CEW pushes for gender targets to be linked to govt pay as equality progress stalls | USAEMALL.com

Progress on gender equity across Australia’s top companies has ground to a halt, with the peak advocacy body calling for gender targets to be tied to executive pay to stop equality being treated as “optional”.

Eighteen companies in the ASX300 now operate without a single woman in executive leadership — two fewer than in 2024 — according to the latest senior executive census by Chief Executive Women.

A third of them are headquartered in WA: Chalice Mining, Capricorn Metals, Monadelphous Group, Pantoro Gold and Vault Minerals.

It included Lotus Resources, which appointed a female CFO in July.

Meanwhile, a quarter of companies went backwards on women’s representation this year.

The movement of gender equality and leadership across the ASX300 is now crawling at a rate of about one per cent annually.

“I do think many companies are treating gender equality in their workplaces as discretionary or a matter of form rather than substance,” CEW president Helen Conway said.

While Australia is not experiencing the same pushback against diversity, equality and inclusion programs as the US, Ms Conway, pictured below, noted there was “a bit of a reversion going on”, explaining the glacial progress in the census.

“We have … seen some pretty disturbing public comments recently by some large company companies in Australia, about sort of reverting to work cultures that are really quite inimical to women,” she said.

“It really, for me, reinforces that constant vigilance is the requirement here. You have to keep pressing the case for gender equality in workplaces.”

Westpac has made headlines in recent weeks after staff reportedly expressed concern about the workplace culture being set by chief executive Anthony Miller, which includes work on weekends and holidays. And rival ANZ boss Nuno Matos has come under fire over missteps — including the bungled handling of redundancies — in his efforts to make the bank leaner and more efficient.

Ms Conway said the absence of accountability was allowing gender inequality to persist, but this would be solved by linking gender targets to executive remuneration.

“Companies with rigorous gender targets are 2.7 times more likely to achieve balance. We know the formula works, we just need the courage to implement it broadly,” she said.

Only 44 per cent of ASX300 companies have set gender balance targets, compared with 59 per cent in the ASX100. About the same number (41 per cent) have no women positioned for CEO succession.

CEW’s latest census calls on companies to set targets tied to executive remuneration of 40 per cent women, 40 per cent men and 20 per cent any gender by 2030.

It’s a familiar issue for Ms Conway, who also called for gender targets to be tied to remuneration in 2012 when she was head of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. She also said it made sense to “fully utilise” Australia’s well-educated female talent — especially in light of efforts to overcome skills shortages and productivity challenges.

CEW chief executive Lisa Annese said WGEA data showed progress towards gender equality in middle management, however this was not translating to the executive and CEO level.

“There’s a potential pipeline there, but there’s not a JUreal pipeline of talent. So people poised for the CEO job, that hasn’t changed, and that’s unfortunate, because I think community expectations have changed,” she said.

Regarding WA accounting for a third of ASX300 companies without a single woman in executive leadership, Ms Annese called it a “disappointing” result even with WA’s resources industry being male-dominated.

“We see lots of companies for whom those challenges don’t let them get in the way of progress,” she said. “I understand ... you don’t have as many women in those industries as you have men, but there’s still enough women in those industries for there to be enough of a critical mass.”

“If you were to look at female-dominated industries, you’d actually see a lot of men in leadership.”

CEW also wants businesses to invest in gender balanced CEO and executive leadership team pipelines, build inclusive and flexible workplaces to allow full workforce participation and to recognise leadership capabilities developed outside of the C-suite.