Thank you for inviting me to speak today about the work that the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency does, and how complying with our Act can help you address the issues for your workers with caring responsibilities.

As Chief Executive Officer of a Federal Government agency and a mother of two children under the age of 10, I sometimes feel I personify the challenges inherent in transforming the HR ‘talk’ of diversity management into the real-life ‘walk” of policies and procedures that work. I am sure all of you here understand precisely what I mean when I talk about the challenge for Human Resource professionals: the challenge of transforming the perceived soft, fuzzy “talk” of managing diversity into sensible, practical and strategic policies and procedures that really work. What I have learned from running EOWA and working in business, is that it is possible to provide a workplace where employees can manage their caring responsibilities … while the long-term strategic goals of the business are ALSO met.

When I worked in HR at Westpac, for example, we saved the company SIX million dollars when we introduced flexible work practices - including part-time work, paid maternity leave, a dependent care HELPLINE and work-based child centres to name but a few initiatives – and we found these contributed significantly to employee morale AND the business bottom-line.
The first step for HR practitioners, in my opinion, is to put in place contemporary people management policies and practices that reflect the needs of Australia’s diverse workforce in 2001. Implementing these policies effectively requires a FRESH mind-set and an implementation model!

Firstly, line managers need to be convinced that their people are a critical resource for their organisation’s competitiveness! (Not only does the HR practitioner have to be convinced, he or she must be able to impart the vision to others as well, including the CEO).
Secondly, the line manager has to recognise and accept that their workforce is diverse and that each individual within it may have different needs.

Thirdly, to manage this diversity HR managers need to STOP seeing the implementation of diversity and work/life policies as “special” treatment for the few and instead embrace DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT as an ongoing commitment of “this is the way we do things around here”. In this way, it becomes possible for ALL employees to fully contribute to the organisation’s long-term strategic vision.

Why is managing diversity so hard?
The question then is – if the valuing of diversity is so good for business, why is it so difficult to achieve? Let’s start with the workplace culture. Professor Amanda Sinclair, well known Australian economist and researcher, recognised in her Trials at the Top study that a workplace culture that is inclusive of diversity is critical to womens’ success. She identified four stages of workplace culture in Australian corporates:

Stage 1: Denial – “No problem”. These employers do not believe that the absence of women from senior management is a problem.

Stage 2: ‘The problem is Women’. Women’s differences are seen as the problem and these organisations believe that the solution lies in women learning to adapt.

Stage 3: Incremental Adjustment. The organisation recognises something is wrong when senior women keep leaving, but they go out and recruit more women without changing anything inside the organisation.

Stage 4: Commitment to a New Culture. The exclusion of women is recognised as a symptom of deeper cultural problems and senior executives take personal action for change.

What do we need to do to fix things?
What we now know is that to achieve an inclusive workplace where employees can manage their caring responsibilities and the business needs can be met, certain actions must be taken:

• Identify the business drivers in the macro environment for change– eg. Competitive, regulatory & socio-economic factors
• HR policies and processes
• Leadership

• Workplace Culture that will support an inclusive work environment

So many Australian Companies still have a way to go. In my travels I often meet senior executives who believe that the glass ceiling has been smashed, and that time will fix it. This is simply not true! While a few women are penetrating the boys’ clubs, many inner sanctums still remain that have yet to welcome members on a merit rather than gender basis. Boardrooms at the top end of town are commonly populated by men with very few women in sight. I’ve even known a female senior executive who followed her male colleagues to the men’s toilet because she felt that this was the only way she could participate in the decision-making progress!

Pleasingly however, female membership on Commonwealth boards is growing healthily, with one in three board members now female2. The private sector, however, still has very few women in key decision-making roles: female general managers in Australia, for example, are reflected by a 1:10 ratio2b. Women have climbed the corporate ladder in support roles like HR, public affairs and law, but have not been able to progress in operational roles. A lot of this has been as a result of assumptions made by both the women and the organisation about their caring reponsibilities and how the job has to be done.

