Published 04 Sep 2024
Gender Equality Action Plan progress report
High level overview of the progress made toward WorkSafe's gender equality indicators.
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Background
WorkSafe has to complete 5 key activities to meet our obligations under the Gender Equality Act 2020.
- Promote gender equality.
- Conduct gender impact assessments.
- Undertake a workplace gender audit.
- Create a Gender Equality Action Plan (GEAP).
- Report on progress.
WorkSafe is committed to achieving gender equality through a number of strategies, aligned to the 7 workplace indicators:
- Gender composition at all levels of the workforce
- Gender composition of governing bodies
- Gender pay equity
- Workplace sexual harassment
- Recruitment and promotion
- Leave and flexibility
- Gendered workforce segregation
These indicators highlight where gender inequality persists and where progress must be shown.
Over the past 2 years WorkSafe has made significant progress toward promoting and improving gender equality in the workplace.
WorkSafe's efforts toward gender equality are important for our Employee Value Proposition, with a number of key factors below feeding directly into a positive employee experience.
- Women@WorkSafe employee-led network.
- Career development support.
- A focus on flexible working, supported by a Flexibility in the Workplace Policy.
- Regular gender pay gap analysis and reporting.
- Generous wellbeing program and benefits.
- Purpose-driven and inclusive culture.
2021 to 2023 reporting period
Key achievements
- Six women took part in the Executive Readiness Initiative, double the number of men. This is a key development opportunity for senior leaders wanting to take on executive level roles.
- Recruitment of women into WorkSafe Inspector and Investigator roles increased from 26% to 50%.
- Over 100 participants in the The Women@WorkSafe mentoring program.
- Ongoing inclusive recruitment training was launched for the talent acquisition team.
- WorkSafe's 'Flexibility in the Workplace' policy was developed and launched.
- The 'Inclusion in Action' learning program, which includes a gender equality module, was launched.
- Biennial gender pay gap analysis implemented.
Measures against the 7 gender equality indicators
- Representation of women employed at WorkSafe increased from 54.7% to 57.4%.
- Almost half (48.8%) of women at WorkSafe were employed in the lower salary range (levels -4 to -6 from CEO).
- While still gender balanced, the representation of women employed at levels -1 and -2 from CEO (Executive and Senior Leadership roles) has decreased.
- Gender balance across all leaders (incorporating Executive, Senior and People Leadership levels).
- 57.1% of WorkSafe Victoria's Board positions are held by women. The gender breakdown is 4 women and 3 men.
- In 2023, WorkSafe's mean base pay gap was 8.8%, an increase of 0.3% from 2021. This is above the VPS mean gender gap of 6.5%, which represents all public sector organisations.
- In 2023, the median total remuneration gap, which includes overtime and allowances, was 5.6%, remaining unchanged from 2021. This is above the VPS gap which is 1.8%.
- The gender pay gap at WorkSafe is caused by a higher number of women in the lower salary range, rather than pay inequity between genders.
- Between 2021 and 2023, 4 formal complaints of sexual harassment were made, all by women. This includes external reports against WorkSafe employees.
- The EOS response to 'My organisation takes steps to eliminate bullying, harassment and discrimination' shows an increase from 63% to 74% of agreement, which may be a driver behind the reported number.
- A new policy and procedure for managing workplace behaviour and conduct was implemented to improve reporting and responses to concerning behaviours, including sexual harassment in the workplace.
- In 2023, 63.2% of externally recruited employees were women.
- In 2023, 64.2% of employees that secured a promotion were women.
- Women are taking up career development opportunities in line with the gender ratio (57.4% women and 42.6% men) of our workforce.
- Women represented 63.5% of all internal secondments in 2023, an increase of 6.1% from 2021.
- In 2023, 75.1% of employees who accessed a flexible work arrangement were women.
- Purchased leave, working part-time or flexible start/finish times were the most requested flexible work arrangements.
- Flexible working and caring responsibilities were the most reported barriers to success at work, as measured through the EOS.
- Representation of men taking parental leave increased from 16.1% to 37.9% from 2021 to 2023.
- WorkSafe's 'Flexibility in the Workplace' policy was implemented in 2022. It provides a framework for supporting flexibility in how WorkSafe employees structure and undertake their work, while balancing their individual needs.
- In both 2021 and 2023, WorkSafe's gender composition across different occupation classifications represented traditional gender norms about perceptions of women's work and men's work.
- Representation of women is more than double that of men in Business, Human Resources and Marketing roles, Office Managers and Program Administrators, and Clerical and Administrative roles. Conversely, representation of women is less than half that of men in ICT, Engineering and Science roles.
- In 2023, the highest representation of women was in Call or Contact Centre roles (81.4%), Administrative roles (88.8%), and Policy roles (74.7%).
- Many of these roles are represented in the lower salary range.
WorkSafe's next areas of focus
- Convene an Intersectional Working Group to provide project governance for implementation of the GEAP.
- Apply gender equality principles in the development of the upcoming new Enterprise Agreement.
- Continue to support women into leadership positions through career development opportunities such as internal secondment, acting positions, leadership development and mentoring.
- Continue to focus on gender balanced recruitment for areas under-represented by women.
- Continue to strengthen WorkSafe's prevention and response to sexual harassment including:
- engaging senior leaders, subject matter experts, corporate legal and risk teams in a working group
- undertaking a gap analysis
- draft of new sexual harassment prevention and response policy
- draft of new sexual harassment prevention and response action plan
- Improve D&I data collection and analysis through the new HRIS People Central and working with the Victorian Public Sector Commission (VPSC) to continuously improve the data that we collect through the annual People matter survey.