amandas 
Companies with more diverse boards and leadership teams consistently outperform their peers financially, make better decisions, and are better positioned to understand and serve their markets.
These 6 reasons demonstrate that gender diversity in boards and senior roles is not just about equity, it’s a competitive advantage and business imperative.
Read the full report and research here ==>>
The gender pay gap is confusing. The words used to describe it are used interchangeably (but mean different things), organisations measure it in different ways, and there’s not a lot of guidance on what to do about it once you have measured it.
It’s of interest to our work because a gender pay gap usually indicates that there are more men in those higher paid senior leadership roles. So working to address the pay gap is one way to also address gender equity in leadership – what gets measured gets managed after all.
So I’ve been having conversations with people who know much more about the gender pay gap than I do (Thank you Jenny Skinner and Paula Booth from Manatū Wāhine Ministry for Women, New Zealand and Kathleen Webber from LiveRem) and have put together some resources, to answer some common gender pay gap questions.
Gender EQUAL pay is where women and men are paid the same for the same role. This is a requirement of the Equal Pay Act 1972 .
There was some confusion recently when tech start up Tracksuit celebrated their 0% like-for-like gender pay gap. Essentially they were meeting legal requirements for pay equality.
While complying with the law seems like a weird thing to celebrate, these kinds of pay disparities are more common than people realise.
Women are more often accorded less value in the workplace because of naturalised assumptions that she’s going to be having a baby or prioritising her children (and therefore not her work). Whereas men are more likely to be seen as breadwinners and paid more.
We don’t tend to notice it because it’s easy to rationalise it as a ‘choice’ that women make to prioritise their families; and there is usually not enough specific evidence to prove their is anything untoward going on.
It’s called the motherhood penalty and wrapped up in a whole bunch of unconscious bias and normalised discrimination.
Gender EQUITY is where women and men are paid the same for COMPARABLE roles (although confusingly comparing the SAME role across industries/between organisations can also be referred to as EQUITY).
For gender equitable pay you need to compare pay for different roles using a set of standardised measurements. For example, Manatū Wāhine Ministry for Women, New Zealand describes comparing roles that have “the same or similar level of skill, responsibility, and effort”.
As you can imagine though, this can be difficult to measure and address across industries. As we don’t often have the granular transparency around what different genders are paid.
We also tend to ‘value’ roles differently even if they (arguably) have similar levels of skill, responsibility and effort. For example, care professions like health-care, child-care, elder care are usually lower-paid, and tend to have more women.
Some of the confusion about gender pay gap reporting is that there are different ways to measure it and different terms used to describe this.
The OVERALL GENDER PAY GAP is calculated on the difference between the pay men receive and the pay women receive.
This is usually calculated based on a MEDIAN number (i.e. the middle number in a range).
You line up the pay for each of your female employees from lowest to highest and then do the same for men. You identify the people in the middle of both those lists and compare the % difference of their pays.
Based on the Household Labour Force Survey (Stats NZ) the NZ Gender Pay gap is currently 8.2%
However, there are other terms you may hear which have different implications for addressing leadership and gender equity.
For example, you might hear the gender pay gap referred to as the VERTICAL GENDER PAY GAP because of how it represents comparisons up and down hierarchical levels.
You might also hear the term HORIZONTAL GENDER PAY GAP, which tends to refer to comparisons across roles. These are usually calculated as a MEAN (i.e. an average) and can be either:
Here are THREE things you can do.
Pay and pay gap transparency
When you know what your pay gaps are, you can get to work on closing them.
There are two ways you can do this:
Salary banding
Salary banding sets objective benchmarks for what people in comparable roles should be paid irrespective of whether those roles are ‘gendered’ (i.e. usually roles that have more women in them).
It works by categorising different roles according to skills, experience, and qualifications. I’ve worked with Hays pay banding before but LiveRem also includes a salary banding tool in their gender pay gap reporting.
Build an inclusive leadership culture
One of the main reasons we have gender pay gaps is we still tend to see more men in higher paid senior leadership roles than we see women.
To date, much of the efforts to tackle this have focused on ‘fixing’ women but new research (including my own) points to leadership cultures as well as systems and structures that support women.
We work with organisations to help them understand their leadership inclusion challenges, develop customised road maps for improving the recruitment, retention and representation of women in leadership roles and develop capabilities for inclusive & high-performing leadership. We’d love to help you close your gender pay gap.
Originally featured by the University of Auckland Business School.
Businesses need to develop a better understanding of motherhood to achieve gender balance at senior levels, according to a new report.
Women’s experiences of navigating leadership roles and motherhood are highlighted in a report released this month by Dr Amanda Sterling from the University of Auckland Business School.
The report draws on Sterling’s doctoral research, which investigates the experiences of 48 women in leadership roles at some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most prominent corporate companies, as well as smaller-scale start-ups and community-based organisations.