The Growing Economic Impact of Women’s Roles
One of the reasons things have not changed as quickly as women had hoped was that EO was never, until now, a priority for businesses – but that mind-set is changing as business leaders worldwide begin to experience for themselves the power and influence that women wield.

In the United States, for example, female consumers are already recognised as a more potent force than male consumers3. Furthermore, studies over there are finding that women on boards actually reap greater profits for companies4 than male directors do.
Here in Australia, leading companies aspiring to be “employers of choice” are also embracing effective Diversity management , because they are finding it benefits their bottom-line. Large companies and small companies, even traditionally male dominated companies, are beginning to espouse family-friendly policies and flexible work arrangements to better reflect the shift in work style and content. [We will speak more about these company’s initiatives later].

Even male-dominated trade unions are acknowledging that their members are not only workers, they are people too. For example, the Transport Workers Union5 recently introduced family-friendly policies such as on-site childcare provisions and family-friendly hours, and they are one of the few to see their membership grow as a result. Employers are finally realising that they have to provide Human Resource policies and practices that support both their growing female work population as well as the younger men in their workplace who are also looking for work/life balance. If they don’t, fewer women will have children, Australia’s population will decline, and the entire economy, not just one business, will suffer the consequences.

The Impact of Caregiving on Work
Let’s look now at some Australian statistics:

According to the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics7 figures available:

• Over one million employed people provide personal care/home help to persons who are elderly or disabled specifically – this comprises 12% of the total workforce;
• Of these, almost 80% percent have elderly or disabled persons living with them in the same household;
• Almost 1 in 10 of these million-plus carers have had to take leave from work of at least three months to care for their elderly, disabled or ill family members;
• And almost half of this number (roughly 500,000 employed persons) have had to discontinue working at some point to either start or increase the care of sick family members.
• These statistics demonstrate the extent of carer responsibilities in Australia. Over ONE MILLION workers exist with elderly or disabled dependants that need care, and we have not even considered (as yet) those in the workforce with caring responsibilities for children.

• One-third of all employed men and one-third of all employed women have dependent children under 15 years of age (ABS, 1998a). This means that when you look around your workplace, at least one in every three persons you are talking to at the water cooler has the welfare of a child (or children) to consider.
• Naturally, caring for children impacts on parents’ working lives. Statistics show that the age of the youngest child in particular significantly affects the workforce participation rate of mothers, with women tending to return to work in greater numbers once their children have reached school-going age.
  Nationwide survey data also show how common it is for employees with dependent care responsibilities to have to take time off work. For example, a national study of 2,642 persons in the labour force with dependent care responsibilities found that almost six in 10 employees took an average 9.4 days a year to meet family responsibilities. This leave was over and above sick leave days. There were no gender differences in the overall amount of time mothers and fathers took off to care for children during school holidays, but mothers were more likely than fathers to take time off to care for sick children.

• 68 per cent of employed mothers and 27 percent of employed fathers use work arrangements to assist in caring for their children;
• Of the women, 37 per cent use flexible working hours and 34 per cent opt for permanent part-time work;
• Of the men, 18 per cent use flexible working hours and 7 per cent work from home.

Importantly, research has shown that workers with family care-giving responsibilities often make, or are willing to make, other adjustments to work besides staying home. A major study of family care-givers asked respondents about the effects of care-giving on their occupational lives.

For example, nearly one third of employed caregivers have claimed that care-giving commitments caused repeated interruptions at work, resulted in their having to work fewer hours, or both. Almost one-quarter have taken periods of unpaid leave; 16% have taken less responsible jobs, and 13% have refused promotions.

Another study involving interviews with employees in several leading Australian corporations found that nearly ¾ of people with dependent children said they would refuse a job or promotion if it decreased time available for family. (This appears to be a global trend as a recent Harvard Business Review article testifies. In one case reported in the review, six out of 8 ‘rising stars’ at an international consulting firm emphatically turned down the possibility of partnership in the firm because of what they perceived as a lack of Work/Life balance!)

