Gender Equality Action Plan

Foreword

I am pleased to present Gippsland Water’s 2022-2025 Gender Equality Action Plan.

This plan, in conjunction with other relevant plans and strategies, will drive positive change over the next few years. It will be a challenging but worthwhile journey to build a diverse workforce and provide

a constructive and equitable work environment that is safe, respectful, nurturing and welcoming for all types of people.

This plan provides an outline of the steps we will take to progress towards gender equality at Gippsland Water, deliver on our diversity and inclusion commitments as outlined in our Diversity and Inclusion Plan 2021-2023, and ultimately, achieve the related objectives in our Corporate Plan 2022-2027.

The connecting goal of these plans and strategies is to build a high-performance, constructive culture, where staff are enabled and encouraged to bring their whole self to work, to use their unique capabilities and ideas to deliver excellent outcomes for our customers, our community and the environment. Such a workplace must have a foundation of equality.

From the perspective of a female MD, I know only too well the historical and current issues facing women at work and in society. Intersectional factors of disadvantage or discrimination compound those

challenges.

Our initial focus will be on making changes that result in increased numbers of females in leadership roles, and in STEM positions. This will require changes to how we recruit, develop, support and reward

women, and targeted training for all current people managers. We will also review policies and processes to ensure they are accessible and equitable for all staff.

We already have a number of excellent initiatives in place, and have started to gain ground in some areas. However, much more is needed. I, and my Executive Team, and the Board, are committed to

working together to drive change and deliver the outcomes outlined in this plan,

Sarah Cumming

Managing Director

Gippsland Water

Introduction

Under the Gender Equality Act 2020 (Act) we have a responsibility to prepare a Gender Equality Action Plan. More importantly, as an organisation that is deeply committed to our customers, our people and our community, gender equality is a foundational principle underpinning our values, and while challenging, it is a responsibility – and an opportunity – that we embrace.

The Act sets out seven workplace gender equality indicators, representing key areas where workplace gender inequality persists and where progress towards gender equality must be demonstrated.

These indicators are critical measures for our GEAP:

• Gender pay equality
• Gender composition at all levels of the workplace
• Gender composition of governing bodies (i.e., our Board)
• Workplace sexual harassment
• Recruitment and promotion
• Gendered workforce segregation (i.e., workforce composition)
• Leave and flexibility

The results of our workplace gender audit analysis from 1 December 2021 can be found in Attachment 1. This audit data was analysed and shared across the organisation and feedback sought and valued. We will continue the conversation with staff and their feedback will inform the development of our strategies and measures.

The case for change

Everyone benefits from gender equality.

To achieve equality, we must first ensure equity. Gender equity is the fair and equal treatment for all people regardless of gender status. Gender equity sets the stage for gender equality.

The community as a whole will benefit when equality is achieved. Equality is a critical condition for addressing many societal concerns including the significant issue of men’s violence against women and its related impact on children, as well as on social systems such as housing and health. To achieve gender equality, the needs of all people must be fully considered in decision making to ensure rights, benefits, obligations, responsibilities and opportunities are equitable for all. To ensure fairness, strategies are needed to respond to historical and existing social structures and this may mean differential treatment is required.

While there has been significant progress towards gender equality in Australia, there are still gaps. Research shows that women continue to earn less than men, are less likely to advance their careers, and retire with less superannuation savings, while men may have less access to family friendly policies, such as flexible working arrangements.

Additionally, if people experience two of more intersecting forms of discrimination or disadvantage, the impact of discrimination is compounded. For example, when gender intersects with other experiences of discrimination and disadvantage due to characteristics

such as race, Aboriginality, religion, ethnicity, disability, age, sex, sexual orientation, and/ or gender identity.

Gippsland Water will directly benefit from addressing gender equity issues identified in the audit.

A key outcome will be our ability to attract and retain talent and the resultant positive flow-on effect:

• equity and the provision of an inclusive and supportive work environment will attract a broader candidate pool and continue to position us as an employer of choice
• a more diverse candidate pool will lead to improved gender balance across the organisation, which research shows will increase innovation and performance
• diversity in the workplace leads to a stronger talent pool for promotion
• a strong talent pool ensures diversity in leadership, leading to broader thinking improved decision making, increased understanding of community issues and stronger connection to our customer base, and, provides diverse role models to encourage others to aspire to their choice of career.

