Female friendly employers win in many ways

Initiatives from on site child care to preparing women to take their seat at the board room table proved winners at the annual business awards for female-friendly employers.

Mining, pharmaceuticals, banking, education and the legal sector fielded the winners at this year’s Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency Business Achievement awards.

If you’re a woman researching your next job the EOWA business awards is a great place to start your research. Read about the winners here and then click through to read about the finalists.

EOWA Award Winners

Minister’s Award for Outstanding EEO Initiative/Result for the Advancement of Women –  CSL Limited

Biopharmaceutical company CSL started surveying its employees five years ago and found 63 per cent of female employees taking maternity leave had not returned to work. Child care was identified as a major barrier to returning to work.

Part of the solution was the building of the Thinking Kids Children’s Centre at CSL’s  Parkville site in Victoria to offer 114 places to children aged up to 6. The centre is used by both mum and dad employees. The centre also includes space for older children during school holidays room to help reduce the need for employees to take time off during these periods.

According to a 2011 survey carried out by CSL, 51 per cent of its workforce are women. CSL also offers 12-weeks paid parental leave, lactation breaks and facilities for women to express and store milk.

The Outstanding EEO Practice for the Advancement of Women in a Non-Traditional Area or Role – National Australia Bank

NAB took out the award in recognition of its “board ready” program that provides education and support to qualified women to prepare them for a seat on one of its 157 subsidiary boards. NAB wants to increase female board participation from the 14 per cent level of October 2010 to 20 per cent by September 30, 2015.

Having a workforce that reflects the diversity of its customers and communities “where individual differences are valued and respected” has been a major priority for NAB.

Focus has been given to building a pipeline of female talent within the bank, building leadership capability, training external recruiters on NABs gender diversity principles and how to hire to align to those principles.

The NAB has also actively sought to build a reputation as a great place for women to work.

As of September 30, 2011, 28 per cent of the NAB’s Group executive management were women – up from 23 per cent in June 2010. Female representation in the NAB graduate program has increased from 40 per cent in 2011 to 44 per cent in 2012.

Leading CEO for the Advancement of Women – Alan Robson, Vice Chancellor of the University of Western Australia

Alan Robson told the awards ceremony that UWA had the worst diversity record of any university in Australia when he first started championing this issue 18 years ago.

He has overseen the first gender balanced executive, a number of senior female appointments and the UWA Review of the Position of Women that “gave voice” to the concerns of women around career advancement.

Professor Robson funded and championed the UWA Leadership Development for Women program, now in its 18th year, and personally mentors 11 female participants. He has also supported a parental leave scheme open to both genders of 36 weeks of paid leave.

Striving for gender equity has “greatly improved our organisation”, Professor Robson told the audience. “You have to use all the talent in the world.”

Diversity Leader for the Advancement of Women – Sally Macindoe of Norton Rose Australia

The law firm employs more than 1,000 people in Australia and in 2005 partner Sally Macindoe was the first woman elected to its board known as the partnership council. In 2010 she was elected its chair. She co-chairs its National Diversity Committee and oversees the development and execution of the firm’s diversity strategy. Since 2005 Norton Rose Australia has doubled the number of women at partnership level and increased female representation at leadership level by more than 20 per cent. Other initiatives include doubling the number of women working flexibility and increasing the return to work from parental leave rate from 50 per cent to 81 per cent.

Leading Organisation for the Advancement of Women (<800 employees)
Catholic Education Office Adelaide

Lead by Assistant Director, Helen O’Brien, the Catholic Education Office in Adelaide features a culture of acceptance and commitment where diversity is everyone’s responsibility.

Learning and development is encouraged and supported including through study incentive grants. A record number of these grants have been accessed in the last year.

There are 25 women in senior management and 36 per cent work part-time. Three of the five-member leadership team are women and the organisation has a 100 per cent return rate from maternity leave with the majority accessing part-time work.

Leading Organisation for the Advancement of Women (>800 employees) – Australian Catholic University Limited

Australian Catholic University (ACU) was the first employer in the country to offer paid maternity leave. The 12 months paid leave scheme was introduced in 2001 resulting in a retention rate of just over 91 per cent.

ACU lives its mission to ensure equal opportunity for all. It employs 1,400 people in Queensland, NSW, the ACT and Victoria and educates more than 20,000 students at any one time.

Other policies that deliver to its diversity goals include flexible work policies and practices such as flexible work hours, part-time work and job sharing; research awards for female academics returning to work after a period of parental leave; and sponsorship of the Australian Regional Women Leaders’ Convention.

At ACU women constitute 68.7 per cent of the workforce and its leadership includes two female Deputy Vice-Chancellors, female Executive Deans in all five of the university’s faculties and women holding a number of high-level administrative positions.

The university’s recently approved Staff Enterprise Agreement has introduced a framework for the implementation of Academic Career Pathways that include flexible opportunities for women and men, allowing them to make changes and move into relevant career pathways at the different phases in their career life cycle.

The initiative means that staff members with family, caring and other responsibilities will be able to progress their careers while focusing on one of the previously mentioned pathways that best suits their lifestyle and capacity for performance at the time.

EOWA Director’s Award (for an individual), Deborah Waterhouse, Vice-President and General Manager, Australia and New Zealand, GlaxoSmithKline.

Deborah Waterhouse was nominated for being a role model to others by attending events at the school of her children, taking them to school and purchasing extra leave to spend time with family.

Inside work, Ms Waterhouse mentors men and women, champions workplace flexibility options and other initiatives.

GSK actively encourages women into non-traditional roles such as ICT, manufacturing and engineering.

More than half of GSK’s executive team are women and its gender pay gap is under five per cent.

EOWA Director’s Award (for an organisation) – St Barbara Limited.

Led by General Manager, Human Resources Katie-Jeyn Romeyn and keenly supported by CEO, Tim Lehany, the gold miner has developed a structured approach to diversity and made it a strategic priority.

Initiatives introduced include industry leading parental leave, return to work incentives, recruitment programs to secure more female talent and training and development programs to promote female talent.

Women make up 17 per cent of the gold mining company’s workforce up from 15 per cent three years ago. Women hold non-traditional roles such as graduate metallurgist, environmental superintendent, senior resource analyst and ICT roles. The number of women recruited by St Barbara has increased from 18 per cent in 2009-10 to 27 per cent. In 2010-11 women accounted for 38 per cent of promotions.

Of those selected for the company’s leadership development program, 28 per cent were women with three women since promoted to leadership roles.
One of St Barbara’s five non-executive board members is female and one of its seven GMs is female – a deliberate decision to generate a diversity of thinking within its senior ranks.

“We need three things to succeed: access to resources, access to capital and access to talent,” says Mr Lehany. “Our efforts are not driven by legislation or worrying about being politically correct, it is about what is good for business.”
The company has decreased its gender pay gap by 17 per cent in the last two years and it also supports a range of flexible options.

Eligible employees taking paid and unpaid parental leave have their annual leave, long-service leave balances and super contributions adjusted; those earning $150k and thus ineligible for the government scheme are paid 18 weeks parental leave.

For more, see the story Great places for women to work.