A Shell executive has challenged Perth's business community to address the blokey and highly masculine culture identified in a report which has also revealed state-specific barriers stopping Western Australian women from staying in work or progressing to executive levels.
A Shell executive has challenged Perth's business community to address the blokey and highly masculine culture identified in a report which has also revealed state-specific barriers stopping Western Australian women from staying in work or progressing to executive levels.
Shell general manager Crux project Michael Schoch made the comments today at the launch of a report into an almost three-year long study called 'Filling the Pool' that his company majority funded.
The report, released by the Committee for Perth, draws on interviews with 173 business men and women, primarily from WA, and found Perth’s corporate and social culture was dominated by highly masculine views, much more so than on the east coast of Australia.
Lead researcher from the University of Queensland’s business school Terry Fitzsimmons said it became clear very early on how ‘blokey’ Perth’s culture was and what negative knock on effects it had when researchers spoke to study participants.
“The great majority of female interviewees had lived and worked on the east coast or overseas. Those that were born and bred in Perth understood that there was an issue, those that had come to Perth were appalled by the issue, by the difference in the culture,” Dr Fitzsimmons said.
Committee for Perth chief executive Marion Fulker said without immediate action to address the four main barriers to women progressing in their careers and joining corporate boards in WA, change would be “glacial”.
“In the report...basically it says it’s going to take us 300 years to get to gender parity...so something has to change around here,” Ms Fulker said.
The major barriers to achieving gender equity in Perth, according to the report, were a male dominated culture derived from a historical reliance on mining, energy and construction, a lack of women progressing through these often lucrative career sectors, limited access to childcare and flexible work practices, and the largest pay gap in Australia (25.3 per cent).
The report found Perth’s male dominated business and social cultures were perpetuating gender roles and stereotypes.
“This in turn leads to heightened levels of direct and indirect discrimination as well as bias in recruitment, selection, performance and progression decisions,” the report said.
The report found on average women in Perth had partners whose work required them to be absent from home overnight more than partners in other states, while a large proportion of women (many who had moved to Perth from other states and countries) meant they could not rely on help from extended families.
In addition to having access to fewer childcare places per capita in WA compared to any other state and many companies unwilling to bring in flexible work practices, this had created a “perfect storm” of women being unable to remain or progress in the workforce.
The report made 31 recommendations, which Ms Fulker said were intended to be enacted holistically and could begin at once.
Recommendations focused on what government could do such as addressing the cost and availability of childcare places and out of school care, what organisations could do such as bringing in “targets with teeth” driven from the top down and what women could do such as building self confidence and bringing men into the conversation.
Mr Schoch said the report challenged Perth’s business community to step up.
“The report reminds me of the tight, engaged entrepreneurial business culture that we have here in Perth,” he said.
“I knew that, we all knew that, sometimes that’s a weakness but other times (it’s) a great strength, and if you agree with me that this is not a gender issue but a leadership issue, then our tightly, engaged and can-do business culture is a gift.
“If the most influential men in Perth were to adopt and implement the recommendations in this report to prosecute the actions outlined in the roadmap, the unshakeable truth is effectively profound and would be felt immediately.”