Pushing the gender envelope

Last week, a Hilton function room in Perth’s CBD was filled with women, and some men, endorsing what the Australian Institute of Company Directors has been pushing since late last year, greater female representation on Australian companies’ board of directors.

The WomenOnBoards Think Women breakfast series finished its tour of the country in Perth a day before a watershed moment in business was announced: 10 per cent of directors at Australia's top 200 listed companies are now women, compared to 8.3 per cent at the beginning of the year.

Thirty-six women have been appointed to ASX 200 boards this year, including the boards of Woolworths, OneSteel, Boral, UGL and Virgin Blue in the last month, up from only ten women for the whole of 2009.

Attendees of the WomenOnBoards breakfast heard how the shift towards greater female representation on boards would have a positive effect not only for women working within businesses, but for the companies themselves.

Former IBM human resources executive and business coach Ruta Asimus and Financial Review columnist and Boss Magazine editor Catherine Fox highlighted workplace career myths for women, pushed women to set greater goals in business and challenged the cultural and political workplace barriers for women.

Ms Fox said she suspected Australia’s business community had defaulted back to viewing business conservatively post the GFC.

“I keep hearing now that business workplaces are meritocracies which I always think is blatantly ridiculous, because then we would have to assume white middle-aged men are the only people with merit in the business world,” she said.

“It is connected to the idea that the workplace is an even playing field ... I think you have to acknowledge that is simply not the case, for a whole lot of very complex historical, social and cultural reasons.”

Ms Fox said by acknowledging the lack of equal opportunities for women and men in business, which is exemplified by the gender pay gap of 18 per cent overall in Australia and 21 per cent in financial services, change would be made possible.

She said younger women needed to recognise the cues by which to operate in business, which weren’t necessarily always formalised by policies and guidelines.

“The way you get ahead is not by what you read in the written rules, or read in the formal appraisal processes and so on, but there is a lot that goes on in workplaces that is informal,” she said.

Ms Asmius explored this concept at a deeper level, and spoke of how women need to change the way they operate in business in order to climb the corporate ladder.

She said women needed to take bigger risks, learn more about the intricacies of the business, continue to educate themselves, learn what they are worth in the market place, acquire a business coach or mentor and push for transparency in their business.

Ms Asimus also spoke of the important role flexible work practices and policies have in fighting skills shortages and said they would allow businesses to access the currently untapped human resource of semi-retirees and mothers.

“Australia’s workforce growth need is projected to be 16 per cent in 2016, and yet at present course of speed, it will grow by 0.4 per cent. Organisations need us (women) and therefore they need to provide us with the flexibility and the opportunities to grow,” Ms Asimus said.

The AICD continues to push gender diversity on boards, with the institute’s chief executive John Colvin saying “certainly more progress needs to be made, as there are still 95 ASX 200 boards without any women”.