How Eowa helps Employers to Address Workers’ Caring Responsibilities
All of these statistics serve to emphasise a core issue that many employers in Australia (indeed, the employers in the entire industrialised world) are now coming to terms with as they seek to recruit employees. As both male and female workers confront rapidly changing patterns of paid work opportunities and work time arrangements, it is often those companies perceived to care about the ‘people’ aspect of business – such as work/life issues, for example - that are attracting AND retaining the best talent. At EOWA, our mission is to champion diversity in business practice, and especially to ensure that women do not continue to be disadvantaged vis-à-vis their male colleagues. The plain truth is that women in Australia still earn roughly 84% of men for doing the same job, that 8 out of 10 discrimination cases involve sexual harassment of women by men, and that in spite of the growing number of working women, females are still OVERrepresented in clerical jobs, and UNDERrepresented in managerial/administrator positions (DEWRSB, 2001).

How do you change this picture? At EOWA, we work collaboratively with our business partners to help develop effective EO strategies that add dollars to the bottom-line. EOWA staff work with employers to assist them to pinpoint the EO issues that, once tackled, will make them the kind of “Best Practice” employer that would attract the best talent. Because of our updated legislation passed in early 2000, all employers with 100 employees or more are required to report on their EO workplace program. This workplace program requires them to:

1 Analyse their workplace demographics & produce a workplace profile;
2 Analyse the issues for women in the organisation, considering seven EO Employment Matters (which I will come to in a minute);
3 Prioritise the issues for action;
4 Take actions to address the priority issues;
5 Evaluate the effectiveness of actions;
6 Determine future actions as a result of the evaluation process.

To help and guide employers through the process, the Act also identifies seven HR processes that impact on the advancement of women and business, and these are:

1 Recruitment procedures
2 Promotions, transfer and termination of employment
3 Training and development
4 Work organisation
5 Conditions of service
6 Arrangements for dealing with sex-based harassment; and
7 Arrangements for dealing with pregnancy, potentially pregnant employees and employees who are breastfeeding.

In our experience, after helping HUNDREDS of employers to identify their issues and to create a workplace program that makes a positive difference, several vital foundations have to be put in place.

1 Have to know the work/life issues for your own staff.
2 Have a “champion” within the organisation driving the need for change (CEO or alternative)
3 Integrate necessary actions into the business strategy
4 Gain Management and supervisory “buy in” and accountability for change
5 Communication these policies to ALL employees in an ongoing and variety of forms;
6 Train managers and staff on their responsibilities and how to make it work
7 Commit to MEASURING the impact of the policies and processes so that you can maintain the change process until it becomes the “way you do business”.

Case Study: Blake Dawson Waldron
We are now going to look in depth at one firm that deserves the accolade of “Leading practice” in its sector. Interestingly, the firm we are using today as a case study is a law firm with 1,683 employees nationwide. We have chosen BDW as a good example to “walk” you through the challenges of putting in place policies and practices to support staff with carer responsibilities. BDW has successfully introduced initiatives despite the tradition in legal firms to have ‘workaholic’ cultures dominated by men at the more senior levels.
The initiatives we are going to talk about came about largely thanks to one important champion within the company, Head of the Legal Technology Group Elizabeth Broderick, who became in 1996 the firm’s first part-time partner. Elizabeth was working full-time as a Partner in the mid-90s when she became pregnant. Elizabeth put a proposal to the firm that she return to work part-time after her maternity leave. Her proposal was accepted. Essentially, Elizabeth spelt out how her workload would be managed. She believes the primary reason the proposal was considered at all was because:

• It was an economic/bottom-line/ business decision
• Attracting good people a priority for the firm
• Not losing female talent after childbirth another priority
• Containment of re-hiring and re-training costs
• Continual commitment to new thinking and measures

In her proposal, Elizabeth described precisely how she would manage her workload. She identified several vital work-flow priorities in her proposal, namely:
1 Being accessible by mobile phone on off days for work crises;
2 Training direct reports to pre-screen calls so that only important or urgent calls were diverted on off days;
3 Knowledge sharing with team members fully across work so clients could be helped in all except rare instances;
4 Acceptance by company that children could accompany staff to office should visits be necessary on off days;
5 “The buck stops here”. The part-time staff member retains accountability for her projects and workload regardless.

