Time is running out!

And in business, ladies and gentlemen, time is money.

I stand before you today with mixed emotions … Anger, Frustration, Excitement and Exhilaration, and over the next 30 minutes I will share the dimensions of these feelings with you as I address the following:

One, The Emperor’s New Clothes … is your company refusing to see the truth about the way things really are?

Two, HR Managers … the Enemy within? You decide!

Three, Business Inertia … is your company bogged down in a swamp of out-dated practice?

Four, Organisational Collusion … are you part of the process of perpetuating the great Corporate lie.

Let’s talk first about THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES
Let me remind you of the fairytale. Once upon a time, an Emperor was convinced by a wizard to buy an extraordinary cloak spun of gold that he was told only the insightful and brilliant would be able to see. When the wizard presented the cloak to the Emperor, the ruler was too ashamed to admit he could not see the golden cloak, so he sung the praises of the wizard who made it, and wore his new garb for all his populace to see.

Naturally, all his advisers – not wishing to appear stupid – agreed with the Emperor that his cloak was magnificent. It was not until a young boy voiced the unspeakable: “The Emperor is not wearing any clothes!” that people were stopped in their tracks by his honesty.

Is there a similar kind of fairytale illusion happening in the Corporate world? Is your CEO wearing an invisible EEO cloak? Does he believe that his company has ‘fixed’ EEO? And are the line managers – Sales, Operational, Marketing and HR - all colluding with this lie?

I believe Australian business is currently wearing its own Emperor’s cloak spun of fresh air, that you are all part of a huge Corporate illusion!!!! Who has the courage to call business’s bluff? And who will become part of the solution? A REAL solution!

Time is running out!!
It’s time – now – for YOU to be more than a passive recipient of information one knows to be true … for YOU to become a DRIVER of a better, new vision for Australian workers and the workplace.

It’s time to admit that for many of Australian companies, Equal Employment Opportunity for Women in the Workplace is little more than minimal compliance – and certainly nothing close to “Best Practice”!

If you believe that EEO compliance is nothing more than a legal imperative to keep HR departments busy, it’s TIME to think again!
Your business may be at peril because you choose to ignore a tidal shift in the way people now work. Ignore the QUANTIFIABLE facts I am about to put to you, and ignore them at your peril!

• Ignore the facts …and your bottom-line costs will SOAR as your employees’ loyalty levels plummet;
• Ignore the facts … and see your business LOSE market-share vis-à-vis competitors who are WINNING by encouraging innovation from their workers;
• Plant your head in the sand … and see your company lose its Best Talent to smarter companies with work contracts appealing to employees’ most heart-felt, personal values;
• Ignore the facts … and hope you are not hit by a ‘discrimination’ claim compelling you (as happened last year in Victoria) to pay out more than $160,000 in compensation to a female employee whose request to work part-time was approved, but never implemented!

Catalyst
As Director of EOWA, my mission is to advance women and business in Australia. I know that many companies are in denial about the degree to which they are promoting and advancing women, and believe me this can be a very frustrating job!

This frustration was reinforced for me when, as a representative of the Australian Government, I recently attended the 2001 Catalyst Awards Conference in New York. This is a prestigious annual event held by Catalyst, a non-profit organisation committed to advancing women in the workplace, (as we at EOWA are).

I was inspired by what I witnessed at this conference! At the gala Awards dinner, 1,800 of North America’s most powerful and influential business people gathered to hear VIPs speak and to laud companies for their outstanding initiatives in advancing women in their organisations.

As part of the proceedings, not one but 60 (SIXTY CEOs, ladies and gentlemen!) got up on stage to demonstrate their commitment to better managing diversity. Not one of these heads of US ‘Fortune 500’ leading companies was given an opportunity to speak, yet each of these powerful, busy people made the time to attend the Event, and to show his (or her) solidarity with Catalyst’s cause.

I was so astounded to see so many chief executives giving up their time to participate in an industry dinner that I asked the IBM Vice-president for Diversity why the IBM CEO chosen to attend. “Why????!! Because he can’t afford NOT to be here!” was his reply. His response momentarily stunned and silenced me.

Wherever I went during the conference, no-one – and I repeat, NO-ONE – treated EEO as a “soft” issue or a “haven’t we ‘been there, done that?’” option. No-one was heard to ask the question “Why should I be doing this?” – rather, Diversity experts stood up endlessly to extol the benefits of better managing one’s workforce for the business good. Rather, all the conversations I heard and participated in revolved around the question: “HOW can I do Diversity better?”

What a refreshing contrast to many corporate attitudes in Australia!!

To top all this off, many of the papers presented at the week-long Catalyst conference only served to reinforce what was made abundantly clear to me at the closing Gala Event: in America, business leaders take Diversity and EEO issues seriously.