This GEAP will help position Gippsland Water as a workplace that actively pursues gender equity and encourages and promotes gender equality both internally and externally. It will benefit our people, our performance, and ultimately, our community.

Gippsland Water is the largest water retailer in the Gippsland area managing a $1,500M asset base to deliver water and sewage services to over 147,000 people and 6,000 businesses. Our operational area spans approximately 5,000 kms, from Drouin in the west, to Loch Sport in the

east, from Briagolong in the north, to Mirboo North in the south.

We manage 2,000 kms of water mains and 1,700 kms of sewer mains, and operate 15 water treatment plants and 14 waste water treatment plants. In addition, we have commercial business interests comprising of an agricultural business spread across 12 farming sites producing a combination of beef, fodder crops, grains and plantation timber and an organic waste recycling facility which transforms more than 200,000 tonnes of waste each year into valuable, nutrient-rich composts that are then used by farms and other horticultural enterprises right across Victoria.

Most of our staff live in our region, and are proud to serve their community. We partner with many local organisations and are active across the community, connecting with a diverse range of people from all walks of life. We have a low staff turnover (7% for 2021) and limited

opportunity for growth in numbers within our regulated business. This provides challenges that are faced by most regional businesses aiming to improve the diversity of their workforce.

Our diversity profile as shown below and the data in Appendix 1 indicate we have challenges ahead to build diversity in our organisation to better represent our community. Specifically, we need increased female representation in our leadership and technical roles.

Vision and values

Our company vision and values were developed with our staff in 2018. They underpin our strategies and inform our planning. Our vision is:

We take pride in partnering with the community in providing quality water

and waste services so we can enjoy a healthy and sustainable Gippsland for generations to come.

Our values

• Safety and wellbeing
• Customer Focused
• Innovation
• Accountability
• Collaboration
• Integrity and respect

For our values to be actively embraced, we need a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture. If our staff experience an equitable and constructive work environment, they are more likely to fully uphold our values - be safe and well, feel empowered to challenge respectfully and embrace change, take ownership and work together collaboratively, operate with integrity

and treat each other respectfully – in order to deliver excellent outcomes for our customers.

Our vision and values are integral to development of our GEAP. We understand that achieving our GEAP will take focussed effort over a prolonged period, and require changes to how we think and operate currently.

The outcomes we seek are that all staff:

• are able to bring their whole self to work and are valued for who they are and what they bring
• experience high levels of collaboration and inclusion
• are encouraged and enabled to develop and grow
• are treated with respect
• feel safe, and are confident in speaking up to share their thoughts and concerns
• experience fairness and equity in all aspects of work

Further details of our Gender Equality vision, actions and measures are provided on the following pages.

Vision for Gender Equality at Gippsland Water

There are many advantages to diversity in the workplace: research shows that innovation is higher, culture is more constructive, attraction and retention improves, productivity increases. Organisations with greater gender equality in people leader and senior leadership roles outperform their counterparts in both organisational and financial performance. Furthermore, diverse and representative teams have the ability to outperform and produce stronger results if an inclusive culture operates where all ideas and contributions are valued.

Diversity brings a wider base of experiences, approaches and individual differences that contribute to forming a stronger collaborative foundation from which to constructively challenge the status quo. Ensuring we remain an employer of choice for existing and potential employees of all backgrounds will assist us to harness and retain talent and capability from both within our business and assist us to secure the best available talent

in the market.

If our workforce is as diverse as the customers we serve, we can more effectively understand and anticipate customer needs, tailoring customer solutions and services, advice and information. Our first step in creating a truly diverse workforce is ensuring gender equity.

“We commit to fostering gender equality by providing an equitable, safe and inclusive working environment.”

Workplace gender audit

A key outcome of the Gippsland Water’s Strategic Priorities in the 2021-2026 Corporate

Plan is ‘Enabling Our People’ with a vision of building an engaged and empowered

workforce with a constructive culture. The four objectives are:

• We will engage, attract and retain talented and capable people to our organisation
• We will invest in our employees to ensure their success in their roles
• We will develop leadership skills and capability to align and transform our business
• We will enhance our employee experience to align and transform our business

Our Gender Equality Vision aligns with and enhances the above:

Our People Strategy 2022 – 2025 is currently being developed and will also include a

focus on achieving gender equality during the strategy period.

