Australian Industry Group National Personnel and Industrial Relations (PIR) Conference

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Thank you Stephen for your generous introduction and for inviting me to speak at Ai G’s National PIR Conference. It’s great to be here with you and representatives from Ai Group’s member organisations.

I’ve been asked here today to speak briefly about gender equality in workplaces and about the National Review on Discrimination Related to Pregnancy, Parental Leave and Return to Work, which I am currently conducting.

But before I begin, I would like to acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, upon whose land we meet today, and pay my respects to their elders past and present.

I have been fortunate to be Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner for the past six years, during which I have promoted and advocated for gender equality across all spheres.
It's a role that takes you from 200 metres under the sea in a submarine to the United Nations in New York, to spending time with young women survivors of acid attack in Dhakka, to camping out with aboriginal women in the Kimberly, to the Parliament, the Pentagon and the World Bank, and everywhere in between. 
The tremendous privilege of this role is that – whether you are working to support refugee women, defence force personnel, sex workers, women with disability or women in low paid jobs – every day you meet inspiring individuals – individuals committed to using whatever influence they have to create a more equal world.
One of the highlights of my term as Sex Discrimination Commissioner has been the privilege to work with many leaders committed to advancing gender equality and workplaces. The most exciting part of this for me has been learning of innovative strategies being put in place by business to advance gender equality.  Particularly the strategies to support working parents in the workplace, many of which I heard of during consultations with Ai Group members in Sydney, Melbourne and Newcastle late last year.

Over the years, I have become more and more convinced of one thing – and that is – achieving gender equality cannot sit on the shoulders of women alone. It will take the combined efforts of all of us to create change. We particularly need small medium and large sized business to play a strong role in achieving this.
What has also become clear is that promoting gender equality not only promotes and protects the rights of affected women; but it also contributes to better functioning organisations and businesses – as a result of diversity of thinking, better financial results, improved decision making, reduced turnover, and utilising the best talent.
At the national level, women’s increased participation in the workforce can make a significant difference to economic growth. As the Grattan Institute identified a six per cent increase in women’s workforce participation could generate an increase in Australia’s gross domestic product by $25 billion. 
At the international level, to remain competitive, means using our population to its full capacity and maintaining a leading edge through our diversity and innovation.

I have been pleased since I began my term to see some positive developments introduced, including:
• Firstly, the introduction of a government funded National Paid Parental Leave Scheme which includes funded leave for fathers and partners;
• Secondly, we’ve seen a significant increase in female representation in leadership in business. Most notably the number of women on ASX Boards has doubled from 8.3% in 2009 to 17.6% as of February 2014;
• We have also seen the value of collecting gender equality data, which has not borne out as a form of regulation but rather a tool for analysis and change.
• And finally, as of 2013, over 1 million Australian workers are able to avail themselves of leave and other protections made available through domestic violence clauses in their agreement or award conditions. 
Initiatives such as these have made real and tangible differences in achieving gender equality and enabling women’s greater participation in the workforce.

However, whilst some things are improving, there are still a number of barriers that continue to impact on women’s equal participation in the workforce.
• The gender pay gap stands at 17.1% .
• Women aged 20 – 74 have lower workforce participation rates than men , are more likely to be employed in insecure work  and are significantly more likely than men to work part time .
• Women also undertake the majority of the unpaid caring work in Australia, representing 70% of primary carers . For many Australian women, it’s these caring responsibilities that have the biggest impact on our careers. 4.1 million employees are either parents of a child under 15 years or have responsibilities to care for a person with disability, chronic illness or frailty due to older age.

Barriers such as these mean women are less likely to be engaged as fully and productively as they can in the workforce and less able to contribute to building a strong economy.

When you have over 50% of your talent pool sitting off to one side, who aren’t able to work to their capacity, that’s a massive productivity loss!

Today I want to concentrate on two areas relevant to increasing women’s workforce participation and gender equality in workplaces, which are:
• increasing women’s leadership and
• addressing discrimination in the workplace related to pregnancy, parental leave and return to work following parental leave.

