Energy retail organisation EnergyAustralia is investing $1.2 million (£678,309.21) in pay increases in order to close its 2% gender pay gap.
Effective from April 2018, the organisation will be awarding approximately 350 female employees with a one-off pay adjustment payment of $3,500 (£1,978.40) as part of its annual salary review process. This is to ensure that male and female employees with equivalent experience and skills receive the same pay for performing the same jobs. The one-off pay adjustments will work to close EnergyAustralia’s current 2% gender pay gap.
Around 80 male employees will also have their pay adjusted following pay reviews of employees not on enterprise bargaining agreements.
EnergyAustralia has implemented numerous measures in order to improve gender representation at the organisation. This includes establishing a mentoring programme for women, creating a women’s network and holding related events, offering return-to-work support to female employees returning from maternity leave and embedding checks for unconscious bias into HR processes for remuneration, promotions, reward and recruitment.
EnergyAustralia has been striving to reduce or remove gender bias since 2014, with its past focuses tackling recruitment, working arrangements, succession planning, internal appointments and promotions, performance assessment and remuneration and reward.
Currently, 40% of EnergyAustralia’s 2,500 workforce are women and a further 40% are employed in management positions. Half of EnergyAustralia’s board are female.
Catherine Tanna, managing director at EnergyAustralia, said: “I’m proud of the good progress we’ve made in the past four years with hiring women to senior roles, the make-up of our workforce and in remuneration generally. But it’s not right or fair to expect women to have to wait any longer for the pay gap to close, so we’re fixing that right now.
“Energy is a vibrant industry with an exciting, but challenging, future. If we want to attract our share of the bright, talented women out there we must also treat them fairly and give our people opportunities to do the best work of their careers.
“Most of the roles at our energy assets, which typically offer good, well-paid jobs, are done by men. That’s why it’s important we encourage women to join our power stations. It’s about opening opportunities for everyone, regardless of gender, background or affiliation.”
