Opinion: Women in corporate roles in Australia

This article was first published in the Australian Financial Review in November 2013.

The dramatic leadership intervention proposed by the Male Champions for Change movement - 21 senior male business leaders – to address gender imbalance in their own companies, has been largely  greeted warmly by all fair-minded Australians.

What makes this initiative different from previous announcements, has been the willingness of members to sign up to targets – and ambitious targets at that.

Central to the Male Champions for Change’s commitment, is for members to sign up to the Business Council of Australia target to achieve a 50-50 balance between men and women in all senior management roles within 10 years.

No doubt, some companies will struggle to achieve the goal.

But setting targets is the right thing to do. And ambitious targets are even better.

How can you measure your progress if you don’t set a target for what you want to achieve?

What’s the point in setting the bar so low that achieving it is meaningless?

I share the view of the ASX’s Elmer Funke Kupper: "I don’t want to see another consulting report that admires the problem.”

Of course, setting a target – even a 'brave' target – is the easy part. But it's how we get there now that is the challenge and it’s big challenge. 

Post the announcement there has been some interesting commentary on the redesign of work processes that will be necessary to address unconscious bias or to address the issues related to informal gender networks. 
 
These changes have been proposed as necessary to restore a meritocracy.  I think this is a promising shift given the often cited view that targets conspire against a meritocracy.

I originally set out to write a piece that explored some of those views. Around how gender equality will only be achieved at senior levels within corporate Australia, if work flexibility is delivered not just for women, but for all employees.

Around how sections of corporate Australia need to jettison the culture of judging senior executives – male or female – as ‘not being serious about their careers’ when they request flexible working arrangements to allow for home-life balance.

But last week a new report was released by the COAG Reform Council on the education outcomes for Australian girls and young women which changed my mind.

It detailed how girls from disadvantaged backgrounds are starting school behind and then staying behind – not just through their primary and secondary education – but also into post-school life.

Across reading, writing and numeracy, Australian girls from disadvantaged backgrounds are testing well below girls from well-off backgrounds.

Young women from disadvantaged areas are 19 per cent less likely to attain Year 12 or equivalent than women from advantaged areas.

And in 2011, only one-in-five 17-24 year old women in the most disadvantaged areas were fully engaged in work and/or study after leaving school compared to one-in-eight among their more privileged peers.

If we believe in gender equality – in salaries, in the equal representation of women in senior leadership roles and among our political representatives, all areas where women are behind men – then we must start by making sure the most vulnerable girls and young women in our community are getting the education and the opportunities they need.

I’m reminded of a quote by Hillary Clinton: "Talent is everywhere but opportunity is not."

If a large pocket of young disadvantaged Australian women aren’t able to read to minimum standard or find anything beyond casual, low skilled work when they leave school, then debate around gender equality among our senior executives and in the boardroom is academic.

We’re never going to get there if we can’t get the building blocks right.

I want to live in an Australia where young women growing up in Mount Druitt, Broadmeadows or Elizabeth have a chance to achieve great things as senior leaders within our best companies.

Not just because of the powerful changes promised, and hopefully delivered, by the Male Champions for Change, but because they themselves, understand the vital role of education.

Because without that education, anything we do to improve gender equality and work flexibility at senior executive level will be redundant for these young women. In fact, corporate Australia, all of us, will be the poorer for it.

Dr. Lisa O'Brien, CEO, The Smith Family