Their experiences of being pregnant, giving birth, breastfeeding, caring for their children and the strategies they use to manage these experiences, alongside their roles in the workplace, were examined.
Sterling found that pregnant women and new mothers often encountered leadership norms that they weren’t able to fit into.
“These women were mainly seeing men, or women without children, in the leadership roles above and around them. They were also hearing how other women in leadership, especially mothers, were spoken about. All of this created an expectation that, to be a leader, they needed to perform as if nothing was going on with their bodies, hide their experiences, or go to additional lengths to prove that they were just as capable.
“The research shows that the experiences of pregnant women and mothers within leadership need to be recognised and actively supported. This could lead to better outcomes for women and the organisations that employ them.”
Sterling also undertook a literature review and found that motherhood was one of the main reasons women are still underrepresented in leadership positions.
“Research shows us that motherhood is still the most significant dropping-off point for women in leadership. Therefore, if organisations want more female leaders and wish to be truly inclusive, they need to properly understand and really support the experiences of mothers within those higher-pressure leadership roles.
She says that despite some great and well-intentioned work focused on pathways for women into leadership, women’s experiences of pregnancy, breastfeeding and other elements of motherhood have been a real blind spot for businesses.
“I’m hopeful that my research will create change in the system so that more women can not only stay, but flourish in leadership roles,” says Dr Sterling.
Leadership and gender equity remains a significant issue for business and public sector organisations.
Globally women still make up only 26% of C-suite jobs globally (McKinsey, 2022) and 26.5% of national parliaments (UN Women, 2023).
In New Zealand this looks like women holding:
We need more women in leadership.
Period.
However, if you need some specific – business case focused – reasons, here are FOUR.
While organisations are making efforts to address these business needs, and investing considerable resources in doing so, we’re still not seeing this flow through to representation.
According to McKinsey (2023), women are leaving their companies at the highest rates in years because of ‘opportunities to advance’. In 2023 the Champions for change reported that the representation of women in senior management dropped 6% from 2022-2023. It’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds in 2024
Forbes (Corbett, 2020) and Deloitte (2024) also point to the challenges women continue to experience progressing their careers with reasons including:
There is a missing piece to this puzzle, one that our research points towards, but isn’t currently being addressed in practice. The work we do supports organisations to advance their leadership and gender equity goals by applying the research in this space.
Read how we’re applying this research to make a practical difference to organisations or get in touch if you’d like to know more.
* Champions for Change describe themselves as a group of over 80 leading CEOs and Chairs, each with a personal mission to accelerate inclusive and diverse leadership in our workplaces.
We know that organisations face challenges recruiting and retaining women in leadership, as well as significant opportunities when they do. However, the current research on women in leadership only goes so far in addressing this.
In summarising this research* there are three distinct perspectives that emerge. I called these ‘normalised bodies’, ‘problematised bodies’, and ‘embodied opportunities’ for how the experiences women have of our bodies, and the gender norms associated with these, are treated and what these reveal about opportunities for increasing the representation of women in leadership.
This is the most popular perspective within leadership scholarship and practice. The emphasis is on women taking advantage of the opportunities available to her and supporting her through ‘confidence’ building or ‘leaning-in’. We see this in the approach of most female focused leadership development programmes.
This perspective acknowledges that women and ‘feminine’ behavioural norms haven’t historically been valued within leadership roles and advocates for giving greater value to these traits. For example, emphasising ‘listening’, ‘collective decision-making’, and ‘care’ as valuable leadership skills so that women can ‘naturally’ be included within leadership roles.
However, this perspective is problematic for two core reasons:
This perspective acknowledges that gender norms around ‘women’ and ‘leadership’ make it difficult for women to be recognised as leaders, but still focuses on women performing within the bounds of those norms.
We need to question the assumptions surrounding this perspective if we want to begin including more women in leadership.
The second perspective does just that, and questions the norms of leadership scholarship and practice. In particular, how ‘leadership’ privileges male lives and experiences. For example, there is this pervasive idea that great leaders are these heroic figures who look out for the best interests of their followers and disconnect from their own embodied concerns in order to do so.
These cultural ideologies are intertwined with some of the most popular leadership theories. For example, when we talk about authentic leadership, or transformational leadership we’re usually talking about concepts where leaders are still purposeful and controlled in how they enact leadership. We’re also usually talking about research done by men, on men.
There is very little scope here for accounting for the experiences of women in leadership. For example, if women are really authentic we open ourselves up to being judged (at the least) or (in the worst case) discriminated against and marginalised. We see that time and time again when women become pregnant, and now we’re seeing it as senior women are going through menopause.
These perspectives are an opportunity because they shift the focus from what individual women need to do to survive their careers in leadership to how to create spaces where women can thrive.
The last perspective explores how a greater attention to our embodied experiences can open up more possibilities for inclusion in leadership.
