Arc Infrastructure, Western Australia’s leading transport infrastructure manager, has received the Most Ambitious Company in Gender Diversity award by Engineers Australia for its efforts in closing its gender pay gap and encouraging more women into engineering roles.
Arc Infrastructure’s General Manager Asset Strategy & Projects, Paul Lowney shares learnings from the company’s journey to creating a more inclusive workplace.
Tell us about the approach Arc Infrastructure took towards gender diversity.
At Arc Infrastructure we have focused on working towards creating an environment in which all people are valued and treated fairly, regardless of gender.
We have taken a holistic approach encouraging every day action, lots of small shifts, and some bold system changes.
We have only just started on our journey and believe it takes a consistent and deliberate approach to ensure that we continue to foster and develop a workplace that is fair and safe for everyone.
What does diversity mean to you?
Every individual, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation feels safe, valued and that they are treated fairly in their work place.
As a father, I want to know my daughters will have the same opportunities as my son. I want to know they are growing up in a world where leaders of all organisations are actively making bold and deliberate decisions to close the gender pay gap and create more inclusive workplaces.
Why is having a diverse workforce important to you?
It just makes sense to have a balanced workforce - it makes good business sense and it’s the right thing to do.
We want our employees to come to work ready to give the best version of themselves.
By focusing on increasing balance in our workforce, we will continue to have a workforce that is made up of the best people, who constantly bring different perspectives to enable us to make better, informed decisions.
What are some of the strategies and polices implemented to address gender diversity?
We are careful how we advertise roles. We pay attention to language and ensure that only the truly necessary skills are mentioned in adverts. If we can train you to do something in the first 3-6 months, it’s unlikely to be in the advert. This attracts a more diverse set of candidates.
We don’t negotiate much on pay when you start. We know that your starting salary is the most important one. If you don’t get this right in terms of parity, it’s very hard to catch up with incremental increases.
As a member of the Leadership Team I can say we are completely committed to pay parity. We simply fix any discrepancies between jobs and levels at pay review time, which is undertaken once a year by the entire Leadership Team.
Flexibility is modelled from the top of the organisation. While some of our frontline roles still find flexibility a challenge we have made great inroads in many roles. At our Perth office all employees have laptops and our phone system directs through Skype for Business. This means employees can work from anywhere they have internet access or access to a phone.
We have reviewed our approach to even in the smallest of decisions to ensure we are actively encouraging a more inclusive workplace. For example, striving for a 50/50 gender balance at all external events, providing mobility solutions to offer flexibility or ensuring customer events reflect a broad range of interests from the symphony to fashion week as well as the football and cricket.
The success of these strategies has resulted in reducing the gender pay gap on base salaries from 22% in 2012 to 0.6% in 2017. Arc Infrastructure has also increased female workforce participation from 9% in 2008 to 24% in 2017, with one fifth of the company’s engineers now being female, compared to none just 10 years ago.
What does it mean for Arc Infrastructure to be named ‘most ambitious company in gender diversity’?
This award is an exciting and public recognition that goes a long way to acknowledging the improvements we have made in creating a fairer workplace for all Arc Infrastructure employees. However, there is still a lot of work to do.
Receiving this award shows others in our industry that changes can be made and provides us with a platform to share our learnings.
What advice would you give to other engineering leaders striving to improve their approach towards diversity?
The best thing you can do is look critically at your working environment and ask yourself, would you want your mother, wife, sister, daughter or niece to work here.
There are so many factors that contribute towards creating a more balanced workforce; there is no silver bullet.
There are opportunities every day, even in the smallest of decisions, to change the way we do things to gradually create working environments that are more supportive and inclusive for all, regardless of gender.
About the ‘Most ambitious company in gender diversity’ award
This award promotes national engineering excellence and the contribution women in engineering make to the community. This award seeks to identify, recognise and reward companies that strive towards national engineering excellence in encouraging gender diversity.
For more information about Engineers Australia Awards or to see which categories are open for nomination, please visit the website.
Image: iStock
Image insert: Paul Lowney, General Manager Asset Strategy & Projects, Arc Infrastructure, courtesy of Arc Infrastructure.