Introduction
I am delighted to be here today to share my thoughts with you about how advancing women and providing an inclusive workplace where all people are able to fully contribute is … GOOD FOR BUSINESS.

The role of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency has changed and developed over the past two years. EOWA is a Federal Government agency that operates at a nationwide level, working with employers with more than 100 employees to advance women and business. We have worked hard over the past two years to re-model the Agency from a ‘policing’ body to an advisory one. I’m delighted to say that Australian employers now see the Agency as ‘adding value’ to their business bottom-line, which makes me feel both excited and challenged.

I am excited because of the successes and the changes I continually witness in the business world … and it is these successes that tap into my passion for change and continue to re-energise me. Let me give you some examples of the significant shifts we are seeing in organisation’s attitudes:

• At Esso … we improved the retention rate for female engineers to 80%, in line with the male peers, after introducing contemporary HR practices, developing managers to ‘walk the talk’ and building a workplace culture inclusive of diverse needs;
• At Westpac … initiatives such as paid maternity leave, etc, resulted in savings of SIX MILLION DOLLARS to the bank’s bottom-line, with retention rates jumping from 50 to 90%;

• Similarly, at the legal firm Blake Dawson Waldron with its 1,683 employees nationwide, the typical ‘workaholic’ culture has also been dramatically transformed with the CEO and senior management committing to a wide range of work/life initiatives. These include part-time work for employees at all levels, and does NOT preclude employees being promoted or getting ahead. The law firm now has FIVE senior partners, for example, who work part-time, one of them a male.

• Universities too have recognised the need to encourage women into senior positions. The Australian Technology Network, a group of five universities including QUT, established the Women’s Executive Development Program in response to the continued under-representation of women at senior levels in higher education. The program’s innovative design is based on networking to establish a critical mass of senior women, and on the positive developmental benefits gained by experiencing different and changing environments.

More and more business leaders both here and overseas are aware of the growing body of research regarding women and business success. A recent US study shows us, for example, that when women sit on boards, those companies enjoy greater profits. (Big Business is finally beginning to be able to quantify the value that women add to the bottom-line!)
Yes, things are changing! We are now seeing more and more Australian employers recognise the economic imperative of capturing the contribution of their female talent, as well as their male talent.

While I am excited, I am also challenged because as I travel across the countryside to talk with employers about how to better manage the diversity of their workforce, I meet a broad cross-section of women in organisations, young women at schools, and many talented women in business who want to make a contribution, and who want to make a positive difference.

And as I meet these high potential women, I wonder WHY it is that Australia still has the lowest percentage of women in management in the Western world? WHY is it that Australia remains one of the most gender-segregated workforces in the industrialised world? And WHY is it that in Universities, only 1 in 4 women are lecturers, and women represent ONLY 15% of positions above senior lecturer level? (Source: DETYA)

As a mother of two girls under 10, I want to see my daughters enjoy the same opportunities as the boys in their classroom. I feel incredibly privileged and a bit overwhelmed sometimes to be in a position where I can do more about equity for not only my children, but for ALL children. Social analysts have estimated that it will take 177 years before we realise equal representation for women – well, I’d like to think that I can do something today that will bring my daughters the same opportunities as a man for the same work … and that this will occur … preferably in my lifetime!

Why are people doing this? Why diversity?
In reality, capturing the benefits of diversity is all about economics. It’s about the Business Case. It’s about making more money for your business. And it’s not just about women. What impacts on women, also impacts on men and consequently, on society. A group of both female and male potential partners at Deloittes were recently asked if they wanted to make partner. Only one out of eight wanted to be a Partner, the rest preferring to preserve a work/life balance. The new paradigm for work is one where people consider themselves more than employees, and work something more than ‘nine to five’.

Increasing numbers of employers are seeing that effective diversity management is also about “winning the war for talent” and strengthening intellectual capital. When 400 senior executives from major global companies were asked what factor they considered the MOST critical to the success of their respective businesses, “quality people” was the overwhelming response. This underlines the very strong belief many business leaders have that in a world of breathtaking speed, ever-changing technology and the fresh challenges of globalisation, the one thing you can aim to keep ‘fixed’ is … good people!

And, as Justice Mary Gaudron, Australia’s first and only female High Court judge, said:

“It is short-sighted and stupid to treat women as inferior, because this country simply cannot afford not to fully utilise its intellectual capital, at least half of which resides in the female sex.”

Organisations can, and do, make significant savings to their bottom-line through implementing effective EO practices.

