Opinion piece by Sally Sievers, NT Anti-Discrimination Commissioner. Sally has been a lawyer in both government and private practice in the Northern Territory for nearly 30 years.
International Women’s Day is a time to celebrate the achievements and progress towards gender equity but also to reflect on what remains to be done and achieved in Australia. This is particularly relevant for industries where women’s participation and leadership in workplaces is still well below 50%.
There are a huge array of resources that assist leaders and workplaces on this journey, including resources by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA)[1] and Chief Executive Women.
As the WGEA tool kit discusses this is a journey, the broad question for companies who employ low numbers of women is:
- where are you on this journey to ensure you have the broadest and most capable pool of candidates to choose from; and
- where are you at retaining and promoting women so you get the benefits of different perspectives, culture and innovation that having greater numbers of women brings.
On Wednesday 8 March 2017, Engineers Australia is hosting an International Women’s Day Breakfast to discuss women in leadership, where I will join a panel of women from varied professional backgrounds.
I will speak a little from personal experience but also about what has been found to be best practice in assisting women achieve leadership roles. Firstly, the importance to the whole work place of flexible arrangements and the idea of “all roles Flex”. The benefits to business when flexibility is the norm for all employees, including recognition and widespread acceptance of the valuable contribution that workers working flexibly make to your workplace and how it encourages the retention of trained capable skilled workers.
My other passion is the role of sponsorship in ensuring women are put forward for opportunities in the work place. Sponsorship is different from mentoring. Sponsorship is talking about women in environments that deliver outcomes. It is powerful sponsors willing to use their networks to create opportunities.
In line with this years IWD campaign, what will you do as an employer, as a leader, as a human resources consultant to be bold to achieve change to recruit, retain and promote women into leadership roles.