One paper, for example, highlighted the pay and status given to Diversity leaders within companies. While many Australian businesses delegate HR responsibilities to junior staffers, in the United States Diversity Managers are typically given the title of Vice President, and enjoy a salary ranging from $180K to $350K a year.

How many HR managers in this room can boast this kind of seniority and status?

So, when it comes to Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace:

• >How many of you here are still in Denial?
• Do you still believe I am talking about the person next to you?
• Do you believe you’re different? That this doesn’t apply to you or to your organisation?
• Do you – honestly - have the courage to tell your CEO that when it comes to EEO, he is wearing no clothes?

The New Alchemy: Transforming People into Profits
I would like now to share with you some of the research and statistics that specifically demonstrates how women contribute to Big Business’s bottom-line. Unfortunately, these research findings I am about to share with you come out of the United States, and NOT from Australia.

There are no funds allocated to funding similar research in Australia…this is just another frustrating factor that contributes to Australia’s ‘minimal compliance’ EEO mentality – and if the myopic culture of “Minimal Compliance” continues to support the status quo, I believe that Australian companies will be left floundering in the wake of Global Business leaders by the end of this decade.

Time is running out!

For this reason, EOWA will be committing in the foreseeable future to funding research that will give us a valuable scientific snapshot of how Australian women are contributing to the business bottom-line.

Let’s look now at research that demonstrates what EOWA has been saying for years – that women add significant value to the business bottom-line!

1. University of Michigan study
2. War for Talent study
3. Harvard Business Review

These studies all demonstrate clearly that women equal profits – that good people management contributes to the bottom-line!
Australian Trailblazers

Fortunately, not all Australian companies are wondering why EEO is good for business. A number are now discovering for themselves just how strategically effective EEO management can be.

Here are some Australian case study examples to guide and inspire all of us. These companies have been able to challenge business inertia and corporate collusion to bring about a better way of doing business:

1. Blake Dawson Waldron
Driver: War for Talent!
I am particularly excited by this first case study because it clearly demonstrates how an organization can embrace significant change…change that is a win/win situation for management and staff.

This organisation employs over 1700 people nationwide and was committed to ensuring a fair representation of the 64% of law graduates who are women. However staff turnover was high and costs of replacement and training phenomenal.
The challenge for the CEO was how to turn this problem around…the solution came from a senior female staff member who fell pregnant and wished to continue in a part-time role. She presented an innovative proposal that included flexibility of work hours, accountability and availability…to the point that she was prepared to work at short notice on rostered days off, only if she could bring her child to work.

She became a role model for other women on the staff, with remarkable results for Blake Dawson and Waldron. Following some years of mainly strong women championing the cause, and a CEO who saw the benefits to his bottom-line, the results they can now quantify, are:

Blake Dawson Waldron’s CEO, John Colvin: “Increasingly, new recruits are identifying the BDW culture and all that supports it, as a primary reason for their attraction to the firm”.

This is a wonderful example of how the application of EEO work practices is not rocket-science, just good common sense.

2. Hewlett Packard
Driver: Position the company as an employer of choice.

In a highly competitive employment environment this company recognised the need to attract Generation X and embrace a strategy to retain staff who had no wish to work the traditional long hours of previous generations.

The solution lay in giving priority to balancing work responsibility with lifestyle needs for employees, and is now a leader in the IT industry in driving work and life options as part of their recruiting and retention strategy.

Before devising their strategies, first analysed what was known to be counterproductive, for example:

Hewlett Packard saw Work/Life programs as not only beneficial for productivity, but critical if it was going to maintain a reputation as “Best Practice”.

3. Hollywood Private Hospital
Driver: Shift in Employee Attitudes

The nursing profession has always suffered from problems with high staff turnover, with long hours and inflexible shifts contributing to staff losses.

Hollywood Private Hospital, based in Western Australia employs over 800 staff, predominantly female. The owners, the Ramsay Group, embarked upon a program to change the culture of its workplace attitudes, placing new emphasis upon community involvement, helping workers to feel fulfilled and recognising that family and ‘life outside work’ is important.

The Hospital identified Work/Life balance as important to their employees, and thus an important way to build employee loyalty and productivity. The hospital launched Work/Life initiatives for critical bottom-line reasons and has enjoyed positive outcomes as a result, including;

Says Kevin Cass-Ryall, Executive Director of the hospital: “Seventy per cent of the total operating budget relates to labour costs, so it makes good sense to nurture this resource.”

Again, the recognition of balancing work and lifestyle requirements became pivotal in driving a change in workplace attitudes and this is emerging as a major issue for employers to address over the next few years.

