Michael Gill, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Greater female participation in the labour force has been the major driving force behind the increase in total workforce participation over the last 25 years, as male participation has declined.

Australia’s increased productivity and economic growth has in part come from working women across the country – new apprentices straight from school, women working while studying, career women, Aboriginal women, migrant women, women managing both work and a family, mature women returning to the workforce and those women not quite ready for retirement.
Increased participation and subsequent productivity has been achieved because Australian business culture has begun a transition with respect to how women are regarded and treated in the workplace. Many companies are recognising that equal opportunity as a strategic business opportunity, if done well,
• retains a skilled workforce
• Improves decision making
• Enhances reputation
• Improves working relationships; and
• Increases profits.

However, despite the transition in business and the growth in numbers of women in employment,
women’s participation in the workforce is well behind other OECD nations.
Despite the growth long term retention of women is an issue.
Despite the growth women are not being advanced to management and senior management positions in greater numbers. Just 10.4% of the ASX 200 company executives are women.
And, despite the growth women on average are still NOT earning the same pay as men.
Women’s increased participation has been the product of social and cultural change over the past 25 years. However, if women are to continue to participate at current levels, or indeed increase their rate of participation, of which there is significant growth opportunity, there needs to be further social and workplace cultural change.

Change is scary.

But so too and perhaps more so, is a nation that cannot compete in global markets, that cannot support its ageing population, that cannot provide opportunity for its people nor value and respect their diversity.

Businesses and the people within, that do not accept this last point can no longer ignore diversity and equal opportunity, otherwise the sustainability of their business will be in doubt, because the answer to the problem that demography is destiny, is not solely delaying retirement of mature workers which our next speaker will touch.

Nor is it attracting skilled immigration, because we’ll be hard pressed competing with other OECD nations which are also facing the same destiny.

Increased productivity and participation at the levels needed to address future skill shortages, deliver for our industries and support our ageing population will only be reached with the greater attraction and retention of women throughout the full working life cycle.

2001 literacy rates tell us our girls are smarter in school and they are going on to attain non-school qualifications in equal or in some cases greater numbers than men.
The challenges we face as a country and the challenges business face are, increasing the workforce participation of women, acknowledging the true value of women in the workplace and importantly improving the long-term retention of women.
Government, business, men and women, must work together to overcome the challenges, the systemic discrimination, outdated structures and biases which undermine a women’s ability to be authentic and participate fully in paid employment.
Every industry, every organisation and every workplace is different, so too are the needs of the workforce. There is no one answer, but employers and employees must work together to come to a common and fair understanding of flexibility.
For women in particular, increased flexibility in the workplace will be a key driver for opportunity and advancement at every level, from the factory floor to the corner office.

Today I would like to focus on the role of business in this partnership, what we at EOWA are seeing as organisations work towards solutions.
Research tells us that women quit because of
• Negative assumptions about women, their abilities and their commitment to careers
• Management reluctance to give women line management experience
• Lack of mentoring and exclusion from informal career networks where men have typically learned the unwritten rules of success
• Inhospitable workplace cultures
• Unequal pay
• Long family unfriendly hours
• Lack of flexibility

If business is going to remain sustainable in the future while facing a mercenary like workforce of generation X & Y, an ageing demographic and skills shortages, more businesses need to journey through the four phases identified by Amanda Sinclair of the Melbourne Business School .

The first stage is denial. The belief that the lack of women is not a business issue. There may be an aversion to even discuss women with the justification that business is about 'merit' and that it is 'sexist' to admit gender.

The second stage recognises the issue but casts as a problem with women - "the trouble with women is". Prescribed remedies involve women 'learning to adapt', for example only taking minimal time off for child-bearing etc.

Management of the problem is the third stage. Organisations actively seek to manage the problem of women's exclusion but most initiatives are women-focussed. Companies may put in place new procedures and processes, but they tend to be reactive and after the fact.
Finally there are those who take a leadership role into a new culture. Commitment to change, recognition that this is driven from the top, but must also be marked by self examination. The problem is recast not as women but as the culture itself.

LEADERSHIP
Certainly over the past four years EOWA has seen an increase in the number of organisations actively seeking to identify the problems and commit to change. It is these organisations which will attract and retain the best talent, remaining competitive and sustainable into the future.

