Wanted to put this together for long, and ever since the last International Women’s Day in March which had the #Balanceforbetter theme, was thinking to jot down a few lines on “Gender Parity”.
Gender Parity has come a long way and serious steps were taken to bridge the gap. During my career experience over the past decade, I have seen several social, corporate and federal initiatives in this regard, which were commendable.
The Australian Government is strongly committed to being at the forefront of efforts to empower women and girls and promote gender equality around the world. In 2015–16, Australia established the Gender Equality Fund ($55 million in 2019-20) to strengthen work on gender equality and women’s empowerment in the aid program.
Companies like EY has come up with initiatives like “Women Fast Forward” to engage their clients and communities to advance gender equality globally.
Global technology firms like TCS, HCL, Wipro, IBM, , Infosys and Deloitte, to name a few have come up with strong initiatives to address gender parity. This includes TCS’s renowned “GoIT Girls” program and programs like “‘ASCEND” and “stepping stones” initiated by HCL
Programs like Code Like a Girl, which is a social enterprise providing girls and women with the confidence, tools, knowledge and support to enter, and flourish, in the world of coding contributes to ensure gender parity is achieved.
There are various other initiatives like Females in Information Technology and Telecommunications [FITT] which is a not-for-profit network established in 1990 that encourages and supports women in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry and forums to encourage women in leadership, Women on boards,The Australian Business Women’s Network (Herbusiness) to name a few.
Still, we have a long way to go to bridge the gap. The January 2019 labour force statistics indicated that there are 5,983,900 women employed in Australia whereas the number of employed men in Australia is currently 6,767,900. When compared to the total population of Australia where women outnumber men by 50.2%, this raises a question of opportunities and flexibility provided at workplace to encourage more women to be a part of the workforce. Another important aspect being gender pay gap – the difference between women’s and men’s average weekly full-time equivalent earnings. Australia’s full-time gender pay gap is 14.1%.
#Some interesting facts and figures#
#Food for thought# On average, Australian women have to work an extra 56 days a year to earn the same pay as men for doing the same work
In the present scenario, our customer’s dilemma would be how to bring the gender parity without compromising on quality. As a recruitment firm, we recently helped one of our major banking clients in filling one of the positions by sharing equal mix of profiles who were equally qualified for the same role.
Companies like HSBC, BBC, and Google are applying blind hiring practices in order to hire talented candidates from different backgrounds. Blind hiring can be extremely effective to create diversity in the workplace.
As they say, “it all starts within you” so what can we do,as individuals, to bring about this change:
- Be open to possibilities and changes-make the conscious choice to grow from the pressure to evolve yourself to that next level.
- Ask for more, aim higher – Never shy out from asking
- Love what you do – look for opportunities closer to our interests and excel at them
- Network – To empower yourself, collaborate don’t compete. Success is never a one man job. One of the smartest ways to move your mission forward is to network.Look for mentors and like minded people and work on your social skills.
Here at Zone IT apart from supporting our clients in the selection process as a recruitment agency we also have a few initiatives to encourage and engage communities and individuals. We have a “back to work” program initiated to encourage and support women in IT who had a career break and looking to join back workforce, by finding them suitable positions.
If you are looking out for your next opportunity, we would love to hear from you. Follow our LinkedIn page for industry news and the latest job opportunities. Also, you can reach out to us at careers@zoneitsolutions.com or call us at 0468857408 or 0434189909.
Connect with us to share your thoughts, ideas or stories. Let’s stand together for a better balance, a better world.
