Women call out pay unfairness
It’s International Women’s Day tomorrow, and this year’s theme is challenging gender bias and inequality. Tina Morrison talks to high-fliers who know all about the unfairness.
Treasury head Dr Caralee McLiesh knows what it’s like to be questioned about how you can possibly juggle three kids and a job, when your male colleague sitting beside you is facing exactly the same situation, but nobody asks him a peep.
Or the countless times when you walk into a business meeting and everyone assumes your male team member is the boss, or the classic situation of making a point in a meeting which is ignored but later celebrated when it’s made by a man.
Ahead of International Women’s Day tomorrow, Dr McLiesh wants us to call this behaviour out. The campaign theme for this year is about choosing to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality.
‘‘I’ve certainly had my fair share of assumptions being made about me because of my gender,’’ she says. ‘‘I’ve never felt truly held back by any of that, but it certainly has made me really motivated to try and do what I can to change those sorts of things for women that come after me.’’
McLiesh has been head of the Treasury, the Government’s lead adviser on economic and financial policy, since September 2019 and is the organisation’s first female in the top role.
At times, she says, she has sucked it up when confronted with discrimination in the workplace, but she is trying to call it out more and encourage other people to do the same.
‘‘Sometimes people feel more comfortable making a joke out of it, and sometimes you really have to take a stand,’’ McLiesh says.
She remembers how deeply unsettled she was to accidentally discover in a previous role that she was paid significantly less than one of her male colleagues when she was more experienced, at least as well qualified, told she was performing well and was part of the organisation’s succession planning.
It was confusing to find out she was paid less, she says.
‘‘Money’s not my primary motivation – if it were, I would be in investment banking – but it really made me feel less valued by my organisation, and kind of made me question my self-worth a little bit, which surprised me,’’ she says.
When HR told her she would have to wait six months to have it reviewed in the next pay round, she was riled enough to speak with her boss directly. Even though she had all the facts, she still felt awkward and unsure about it. To his credit, he immediately said: ‘‘That’s not right, I’ll fix it’’.
After going through all that turmoil, she realised the structure wasn’t deliberate but had crept in unintentionally over time. It’s underscored to her the importance of having the right systems in place and reviewing them regularly.
The Treasury has more men at senior levels and a lower proportion in support roles and is trying to address that by developing women leaders and removing bias in its recruitment.
The organisation’s gender pay gap fell from 19.3 per cent in June 2019 to 14.3 per cent in June 2020 and has since declined further. McLiesh wants to get as close as possible to eliminating it. With the appointment of Leilani Frew as deputy secretary of commercial and financial on Wednesday, the executive leadership is now half men and half women.
However, while systems can be strengthened, some more subtle behaviours require people to change their mindset, become more aware, and have the confidence to say ‘‘actually, no, that’s not right’’, McLiesh says.
She read every single comment from a staff survey undertaken shortly after she joined the Treasury and was deeply disturbed by a couple of them where people said they had been subject to sexist or racist behaviour.
‘‘At a staff meeting, I talked about how unacceptable that is, and if people do think it’s acceptable they just don’t belong here because that’s just not part of our values,’’ she says. ‘‘It’s important for leaders I think to call it out in a general sense as well as the specific. It helps to set the tone.’’
A good workplace for women is one with genuine diversity and inclusion, where people are valued and respected for the unique contribution they bring, and where they can speak up safely and be listened to, she says.
The Treasury wants a high-performing workplace to test ideas with different perspectives, and better represent the community it serves, she says.
‘‘Money’s not my primary motivation . . . but it really made me feel less valued by my organisation, and kind of made me question my selfworth a little bit.’’ Dr Caralee McLiesh On her accidental discovery in a previous role that a lessexperienced male colleague was paid more than her
At Spark, the only NZXlisted company with both a female chief executive and chairwoman, there has been a concerted effort to address gender equality which has seen the telecommunications firm achieve a 50/50 split of males and females at both board and executive level, and 40 per cent representation in the wider leaders’ group.
Chairwoman Justine Smyth, who was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to women last year, says the push for more women at the top started 10 years ago when there were few female directors at Spark and no women in the senior leadership team.
Smyth says there has been a ‘‘ripple effect’’ after the board started asking for more women on the leadership team.
For chief executive Jolie Hodson, that meant giving women enough opportunities and experiences so they could be considered for promotion when roles came up.
However, the company found establishing targets from the top was not enough to stop good women from leaving the business, so they brought in outside help to investigate and found the culture of the company needed to change.
‘‘Our experience at Spark has shown us that actually the whole culture of the organisation needs to embrace diversity and inclusion,’’ Smyth says. ‘‘It can’t just be the board at the top and that’s that.’’
That change centred around a Blue Heart campaign where staff voluntarily pledge to make a personal commitment to support diversity and inclusion. About half of the 5500 staff signed up which created a powerful movement giving people confidence they could be their authentic selves at work.
‘‘We’ve made great progress from where we were, but we have a huge way to go,’’ Smyth says.
Spark has a gender pay gap of 28 per cent, above the overall rate for the country of 9.5 per cent.
Female representation remains low in technology parts of the business historically considered a male career, with women making up only 27 per cent of digital technology staff.
Smyth says it’s ‘‘woeful’’ Spark is the only NZX company headed by women, and more female role models are needed.
‘‘You can’t be what you can’t see,’’ she says.
Professional director and Ma¯ ori leader Traci Houpapa says boards are still populated mostly by men, and she would like to see New Zealand sign up to a charter requiring all boards to have a 50/50 split of men and women.
‘‘I simply think it’s good business, and I simply think it’s smart strategy,’’ she says. ‘‘We are seeing more men stepping up and recognising the role of women in strategy and business across companies and communities and I think that’s wonderful. But we are still not there yet.’’
Houpapa says she has experienced racism, bullying, intimidation, chauvinism and abuse in boardrooms.
‘‘That’s still happening in boardrooms across Aotearoa and it’s unacceptable, and it’s not OK,’’ she says. ‘‘We need to make change.’’
Some women chose to leave because of it, although increasingly more people are calling out such behaviours, she says.
‘‘Sometimes that kind of behaviour is seen as a woman’s issue, but it isn’t. It’s a board issue, it’s a governance issue, and Aotearoa deserves better leadership than that,’’ Houpapa says.
‘‘We deserve leadership that upholds the mana of all people, whether we’re women or men and provides a safe place for us to operate. Unfortunately even today that’s not happening in all boardrooms across Aotearoa.’’
She wants to see the appointment of women included as a key performance indicator alongside other strategic priorities that executives and management teams deliver.
Women bring a different energy, experience and approach to conversations in boards and organisations which has been evident during the Covid-19 pandemic when women leaders placed more emphasis on wellbeing and improving quality of life, she says.
‘‘Covid has shown us that we need to have new thinking,’’ she says.
‘‘Most of us are recognising that business as usual isn’t usual, and we can’t go back to what we used to do. The economy and country deserve a long hard think about how we recover and what it looks like for Aotearoa and what our overall ecosystem needs to be – and I think women have an important role to play in that conversation.’’
Houpapa says many women are essential workers who have kept New Zealand going over the last 12 months, although they were still the ‘‘working poor’’ and needed to be recognised as an important part of our economy, remunerated accordingly and supported with free childcare.
‘‘There are a number of very practical policy decisions that can be made to support, empower and enable women as an important part of our economic recovery.
‘‘Women are an important part of our economy and our success is the country’s success.’’