Organisations like Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. CEO Giam Swiegers says “It’s the toughest thing I have undertaken because I do not believe I understood the complexity of what we were dealing with when I started. If people do not make a commitment with regards advancing women in our organisation then they do not form a part of my leadership team.”
Today Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu are enjoying higher rates of return from maternity leave, decreased staff turnover to name just a few of the important business benefits.
Or the Insurance Australia Group. CEO Michael Hawker says “Clearly there is a traditional way of running companies which is preventing very senior and talented women from taking on very senior profit and loss roles in major companies. It’s a structural problem, because there is a lot of will to try and make it more diverse, so we have to deal with them culturally and structurally.”

Tomorrow the Minister for Employment Workplace Relations and I will be gathering with the finalists of the 2005 EOWA Business Achievement Awards in Sydney and leaders within the business community. The Awards recognise leading edge practice in the advancement of women and recognises the organisations and organisational leaders that have taken a leadership role into a new culture.
Together with improved workplace flexibility, changed workplace practices, a focus on appropriate merit based succession planning and importantly support for working mothers, fathers and families we will hopefully see continued improved change in the gender profile in business.
Those getting it right are seeing policies including paid maternity leave, flexible workplace practices and job pathways, turning into higher retention rates of women. The outcomes for the organisations are the retention of a skilled and experienced workforce, higher morale and reduced costs of recruitment and turnover.

If we agree that increased participation of women is a goal, which means increasing the numbers of women with families, then we have to stop treating them as if they are not mothers.

Over the past three years we have seen a significant increase in the number of organisations offering paid maternity leave. In 2001, 23% of surveyed EOWA reporting organisations provided paid maternity leave to their staff. By 2004, this figure had almost doubled to 41%, with organisations reporting a direct impact on improved retention rates of women.

Most recently we are seeing an increase in requests for part-time work after maternity leave being accommodated. We are seeing an increase across the board in part-time management roles. Importantly, this is happening at the most senior levels.

Whilst access to part-time work is important, organisations need to look work organisation and job design, and the practical delivery of flexibility to ensure women with families are not excluded from full-time jobs, which offer greater security and financial reward.

We are observing a greater focus on formal succession planning with a significant increase of women into middle management. Talent management of high performers is drilling down into lower management and non-management ranks to identify and foster high potential women.

EDUCATION & TRAINING
It is encouraging to see the increased offering of education and training to blue collar workers. Cert 111 and Cert IV programs (often in conjunction with Workplace English Language and Literacy programs) are being offered to provide talented women who may not have had the opportunity to progress beyond entry level jobs because of lack of education, lack of English language skills and family responsibilities.

Investing in education and training of your workforce helps retain employees, but also enables a business to grow their own skilled workers. So I would like to share with you what actions some organisations are taking to address their skill shortages.

When given the chance to do training at work, or to undertake personal development courses some employees’ resistance is high due to prior negative experiences of workplace training or even negative experiences at highschool, in which they may not have seen the relevance of their studies, or may have been unsuccessful.

Often there is a sense that on-the-job training is merely a patronising reiteration of skills that employees already have, and therefore a waste of time, and many people don’t like being tested.

Additionally, some employees don’t understand the importance of having certification of their skills, especially if they are in a secure job, or they don’t expect their work to give them any sense of work satisfaction, but view it merely a means to an end, a way to pay the bills.

Some female employees from non-English speaking backgrounds may come from a culture in which training and development is the antithesis of a woman’s traditional role, or they may lack the confidence to undergo training, fearing that due to their inability to speak and write English fluently they will not understand the material presented and will fail in their endeavours. Add to this the traditional nature of women’s family responsibilities – in some cultures sole responsibility for running the household and caring for children and older relatives, and within this context it is easy to understand a lack of enthusiasm for on-the-job training.

However, many committed HR Managers are confronting these issues head-on. In one particular case study a company that manufactures technical and scientific equipment in a factory environment persisted with offering their female factory workers courses in Certificate 3 in Process Manufacturing. The HR Manager persisted despite the protests from the mainly non-English speaking mature female staff that their English was not good enough to do the course, and that gaining skills and learning how to lead others was something that men did. By running the course within work hours in conjunction with TAFE the company took pressure off the women to contribute their own time to a course that they thought would not give them value.

But, the course did give them value. One group of women went through the training and achieved the Certificate 3 qualification, and this has set an important precedent. These women not only have a qualification which makes them more employable, but they have self-confidence, greater practical skills, and are encouraging other women to follow in their footsteps.

