Women earn less than men in these companies, and they want everyone to know
From March, companies will be able to register their gender and ethnicity pay gaps publicly. Three heads of large companies in New Zealand have already signed up, writes Sinead Gill.
People deserve a fair wage, regardless of gender or ethnicity, but even bosses who are committed to making that happen say they don’t realise there is a pay gap until they run the numbers.
From March, companies will be able to register their gender and ethnicity pay gaps publicly. Three heads of large companies in New Zealand have already signed up. They say transparency is the latest secret ingredient to attract talent in an increasingly competitive job market.
Prue Flacks, board chair of Mercury Energy New Zealand, says if they hadn’t made the effort to crunch the numbers, they wouldn’t have known their gap was unacceptable.
The company first started reporting gender pay gaps in 2019.
‘‘If you ask most directors if they have equal pay for value, we say of course we do. It’s not until you actually do the analysis you see the difference... a big issue is the number of women and people of different ethnicities at the higher levels of an organisation.’’
They began to publish their findings in their annual reports, with the belief that ‘‘what gets measured, gets managed,’’ she said. ‘‘Transparency drives accountability. Addressing pay gaps is the right thing to do. There is also a commercial reason – our people are our best assets and it’s a very competitive market.’’
Flacks said calculating the gap was as simple as using a computer programme.
‘‘The hardest part was interpreting the data. Some reasons for inequity are obvious and others aren’t.’’
Every year, Chartered Accountants Australia-New Zealand, or CAANZ, runs a remuneration survey of their sector’s employees, from office assistants to accountants and company directors. Joe Consedine, general manager of CAANZ’s New Zealand branch, said women were making $60,000 less on average per year to men.
‘‘It’s a significant issue in our profession, and we feel we have a role to play in giving practical advice,’’ he said.
CAANZ developed a playbook which sought to debunk anti-pay gap myths and encourage their member companies to address it.
‘‘There isn’t a pay gap just because women take career breaks or are less confident negotiators. There are actually systemic barriers,’’ he said.
‘‘Women are more likely to be responsible for caring for wha¯ nau, so one way of addressing that is with flexible work schedules... studies show the more dynamic the workplace is, the more successful it is.’’
‘‘There is a war for talent right
now... diversity is important, especially to younger people.’’
Telecommunications company Spark began to publish their pay gap in 2019 for the same reasons as Mercury and CAANZ.
They’re aiming for a 40:40:20 ratio of men, women, and any gender.
Chief executive Jolie Hodson said knowing the problem was the only way to find a solution: ‘‘You have to own where you are and start the journey. Then you can focus on change.’’
The telecommunications industry was full of STEM (science, technology engineering and mathematics) – a traditionally male-dominated field. Hodson said 39 per cent of students studying technology at a tertiary level were female.
A way Spark could address that was through scholarships and taking advantage of their existing low-skill workforce.
‘‘In our customer channels we have students who are studying, or are young, how do we move them into those highly skilled areas? Education.’’
None of the above companies measure the pay inequalities between ethnicities, but Mind The Gap, a pay equity campaign and the creators of the public register, has included it in their register.
Spokesperson Dellwyn Stuart said there were countless big companies in New Zealand which measured their pay inequalities, but it was measured inconsistently and behind closed doors.
She said it had been almost 50 years since the Equal Pay Act of 1972, and it was time for New Zealand to step up. First on a voluntary basis with this register, but ideally with legislation change.
‘‘If a public register of pay inequalities was legislated, we’d be the first in the world,’’ she said.
She said Mind The Gap had pitched the idea to nearly every political party, and it had ‘‘good support’’, but was not yet a priority.
‘‘I think 2022 is the tipping point year. We have a wave of businesses stepping up to do it... the job market is more competitive than ever.’’
In 2021, women were paid on average nine per cent less than men per hour.
The gap was larger when ethnicity was factored in: Pasifika woman earned 27 per cent less than a Pa¯keha¯ man.
‘‘You have to own where you are and start the journey. Then you can focus on change.’’ Jolie Hodson Spark chief executive