New Report Reveals Gender Diversity Is The Answer To New Zealand’s Talent Crisis

Champions for Change’s annual Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Impact Report (2022) has estimated that if we collectively and urgently take bold steps to achieve workforce gender parity by 2030 (defined as 50% female participation in the workforce) an additional $20bn-$40bn* of GDP could be generated for the Aotearoa, New Zealand economy and in parallel, help to address the current talent shortage facing New Zealand business.

Statistics New Zealand data 2022 data shows women make up 47% of Aotearoa’s workforce, but Champions for Change believe an intentional focus on the right interventions to enable women to participate equally across our workforce the 50% target could feasibly be reached within the next eight years.

Key interventions include, addressing unpaid child-care, including better recognition of unpaid work, reducing the amount of unpaid work, and rebalancing it between men and women.

While Covid has made the working world far more flexible which is a positive for the increased participation of women, higher-growth, higher-paid sectors, such as construction, trades apprentices, and digital and technology sectors are still underrepresented by women. Opening up pathways and breaking down barriers for women via targeted education and apprenticeship programmes will be critical in driving higher participation rates by women in these growth industries. Interventions to address attitudinal biases continue to be of the utmost importance.

Champions for Change have themselves taken significant action and made further progress this year. The report announces that Champions for Change organisations have committed to reporting their gender pay gaps publicly*. The collective is also driving change through parental leave policies with a number of Champion organisations making the step to re-engineer their parental leave policies to make them gender neutral – thereby breaking down financial barriers for men to take parental leave and freeing up women to re-enter the workforce.

The report once again shows the shifts of intentional Diversity, Equity & Inclusion policies through the Champions’ ongoing commitment to a 40-40-20 benchmark policy. Through this commitment, Champions reported in its 2022 report at least 40% representation for women across 4 out of 5 management levels with a 6% lift in women represented at General Manager level this year.

The Champions companies continue to outperform the broader NZX50 benchmark, with 26% of Champions for Change organisations reporting female CEOS compared to 14% of the NZX50 companies and Champion organisations reporting an average of 37% female representation on boards, compared to 33% of NZX50 boards and 31% on S&P 100 boards.

To further advance their progress, Champions for Change are collaborating at scale to develop evidence-based initiatives across four workstreams designed to break down historical participation and power gaps within their workplaces. These are; Increasing Gender Diversity, Increasing Māori and Ethnic Diversity, Leading Inclusive Cultures and Influencing the Outside World.

Justine Smyth Co-Chair of Champions for Change says:

“It is positive to see the progress we are making in improving gender representation, which speaks to the benefits of bringing the business community together behind a common goal. But we still have a lot of hard work to do to change the gender pay gap that persists in Aotearoa, across all sectors and all levels of work.

“Having Champions of Change organisations committing to publishing their gender pay gap is an important first step, as what gets measured gets done. It doesn’t make the solutions any easier, and many businesses are grappling with industry-wide challenges built up over many decades. But shining the light on an issue keeps focus on it, and as leaders we shouldn’t shy away from what is hard, but rather be willing to share where we are on the journey, and the action we are taking to create change over time.”

Matt Prichard, Co-Chair of Champions for Change added: “In the five years since our inception, it is clear that Champions have become a force for positive change.

“Today we have more leaders, organisations and industries than ever signed up to the Champions for Change collective – creating greater scale, influence, action and collaboration than ever before. This year’s report argues that if more organisations prioritise gender equity it will unlock significant economic growth for us all. We would love all New Zealand businesses to join us.”

The report contains case studies from NZTE, Fisher & Paykel Appliances, Spark and Sky.

The Champions for Change Diversity and Inclusion report can be found in full at www.globalwomen.org.nz.

© Scoop Media