The organisation has a better workforce, motivated and skilled.

In another company that makes windscreen wipers, management pushed employees, to complete Certificate 3 in Business, offered during work time. At first there was some resistance, but the training was much more successful than they ever imagined it would be as seventy three percent (73%) of employees who did the course in work time voluntarily decided to undertake further studies in the form of Certificate 4 or Diploma level studies in their own time.

The success in this case was not only that the employees gained a qualification but also that they gained a sense of their own abilities, increased their confidence and self-worth and perceived their company in a fresh new way. Remember that this is a group of workers that may not have gained any basic schooling past year 10 level.

In those companies where there is a smaller workforce, or implementing a widespread training course is not an option due to cost, project management is a way of upskilling workers. One particular electricity provider sought to increase the skills of four of its female employees by recruiting them onto a Project Management team responsible for their $1 million Enterprise Resourcing Program – a project to contract service providers for all aspects of the business- everything from sourcing machinery components to deliver the electricity, IT suppliers, and software developers. The women were involved in all stages of the project life-cycle, such as collecting business requirements, finding solutions, comparing packages, and testing. As a result of this project all four women were trained in Project Management, Movex and Train the Trainer. Since this training opportunity 3 of these women have been promoted into higher operational roles in the company. The company wins, the women win, their family wins.

Education and training is important at every level. As we have heard skill shortages are having an effect at the trade level and in the professions.

Engineering organisations facing the skills shortage are targeting schools to build interest in the maths and sciences to attract students into the profession. One firm particularly targets girls schools, running a bridge building competition. They understand where there is an untapped market.

One company knows where there is the greatest number of female students internationally, and they are not telling anybody.

FUTURE
The competition for skills is tough and it is tight, so with just 57.4% of working age women participating in the workforce, how does business connect with the women, to attract and retain this hidden but skilled workforce?

First, Make a commitment to cultural change?

Make it clear that cultures of sexual harassment are just not tolerated.

Remove systemic discrimination in pay, promotion, recruitment and work organisation, and around pregnancy and families which currently send messages to women that their hard work, loyalty and experience is not valued or wanted.
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Secondly, follow through on commitments to flexibility, not just for female employees but women and men.

Policies are not enough, the challenge is in the implementation and imbedding flexible work practices into the day to day.

Needed in business today is the repositioning of the issues of work/life balance and flexibility. Traditionally, exclusively seen as a woman’s want, the tide is changing as access is seen as central to all employees enjoying a fulfilling and rewarding work/life whilst making a significant contribution to an organisation.

A recent work/life balance survey in a male dominated workplace showed that 73% of men in the company wished to realise greater work/life balance.

Give managers the skills and training to manage a diverse flexible work force. Help them understand the benefits for the business and help them put in place at the line level, job sharing, part-time and job redesign.

Third, put in place a strategy to move women into non-traditional work.

Don’t stand for it when male workers tell them they are not welcome, as one company recently reported to us. Provide support for the women, give them buddies, give them mentors, but most of all break down the culture of exclusion and bullying.

If the women won’t come to you, go to them. A car yard after failing to attract female candidates as part of a strategy to match customer profile, went to where the women look for work. They re-advertised but this time in the real estate and hospitality sections of the local paper. This lateral recruitment strategy cost the organisation little, but was highly successful and delivered high returns.

Word of mouth is powerful, demonstrate change and commitment within the organisation and existing employees will sell your organisation to their networks. Our research tells us that employers of choice for women attract women.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I see three immediate continued challenges for Government and Business so that those women I spoke of at the beginning, Apprentices straight from school, career women, Aboriginal women, migrant women, women starting a family, women managing both work and a family, mature women returning to the workforce and those women not quite ready for retirement, can overcome the challenges they face, participate fully within the workplace and meet their own ambitions, be it just doing their job well or taking on formal leadership positions within their organisations.

These are
• The challenge of building greater awareness around the hidden barriers that prevent many women from advancing long-term in business.

• The challenge of really addressing the issues of pay equity, so that women that have contributed to the economy, worked and supported families do not end up in poverty in their most senior years.

• The Challenge of getting the work / life balance right for women and men with or without families, and getting it right for business.

Overcoming these challenges are central to an organisation’s future sustainability, capability and competitive advantage.

Smart businesses are recognising this. They are out there taking action to position themselves to attract and retain the currently hidden labour market that will be integral to their workforce of the future – women.

Thank you.
 

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