QA with Jane McNeill, Director, Hays Australia - Viewpoint - careers advice blog Viewpoint careers advice blog

QA with Jane McNeill, Director, Hays Australia - Viewpoint - careers advice blog In this interview, Jane McNeill, Director at Hays Australia, shares her experience of gender diversity in the workplace, speaks about her progression into a leadership role and assesses the results of our Global Gender Diversity Survey. Hays in Australia was among only 76 organisations to achieve the 2014 Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s (WGEA) Employer of Choice for Gender Equality citation. What has made Hays a leader in the region for gender equality? I’d say it is our meritocratic culture. As a business we are committed to driving a meritocratic, high performance culture where everyone is given equal opportunity to progress based on proven performance against set criteria. Importantly, everyone is rewarded based on their performance. This goes a huge way to explain why Hays has been recognised by the WGEA. It also explains why gender equality goes right to the top levels of management at Hays â€" we have 50 per cent female representation at board level, something rare in Australian businesses. We have fantastic female representation in all senior levels of our business, and we also have a very strong pipeline of female employees to continue this. If you look at our succession-planning exercise, which we do annually, 70 per cent of the most senior roles in our business have a female as the primary successor, while a female is identified as a potential successor in 90 per cent of the ten most senior roles. We also pride ourselves on our industry-leading training and development program for all levels of staff, and our annual employee feedback survey. We hold career discussions on a regular basis, and directors have one-on-one coaching sessions with high-potential people. It is practical strategies like these that have helped make us a leader for gender equality in the region. Can you describe your career path at Hays? I graduated with an MA in Psychology from Edinburgh University , then spent two and a half years in a management training program with a major UK retailer before joining Hays as a trainee recruitment consultant in London. After two years with Hays I became a manager of a small office. Over the next few years I gradually took on larger and larger teams of people, and then responsibility for a region in the UK. In 1992 I was appointed director after leading the London city business to a post-recession recovery. In 2001 I relocated to Western Australia. Over the next decade we grew our business in that state from a team of 15 to nearly 250 staff. I was appointed to the Hays Australia New Zealand management board in 2007. In early 2012, I moved to Sydney and now oversee Hays’ operations in New South Wales and have board responsibility for Western Australia. I have 7 direct reports at Director level and overall am responsible for 400 staff located in two states, which are separated by a five-hour flight and a three-hour time difference! In our survey, 34% of Australian respondents said that their organisation did not have formal gender policies in place and 13% weren’t sure. What do you think are the implications of these statistics? It seems incredible that in this day and age women are not equally represented in leadership positions, supported and encouraged to reach their career goals, and paid equally. A formal gender diversity policy is the foundation from which change can take place within an organisation and equality can be achieved. Yet while more and more organisations are publicly supporting the importance of gender diversity, this research shows that they need to put their money where their mouth is and make sure their organisation puts policies in place to create and maintain a gender diverse workforce. In Australia, out of the respondents who said their organisation had formal gender policies in place, 79% feel they are adhered to well/fairly well. This implies that gender policies are valued in most companies; is this something you agree with? Yes I think most organisations in Australia that commit to gender diversity and put formal policies in place then follow through and adhere to those policies. Globally, 48% of women do not think they have the same career opportunities as men. What do you think about this? It’s concerning that around double the number of women to men say the same career options are not open to both genders. To me this suggests that the people in executive and senior management roles â€" who are often men â€" still fail to see any inequality when it comes to pay and career opportunities between the sexes. At Hays, we’re known for supporting the advancement of women in the workplace. Within our own business we’ve made great progress, but it seems that in the wider world of work gender diversity remains a business critical issue. Globally, 55% of female respondents believe there is equal pay between genders, compared to 82% of male respondents. In Australia, a higher 62% of women and 89% of men say there is equal pay. Is this an expected trend? It surprises me because having spent most of my career in an organisation that rewards people based on their performance, not gender, I expect the same from other organisations. As this survey shows though, equal pay remains an issue in this country for many women. The latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (Cat No. 6302.0) show that the average man working full-time earns 18.2% or $283.20 more than the average full-time working woman. Yet our survey shows that more men than women still fail to see there is any inequality when it comes to pay or opportunities, so how can the gender diversity policies of organisations run by such men have any hope of succeeding? Respondents under the age of 25 are less likely to think there is unequal pay between genders â€" ie our youth are less likely to think there’s a problem. Is this a trend you see in our youth? Yes â€" and it’s concerning that young men and women are even less likely to think that there is no gender discrimination when it comes to pay and rewards. This could reflect the lack of experience that younger people have in the workplace, or perhaps this sort of discrimination merely seems outdated to the newest generation of workers. In terms of a solution to gender inequality in the workforce, the greatest difference in opinion between young people and the workforce as a whole can be seen in the number of young people who favour government and organisational policy. This suggests that either young people place more trust in the government to set the agenda and an organisation’s management to follow through on policies, or older people are more jaded about the government’s ability to take real action and an organisation’s ability to turn policy into reality. Globally respondents (both male and female) believe that allowing more flexible working practices and changes in workplace culture through education across the business, will have the biggest impact on diversity in the workplace. What do you think about this? I agree. The 2015 International Women’s Day theme is ‘Make It Happen’ and I think we need more focus on practical strategies that will enable real change. I work for a business with a meritocratic, high performance culture where everyone is given equal opportunity to progress based on proven performance against set criteria. So it is always a surprise when I see research such as this which shows that there is an alarmingly high percentage of organisations that don’t have practical steps in place to help working mothers contribute to the world of work.