00:00Jacob Michelson's approach to gender equality in the workplace is simple.
00:07As long as you can do the job, if somebody's taken 10 years off to have a child, it doesn't
00:10make any difference to their ability to perform the role.
00:13Dr Michelson believes that, plus corporate policies and flexible work arrangements, have
00:18helped the business narrow its gender pay gap to less than 1%.
00:22We have lots of mothers who work here who have to be gone by 3 or 4pm for the kids,
00:27so we'll try and accommodate shifts to make it work for them.
00:29We've got a lot of people who work out of hours, so weekends and Sundays and things,
00:32and again we'll try and work around their kids' sport or whatever else.
00:36A new report reveals leadership on flexible work is more likely in Australia's public
00:40sector than private.
00:42And the former has a narrower gender pay gap, 13.5% compared to 21.7%.
00:50We see that they've worked really hard, flexible work, they've really worked hard at getting
00:54more women into leadership roles.
00:56One of the things that the report acknowledges is that there's still role segregation between
01:02men and women.
01:03It's the first time the whole federal public sector has reported to the government's workplace
01:07gender equality agency, including entities like the CSIRO, NBN and Australia Post.
01:14The report shows women working in the federal public sector in 2022 were taking home annual
01:19pay packets $19,000 lighter, on average, than men.
01:25In the private sector, they were $26,000 short.
01:28With transparency comes accountability and comes a focus and momentum to keep working
01:34on gender equality and make sure we are creating and delivering gender equal workplaces.
01:39And what's really important for an organisation to do is dig deeper into its own data to look
01:45at where the gender pay gaps are.
01:48Professor Kulik's advice to employers, flexibility does lead to better retention of women and
01:53maintains their salary progression, but it's no quick fix.
01:58Organisations that offer flexibility are able to get more women into leadership roles, but
02:04it takes 8 to 12 years for that to happen.
02:08And to employees, knowledge is power.
02:10Explicitly ask organisations, what is your gender pay gap and what are you doing to change
02:17it?
02:18Small talk for big outcomes.
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