A great benefit for clients, Elizabeth points out, is that clients often have GREATER access to their lawyers because the lawyers are not closeted away in court or endless meetings. However, she acknowledges that working part-time is NOT for everyone. Working part-time can be demanding to manage the competing demands of clients, work demands and family responsibilities.
The bottom-line in all of this is that Elizabeth Broderick was a test case, a front-runner, a role model who showed that it COULD be done. When firms do not wish to lose good staff who they have trained, developed and who have built critical client relationships, the cost of replacing these staff members simply becomes too onerous. Today the law firm has FIVE partners who work part-time (including one male partner), with approximately one in 10 employees working part-time.

It’s not enough to have a champion, you also have to allocate resources and manage the processes.

Since those early days, BDW has gone on to even greater things. The firm now recognises the broader issue of work/life balance. While Elizabeth Broderick was critical to the work/life initiatives in the early stages, it is the firm’s Partners and HR team that has since ensured that the firm maintains its vision. All the good intentions in the world are NOT enough – what is also needed are Partners and staff to develop the policies, and to manage the processes. The firm's IR and employment law group works closely with the firm's HR team to ensure the firm has leading edge policies and practices, particularly in the area of carer responsibilities and work/life balance.
For example, here are just a few of the initiatives that BDW manages in its bid to uphold a “whole-of-life” working culture:

• Working and Parenting monthly forums – one part-time BDW employee allocates a substantial proportion of her time to this initiative alone;
• Practical Parenting Courses.
• ‘Home Office’ Policy for Partners and any staffer who works more than 10 hours a week at home with substantial resources allocated to support required especially technological assistance;
• Flexible Work Options (FWOs) – already discussed at length;
• Parental Leave policy that recognises changing work/life conditions, supported by “Keeping in Touch” programs;
• Child Care and Elder Care Information Kits (on their intranet and hard copy handouts) so that staff can make informed decisions;
• <Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provides confidential and professional advice and counselling when performance becomes affected by work/life issues;
• Ongoing Health & Lifestyle Survey: assessing interest in potential initiatives such as health assessments, massage, stress management, coping with change, fighting fatigue, healthy eating.
• Gym membership, yoga classes and workplace massage.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Initiatives
AT EOWA, we also help employers to measure the effectiveness of their initiatives in order to be able to quantify in dollar figures the benefits of addressing the caregiving responsibilities of workers. (Remember, that’s at least one in 3 of your employees!) At BDW, senior management have identified the following tangible benefits since they started their initiatives:

• High return rate of maternity leave staff;
• Savings in terms of recruitment/retention/training costs;
• Broad acceptance of flexible work practices;
• Improved staff morale and loyalty;
• Market perception as an ‘Employer of Choice’ in many key areas of law.

The bottom-line is that BDW’s CEO, John Colvin, has embraced the challenge of allocating staff and resources to managing a flexible work culture …. Why? Because he can see and feel the benefits in terms of the firm’s bottom-line. Here is what he has to say about flexible work policies as an integral business tool.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the important points to remember are:

• The Workforce has changed
• Money isn’t the only motivator for retention of talent as research clearly shows
• Companies can provide workplaces where diverse individual needs and business needs are met
• For the organisation, effective work/life initiatives build employee loyalty & improve retention
• For the individual, accessing work/life policies do not rule out promotion (but they usually take longer);
• Keeping staff “whole of life” builds continuity and strength in a business
• We need role models to “walk the talk” and demonstrate how it is done.
• We need champions to drive the change process .

Charles Schwab Quote:
On a final note, I would like to quote the CEO of ‘Fortune 500’ company Charles Schwab, David Pottruck, who recently opened an office here in Sydney. I hope these words inspire you as you meet the challenge of walking the HR/Diversity walk.
“It is absolutely necessary in this world of idea competition to have contribution from as many people in the company as possible. Passion for the work makes people contribute. Passion comes from engagement. Diversity is a fact. Diverse people get engaged when they think they can personally contribute to something worthwhile.”

Thank you!

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