When I came into my role as Sex Discrimination Commissioner, I was of the view that women working together would drive change that would create a more equal Australia.  Many initiatives focus solely on engaging and changing women.  In fact all too often we look to women to change the practices that maintain the status quo. Such an approach fails to recognise the site of most organisational power. If we want to create change we need powerful, decent, men talking the message of gender equality to other men
So about two years ago, we embarked on what was initially quite a controversial strategy - known as the Male Champions of Change strategy – a strategy that focuses on men.
The Male Champions of Change are 24 of Australia’s most powerful and influential men – men who lead Australia’s iconic companies like Telstra, Qantas, Commonwealth Bank and the ASX and men who hold the most senior roles in Government like the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of Treasury. These 24 men use their power and influence, their collective voice and wisdom to create change for women, and to progress gender equality, both women in their organisations and on the national stage. 
One of the early lessons from the Male Champions of Change work was the need to ingrain gender diversity into an organisation’s culture, into its DNA.
Let me explain. What we're seeing in many workplaces is what they call gender asbestos. It's indirect discrimination which is built into the structures, the practices, the walls and floors of organisations. And therefore it's much less tangible. So trying to combat it is more difficult. And part of it comes from the fact that most organisations, the way they develop people, they manage careers, it's deeply rooted in a male norm. And that's what we really need to change, to ensure that those people, whether they be male or female, who are the best, who do have merit, are able to rise to the top.
So what we need to change is the cultures in workplaces. Cultural change is achievable.
I want to give you an example of this which is from a member of the Male Champions of Change program. It is just one example and it relates to a large sized organisation but it demonstrates that bold thinking is what is needed, and such thinking is needed across small, medium and large sized organisations.
This example of cultural change effort is being led by Telstra. The initiative is their “All Roles Flex” initiative that evolved from a small pilot program in their Customer Sales & Service team.
In evaluating the pilot, Telstra realised that when jobs were advertised as flexible, the number of female applicants increased by just over 15% and the share of women in job placements increase by 35 per cent.
The initiative, announced by Telstra CEO and Male Champion of Change David Thodey, is a fairly significant policy shift that now enables all roles at Telstra to be advertised as flexible. Obviously not everyone will take up this opportunity, however what this initiative means is that flexibility will be considered the starting point and will be widely normalised in an organisation that employs a fairly diverse group of staff from technicians to call centre staff to senior executives.
Such an initiative changes the way that things are done in the workplace, shifts the status quo and as a result, changes the culture of the workplaces to ensure they are able to attract and retain more women.
As I mentioned while this example is from a larger sized organisation, last year I launched the Women in male dominated industries toolkit, which identifies practical suggestions and examples of different kinds of workplace strategies – suitable for small, medium and large sized businesses, across four areas of: attraction, recruitment, retention and development of women. This toolkit is designed to assist leaders in organisations to develop and implement constructive and sustainable strategies to increase the representation of women in non-traditional roles in male-dominated industries such as construction, mining and utilities.
The second area I want to focus on is the predominant issue in Australia of discrimination against women who are pregnant in the workplace and women and men who take parental leave or return to work following parental leave. Last year the Australian Human Rights Commission was asked to conduct a national review to identify the prevalence, nature and consequences of discrimination related to pregnancy at work and return to work after parental leave.
This Review, which I’ve been undertaking over the past year, has brought one thing to light for me: That maintaining women’s equal participation in the workforce and gender equality in workplaces, will not be fully achieved until women stop being penalised for getting pregnant or for trying to balance the competing demands of work and children.
For the National Review I set out to consult as widely as possible with all relevant stakeholders.
I received over 450 submissions in response to our online submissions process.
o Over 300 of these submissions were from individuals who had experienced discrimination.
o I also received over 50 submissions from community organisations and unions that set-out the experiences of many hundreds more individuals.
o And I received over 50 submissions from employers and business and industry associations.
I also travelled around the country and facilitated group consultations with stakeholders. Together with my team, we held over 50 group consultations in every capital city and several regional centres, with all relevant stakeholders including:
o Individuals affected by discrimination (over 70 individuals).
o Community organisations (over 80 organisations).
o Employers and business and industry peaks (over 100 employers and business and industry peaks).

