work with.’’
Official statistics tell us that women form nearly half of all those employed in New Zealand, yet they remain underrepresented in senior roles.