4. Marven Poultry
Driver: Productivity and innovation

I love this particular case study because it demonstrates how a fresh approach to employment conditions can have a holistic benefit for management and employees, even in a chicken abattoir.

Marven Poultry employs over 400 blue collar women, many migrants and non-English speaking, performing unpleasant and repetitive work.

Attracting and retaining staff was a major issue, which the female CEO identified as being a major cost to the bottom-line profits.

The solution … Marven Poultry made use of Government subsidies to train staff internally during work hours, made the training job-specific, and taught team leaders conflict resolution, delegation, and effective leadership.

Marven got funding for WELL literacy program to help non-migrant staff, which raised the level of esteem, dignity and self-respect for employees.

5. Tiwest
Driver: Retention

At Tiwest, CEO David Charles became concerned about his company’s rather high staff turnover figures, identifying that each resignation from the firm cost the company (conservatively) at least $30,000a.

With 700 staff and turnover at over 10% per annum, Charles decided to put his weight behind a wide range of initiatives to attract and retain staff; including enticing women back into the workforce from maternity leave by introducing flexible working conditions such as job-share.

6. IBM
Driver: Women as Customers

Some companies have also cottoned on to the fact that they need women in their workforce to better represent their customers. If you are planning to sell to women, doesn’t it make sense, after all, that women are part of the planning, design, marketing and logistics of the company?

STATISTICS show that women are active participants in the economy.

Globally, IBM decided they needed more women to make decisions!

7. Toll Transitions and International Corporate Relocations
Driver: Women as Customers

Increasingly, research is also showing that men and women have different workplace strengths.

In a Joint venture between Toll Technologies & International Corporate Relocations, a Company of 9,000 (mostly) men joined forces with a boutique company of 40 female staffers because each party needed the other’s skills.

Toll Technologies had logistics and IT technology, ICR had customer service and ‘added value’ down pat!

The result … a symbiosis that was a winner for both companies!

8. Alcoa
Driver: Globalisation

Alcoa believes its people are the source of its business strength, and the journey to global success is achieved by meeting the challenge of Human Resources. Alcoa’s senior male executives have seen for themselves how women succeed in critical Operational roles;

Alcoa has wholeheartedly embraced Diversity, and Alcoa’s President, Mike Baltzell, admits that he feels he must – in a competitive global market – position the company as ‘Best Practice’.

And for Alcoa, Best Practice means Diversity!

Conclusion
As the forces of globalisation compel businesses to compete more effectively, it makes sense for business to be able to choose from the biggest pool of talent that is out there. However, the truth is that many great businesses are losing great women at the juncture when women have to choose between work and family.

The outcome of this trend is contributing to a new kind of Australia: one where fewer couples are having children, the national birthrate is creeping downward, and ultimately, this nation’s economic growth will stall as fewer young Australians take the place of previous generations.

Do we want a future with poor economic growth? Do Australian corporations want to remain minor players on the world’s business stage?

Or do we want to wake up and value the diversity of every worker’s contribution as countless Fortune 500 companies already do in the United States?

When are we going to wake up and realise that women in Australia make 90 percent of all Australia’s household purchasing decisions10, so why limit women to the shop floor, but find them roles in our Marketing, Sales and Operational divisions too? And … not forgetting the board!

It’s up to all of us here to make the difference, and to share the facts about how women contribute to business success.

This is NOT the time to be complacent! In this Age of Globalisation and Rationalisation, it is time to get tough! Rather than succumb to frustration, let us take up the challenge and fight for a business landscape that helps us to become a global competitor on the world stage.

Let us challenge the complacency and arrogance of those who believe that Equity for Working Women has been ‘fixed’, and support those leaders who are leading the way for advancement of women in their organizations.

Would your business settle for a bare minimum standard of compliance with Equal Opportunity legislation?

Throw down the gauntlet to those who need to be influenced and ask them if they would be satisfied with sales targets, market share quotas and profit forecasts that were only BARE MINIMUM? And ask yourself these three questions with regarding to advancing women in your workplace:

• Is your company refusing to see things the way they really are?
• Is your company bogged down in a swamp of outdated HR practices?
• Is your company involved in corporate collusion to protect the status quo in the employment of women?

If so, then have the courage to:

• Challenge your CEO – is he really wearing the emporers’ new clothes?
• Challenge your HR manager – is he praising the emporers’ new clothes?
• Challenge your Line Managers and their attitudes to Equal Opportunity in the Workplace for Women!

And have the courage to Challenge yourself!

TIME IS RUNNING OUT IN AUSTRALIA!!
We are in a global economy and can no longer afford to ignore the progress being made by our competitors overseas…competitors who have recognised the benefits of advancing women in the workplace.

Thank you.

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