This means acknowledging how different bodies act, and look, and how this might create alternative performances of leadership. It also includes paying greater attention to the feelings and insights that come from our bodies, and how this recognition of our vulnerability and humanity could enable us to connect to others and re-write the power dynamics of leadership.
There is more research that needs to be done here, as well as greater exploration of it’s practical application. However, this is the space our work builds from. The potential in this is greater inclusion for not just women, but anyone else who doesn’t currently fit ideals of leadership. This is a space of exploring what leadership could look like, feel like, be, in a way that acknowledges different lived experiences of it.
The work we do supports organisations to advance their leadership and gender equity goals by applying the research in this space.
You can read more about our research, access a case-study of where we’ve applied our research driven approach, or get in touch if you’d like to know more.
* The research we draw on comes from peer reviewed articles in high ranked journals.
Manu Mātauranga* sought recommendations for increasing the representation of women and non-binary leaders in their senior leadership roles.
This organisation has been around for over 25 years and employs approximately 400 across New Zealand. Their structure is largely made up of specialist experts as well as the usual functions of IT, People and Culture, and Corporate Support.
Their goal was 40 / 40 / 20 (40% women, 40% men with the remaining 20% being any make up of either).
However, despite putting in place a range of initiatives targeted at supporting female careers, they were still losing women at a critical juncture between Hay Grade 16 and 17, where representation dropped from 48% to 33% in their critical roles.
In addressing this representation their aim was that this would also go some ways to close their median vertical pay gap of 17.4% (which is higher than the New Zealand gender pay gap of 8.6%)
We reviewed their existing resources and other work being undertaken to address the representation of women in leadership. This included engagement survey data, turnover stats, and any policies directed at the recruitment and representation of women.
We then conducted focus groups and interviews with their women in senior leadership, as well as interviews with several male leaders to understand:
Out of this data we were able to identify three core challenges that were unique to their context. These were: not seeing gender as an issue; the additional labours women were having to engage in in order to reach leadership roles; and, the child-less expectations of leadership.
“Gender isn’t an issue”
Not seeing gender as an issue, despite the “male dominated” nature of senior leadership.
For example, statements like “we don’t have a gender issue” appeared at the same time as women described progressing their careers while navigating expectations to act like men.
“as long as you’re working with them on their terms (i.e. men), and ways they are used to, then there isn’t really a gender issue”.
Recommended action(s): | Education about gender issues, including the importance of addressing these. |
The additional labours women must engage in
The additional mental, emotional and physical labours women were engaging in to achieve senior roles.
For example, going to greater lengths to prove they are capable and committed; countering assumptions that they would book the travel, make the tea, be the primary caregiver; and absorbing normalised, yet uncomfortable (at best), behaviours of male colleagues.
“You’ve also got to do the emotional work, and think about what you’re going to say, so as not to put anyone’s back up. Whereas a man would just say it”.
Recommended action(s): |
Explicitly counter gendered societal, cultural norms through sponsorship and allyship. This is not positive discrimination but acknowledgement, and active support, of women through gendered dynamics that inhibit their careers. |
The child-less choice
The child-less ‘choice’ they were having to make if they wished to reach those roles.
For example, the long-hours necessary to reach those roles, describing themselves as ‘lucky’ they didn’t want to have children, not seeing examples of how they could progress their career and have children, gendered norms that meant they would still do the majority of domestic / care-giving work.
“It’s become a lot more gender balanced as I’ve progressed my career, as more women have made the choice to not have children”.
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Recommended action(s): |
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Although it’s early days for Manu Mātauranga they have since put in place some quick wins, for example, discounted childcare and more opportunities for their women in leadership (or on pathways to leadership) to get together for solidarity and support.
However, what this work emphasised were the more complex cultural shifts necessary for inclusion. For example, it highlighted the generational differences between younger women and those that have held leadership positions for longer, and how working beyond contractual hours needed to be addressed in order for senior roles to be more desirable for the next generation of female leaders.
“We wouldn’t have been able to have the robust discussions we did have without Amanda’s ground-work and findings. We’re in a space now to begin the complex cultural shifts necessary to deliver on our diversity target, to break away from societal / industry expectations, and become leaders in this space.”
While many organisations are investing considerable resources into addressing the inclusion of women in leadership, we’re still not seeing this flow through to representation.
There are significant opportunities for organisations looking to be game changers in this space and address the culture and leadership competencies necessary for inclusion.
We apply in-depth expertise on leadership, gender equity and inclusion, as well as practical experience in leadership development and culture change, to help organisations understand their leadership inclusion challenges and co-create a road map for addressing these.
If you’d like to know more about our approach you can find more information here, or get in touch for a no obligation chat.
*Identifying details have been removed and an alias of Manu Mātauranga (which means clever bird in Te Reo) has been used.
Discover the factors having the most positive impact on women’s careers into leadership and the critical opportunities for organisations looking to improve retention, increase representation and close their gender pay gaps.
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