Ai Group has made an important contribution to the National Review. Ai Group’s Innes Willox is on the Reference Group. We have received tremendous support from Ai Group with raising awareness about the National Review and organising consultations with employers and members in several locations around the country.

It would not have been possible for me and my team to speak with so many employers without the support of Ai Group and other Reference Group members and I’d like to take this opportunity again to thank Ai Group for working collaboratively with me and my team on this National Review.

Ai Group’s membership represents the interests of more than 60,000 businesses ranging from small and medium to large organisations and in a wide range of sectors. The businesses represented by Ai Group together employ more than 1 million people  so it really was a great forum for us to be consulting with employers. Ai Group’s submission to the National Review provided further valuable insight into the key challenges faced by employers in managing pregnancy, parental leave, and return to work, as well as leading practices and strategies to meet such challenges.

During one of the consultations jointly organised by Ai Group, one employer said to me
“You try to be very excited on behalf of the person who is telling you (they are pregnant) but secretly, what you’re saying behind it is ‘how the hell am I going replace this person for the next year?’… With the best will in the world not to discriminate in any way, I don’t think you can hide that emotion…”
Some of the other challenges I heard about included:
• Employers not implementing the laws because they either aren’t aware of them or don’t understand them
• Making arrangements for alternative safe work for a pregnant employee for example, in areas where employees may be exposed to harmful chemicals;
• Operating with the uncertainty of not always knowing how long staff will be on leave and what kind of working arrangement she or he will want when they return.
• Implementing flexible work policies when an employee returns to work, particularly when the nature of employment involves rosters or shift work.
However, it was very encouraging that at the same time, I heard of so many innovative strategies implemented by workplaces of different sizes and across different industries to address challenges such as those I just identified.
Some of the positive practices shared by employers during the Ai Group and other employer consultations and submissions  include:
• Conducting risk assessments for pregnant employees to identify any workplace health and safety issues;
• Running reconnect programs for employees on parental leave. This can include assigning a buddy to stay in touch while away and discuss any return to work issues.
• Having senior role models in the workplace demonstrate how work could be re-designed and carried out on a part time basis.
• Developing resources and training for managers on how to support flexible work arrangements for employees returning to work following a period of parental leave.
• Collecting data and monitoring retention of employees who are pregnant, on parental leave or returning to work after parental leave.
I was impressed with the innovation that underlay such examples and the many more solution-oriented strategies I heard of when I spoke with employers around the country. You can’t imagine the world of difference such efforts make to women who are pregnant in the workplace and women and men on parental leave and who wish to return to work.
As I mentioned earlier, I also heard from working parents, mostly women, from all walks of life, from those in casual jobs to specialist medical practitioners to senior organisational managers. I think it’s important to share some of their stories with you as well.
These educated, hard-working, and committed women use words like ‘disempowered’, ‘demeaning’, and ‘demoralising’ on an alarmingly regular basis to describe their experiences t work while pregnant or after having return to  work after parental leave. So many of the women I spoke to said to me ‘Liz, you start doubting yourself and your ability’ because they were being pushed out of jobs simply because they were pregnant, took parental leave or had childcare responsibilities.

For example:
• Upon announcing her pregnancy, one woman wrote in her submission: When I told my supervisor I was pregnant, the response was "well, you will need to leave - this is very inconvenient for the organisation - you should have told us that you were planning this - have you considered an abortion?"
• While on parental leave, one woman applied for a senior executive level position and was unsuccessful. When she asked for feedback from the recruitment panel and other senior executives in her workplace she was told that “it was essential to be visible to get promoted to that level, and it would be difficult if I returned part-time” and that “surely your priorities are elsewhere now”.
• One man told me that he was ridiculed by his colleagues at work and very much felt the stigma attached to men with caring responsibilities. He said that he was subject to a lot of doubt about being a father and unsavoury remarks while his wife was pregnant and after the birth of his baby.