For instance, organisations benefit from reduced absenteeism and lower staff turnover. Let me give you a few examples:

• At Deloittes & Touche, one of America’s largest accounting, tax and consulting firms, the CEO realised that too many of its talented women were walking out the door – not to raise families but because they had weighed up their options in Deloitte’s male-dominated culture and found it wanting. Through the CEO’s personal drive, women partners went from 5% to 14%, the highest in ‘the Big 5’, AND saved over US$250 million in hiring and training costs.
• At Tiwest, a titanium minerals production and processing company in Australia, management made a business decision to focus on selecting the best person for the job, including actively head-hunting female engineers who were on maternity leave. As a result they have achieved excellent recruitment outcomes for women, with almost 40% of applications from females for engineers in more non-traditional areas.
• The University of Technology Sydney hosts a Changing the Focus workshop program for women, which is designed to assist both academic and general staff to achieve their career aspirations. Such programs include UTS women academic’s career development program; planning for promotion to the Professoriate; and exploring academic experience.

By aiming to provide a workplace that is inclusive for all employees, organisations also gain a unique position in the marketplace and an enhanced corporate image as a Best Practice employer.

At AMP, for example, the former CEO George Trumbell discovered there were few women in senior management. He invited 10 senior women to lunch and asked them to name the 10 “Most Sexist” men in the company. He then took the 10 most senior men to lunch and informed them that five of them were on the “Most Sexist” list. He gave them a choice: stay and change their behaviour, or leave. One of the men on the list was later fired, while the others left of their own accord. (Trumbell G, MGSM Women, Management & Industrial Relations Conference, July 1999)

“Winning the war for talent” means that companies are recognising the need to have a diverse workforce reflecting the diversity of its customer base. Today’s diverse customer base needs to be reflected in a diverse organisation in which employees can fully contribute and are more committed and motivated.

Take, for instance, IBM. They realised that their future competitive advantage would come from niche markets such as the female business market, the gay market, and so on. To capture these markets, they decided to hold a Global Diversity conference so that they could tap the needs, aspirations and ideas from their diverse workforce. After listening to the input of employees, senior executives were made accountable for specific strategies arising from the diversity conference input.

Why is it so hard?
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 women’s’ success. She identified four stages of workplace culture in Australian corporates. Where does your organisation fit in?

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.

So, how do we fix it?
It’s not enough to just have the HR policies and practices in place. EOWA can help and advise organisations on what the legislation requires, but that’s the easy bit! Although we are specifically focused on women’s issues, the solutions are not simply women-centred – they are diversity solutions where men and women work together to create an inclusive culture for all employees.

Organisations need effective leadership and action. They need the CEO and senior management to “walk the talk”. The CEO at Hewlett Packard, for example, last year thanked his senior HR adviser on-stage for assisting him to transform the culture within his organisation from “unconsciously incompetent” about managing diversity to “consciously competent”. By doing so, the CEO showed a commitment to his diverse work population!

Similarly, at Blake Dawson Waldron, senior management have identified a number of tangible benefits since they started their initiatives including savings in terms of recruitment/retention/training costs; broad acceptance of flexible work practices; improved staff morale and loyalty, and market perception as an Employer of Choice in many key areas of law.

Hand-in-hand with the leadership push is re-aligning the workplace culture. This is the basis for any organisational change and involves both the individual’s outcomes as well as the organisational outcomes. A recent example of this is the Edith Cowan University and RMIT Leadership Centre, which leverages off the experience of its senior women, offering programs for women AND men. Rather than focus on the personal development of individuals or isolated skill acquisition, the central theme of the Women in Leadership Project is to link the role of individual staff with the future strategic development of the relevant organisation. (Based on Women In Leadership Model, Dimensions of Leadership.)

Interestingly, a survey released last month by the Australian Institute of Management of 400 organisations has revealed that 64% of companies have made the crucial link between their HR strategy and the organisation’s overall business strategy. “Quality HR practices” have emerged as a key ingredient in corporate success. Those that reported improved business levels had HR representation at board level, explicit policies on internal and external recruitment, enhanced packages and long-term benefits for key employees, emphasis on balance and quality of life for employees, strong commitment to formal performance reviews, and policy linking rewards to performance.

What can one manager do?
“So what can I do?” you ask yourself. “How can I make a difference?”

Here are 10 things that one manager can do:

• Demonstrate ‘zero tolerance’ for discrimination
• Include more than one woman in hiring and promotion interviews
• Hold regular gender issue meetings and share stories
• Assign proportional representation to task forces
• Participate in diversity workshops for inspiration
• Discuss gender diversity with external executives
• Join a committee or organisation where you are a minority
• Create work social events that female management can comfortably attend

Conclusion
To conclude, I would like to leave you with a quote from David Pottruck, CEO of a Fortune 500 US company, Charles Schwab. Charles Schwab recently opened offices in Australia. In the United States the company is considered one of the country’s ‘Top 10’ most innovative businesses, and No. 2 in all of America in terms of an organisation to work for. I hope these words from the company’s CEO inspire you as you meet the challenge of walking the HR/Diversity.

“To garner the cultural benefits of diversity we have to want them badly enough to not just tolerate diversity but to embrace it, to demand it as part of our culture as part of our competitive advantage. And once we do, we have to adopt the policies, practices and personal discipline it takes to get the most from it.”

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