Spark boss admits to culture failure
Spark’s boss was nearly brought to tears when he told a crowd of mostly women that his company had failed their gender.
Speaking at Global Women’s 1 Day for Change conference yesterday, Spark managing director Simon Moutter said he had struggled to swallow the feedback from some female leaders who left Spark this year.
He said it made him rethink his approach to achieving a inclusive workforce for women and minority ethnic groups.
‘‘Diversity is about being invited to the party; inclusion is about being asked to dance. At Spark we are clearly not asking them [women] to dance … From here we need to put a lot more work into the heart of the issue.’’
One-third of the telecommunications company’s staff are women. Getting to that number showed Spark’s progression, Moutter said, but it still had work to do to make every employee feel comfortable at work.
His points were repeated by 15 female leaders from the public and private sectors, who took the stage to share their stories of oppression and to mobilise women in the workforce.
Genesis Energy’s people and culture general manager, Nicola Richardson, said her own 9 per cent pay rise alerted her to the fact that many women were not being paid to reflect the value they brought to their employer.
She encouraged businesses to tackle the systemic gender pay gap. While it was a difficult path to start on, doing so would futureproof businesses by making them an employer of choice, she said.
A cultural diversity panel touched on the bias against Maori in corporate organisations.
Fletcher Construction people and performance manager Kara Brown said she had been called a ‘‘tupperware Maori’’ because of her success in the private sector.
Hays New Zealand managing director Jason Walker said Maori were held back by the way they and others perceived them.
‘‘There is still a lot of … unconscious bias around gangs and whether or not they [Maori] have the work ethic.’’
A young Muslim woman asked how the leaders walked the talk on diversity, particularly for minority religious groups.
Inspiring Stories chief executive Guy Ryan said empathy needed to be taught in schools so the next generation of workers were accepting of New Zealand’s increasingly multicultural society.
Global Women chief executive Miranda Burdon said exposure to different cultures was crucial to eliminate people’s fear of other cultures and religions.