People report experiencing discrimination from both male and female managers, and often the managers are operating in organisational contexts that generate such negative experiences.

Such experiences have a hugely negative impact on both working mothers and fathers. Instead of enjoying what’s meant to be one of the most happiest moments of their lives, they end up stressing out over negative workplace environments, job and financial security, and not having adequate support to balance their work and family lives.

For example:
• One single parent who worked in manufacturing for 12 years did not have her work conditions adjusted during her pregnancy despite being exposed to harmful chemicals and extreme heat. After exercising her rights and taking action she was made redundant and as a result can no longer find work in the industry. She is currently studying and looking for work in another area. 
• And this is how one woman described the impact of discrimination she experienced on her and her family - At the end of it all I was left with no job, on the brink of losing my home, dealing with a miscarriage, lost all my friends at work, and was left just utterly broken.  

As part of the National Review we also conducted a National Telephone Survey to identify the extent, nature and consequences of discrimination in Australian workplaces related to pregnancy, parental leave and return to work following parental leave. The Ai Group, together with others, assisted us in formulating the survey.

The survey interviewed 2000 mothers across Australia, and 1000 fathers and partners who took time off to care for their child under the government funded ‘Dad and Partner Pay’ scheme. On 7 April I released the headline prevalence data from the survey.

I am very pleased to have been able to conduct this survey as it is one of the few surveys conducted around the world  that provides hard, rigorous data, and certainly the first nationally representative survey in Australia of women’s experiences of:
• Discrimination in the workplace as a result of their pregnancy,
• Request for or taking of parental leave, and
• Their return to work following parental leave.

It also offers a case study of the experiences of fathers and partners utilising the ‘Dad and Partner Pay’ scheme.

The survey revealed some stark facts:
• One in two (49%) mothers reported experiencing discrimination in the workplace at some point during pregnancy, parental leave or on return to work.
• 84% of mothers who experienced discrimination on at least one occasion reported a negative impact as a result of discrimination. Negative impacts ranged from those in relation to mental health, finances, career and job opportunities, family and physical health.
• A third (30%) reported that they had been threatened with redundancy or dismissal, made redundant/restructured, were dismissed or did not have their contract renewed when they either requested or took leave.

As you can see, discrimination has a negative impact on women’s workforce participation and this has a strong flow-on effect to Australia’s overall economic productivity.

The fathers and partners case study also shows a similar picture:

• The survey revealed that the vast majority of fathers and partners interviewed took very short periods of leave. 85% took less than 4 weeks leave. Despite only taking a short period of parental leave, over a quarter (27%) of survey respondents reported experiencing discrimination during parental leave or when they returned to work.
• One quarter (23%) of fathers and partners that reported experiencing discrimination at some point went to look for another job and one in 10 (10%) resigned.

These statistics tell us that discrimination in relation to pregnancy, parental leave and return to work is a key workplace issue and one that is relevant to not only to working mothers and fathers, but most likely relevant to any employee with caring responsibilities, noting that in Australia, there are 4.1 million employees with caring responsibilities.

This prevalence data provides a benchmark against with to measure progress, but it will take all of us acting together to effect change.

We should not underestimate how innovative strategies, effective implementation of policies and supportive workplaces can have a positive impact on business outcomes and the lives of working parents and their families. Importantly, retention of working parents will ensure that skills, talent, and knowledge will continue to contribute to productivity in workplaces and to the overall Australian economy.

It takes real attention and action to achieve gender equality in workplaces and eliminate discrimination related to pregnancy, parental leave and return to work following parental leave. We already have laws and policies in place and the fact that this is still a pervasive issue demonstrates that more must be done, particularly in terms of education.  Working while pregnant is a right not a privilege. 
We have the beginnings of change, a path to a more equal future, but it starts with us. Thank you.