The workplace gender audit was completed in December 2021 using data from our HRIS and the 2021 People Matter Survey. The process highlighted that we do not have effective systems and processes to collect data and report on all intersectionality factors. This will be addressed in this GEAP. We will also focus on building trust across the organisation to ensure our staff are comfortable providing personal information collected in the audit.

It is clear that we have a gender imbalance in most levels and role types with women representing only 34% of our workforce. For full time work, this reduces to 26%. This imbalance is replicated at the highest levels, with our Board composition being 70% women, our executive team 29% and only 21% of our senior leaders are women.

With long service common and a relatively low turnover, this imbalance is partly reflective of historical practices and is a focus of our GEAP.

Our first priority, ‘Attract Diverse Talent’, will ensure our policies and processes (such as recruitment, development, flexible work practices and remuneration) are adjusted to pave the way for women to work at Gippsland Water and be fully supported in managing their roles successfully.

In addition, we will launch initiatives that open up new pathways and opportunities for entry and progression that take into account intersectionality factors and, over time, address any barriers to women being fully supported, respected, provided a safe place to speak up, and encouraged to achieve their work goals at Gippsland Water. These initiatives will also address low representation in STEM roles (38% of professional roles and only 16% of technical and trade roles are currently filled by women) and very low representation in machinery operators/drivers and labourers roles (4% and 7%)

Our second Priority – Career Support and Progression – will build on the activities of our first priority to ensure women have access to the support and encouragement needed to progress towards their career goals. Our focus will be on consulting with women to understand and remove systemic barriers and support their individual development needs. We will also consider a variety of talent retention activities to ensure our investment in people has a positive impact on our performance in the long term.

Our third Priority, Leadership and Culture, will focus on building an inclusive, safe and constructive culture. We will ensure our leaders understand and embrace all aspects of gender equality, and have the capability to provide a safe and equitable environment for their staff to thrive.

Employee Experience Data 2021 People Matter Survey

Our 2021 People Matter Survey has provided significant data to inform our GEAP. Key points

from the survey are provided below, and the full audit report is available online.

Positive perception scores

Most factors fell below our comparator group scores except for our disability scores, where we

were slightly higher (74%:70%). However, our scores exceeded the Public Sector scores with the

exception of LGBTIQ+ identification, where our favourable score was 68% compared to 72%.

Other favourable scores were:

• Positive culture towards those of varied cultural backgrounds 81%
• Positive culture in relation to employees who are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander 77%
• Positive culture in relation to employees of different age groups 74%
• Positive culture for people of different sexes/genders: grouped responses 80%,
• Female responses 77%, Male responses 79%

Remuneration Equity

Overall, no significant differences were found that would indicate an urgent pay equity issue.

However, slight differences were noticed across individual banding levels. The average across

all banding levels showed that for every $1 earned by a male employee, a female employee

earned 98 cents. The Australian Bureau of Statistics data from December 2020 states that

women’s full time adult average weekly ordinary time earnings were 86% of that of men. An

annual gender pay audit is included in our GEAP.

Sexual Harassment

No formal sexual harassment complaints have been received at Gippsland Water for the 2020/21 reporting period and this is reflected in the gender audit. However, employee experience data indicates that 2% of our workforce believe they have experienced some form of sexual harassment during the reporting period. Further detail regarding the type and frequency of behaviours experienced and responses taken as a result of the behaviours cannot be extracted due to in-built privacy filters.

The favourable response for ’encourages respectful workplace behaviours’ was 85% for men, 89% for women and 83% for the grouped response*. For ‘takes steps to eliminate bullying, harassment and discrimination’ the favourable responses were 80% for women, and men slightly lower at 75%.

Of most concern was the responses to whether people felt safe to challenge inappropriate behaviour at work. 65% responded favourably, 21% were neutral, with 14% unfavourable responses. Gender split of this data highlights that women responded less favourably about challenging inappropriate behaviours (53%), and our grouped cohort indicated that 23% felt unfavourably about challenging these types of behaviours.

This indicator will inform initiatives in our GEAP to ensure our people feel safe to speak up.

Recruitment and Promotion

A total of 40 people were externally recruited and appointed during the reporting period: 30% were women. The gender split for permanent promotions was 10 women and 17 men. A similar profile was reported for Higher Duties opportunities.

When gender filters are applied to favourable responses to ‘equal chance at promotion’ men feel slightly more favourable than women (46% compared to 42%), however there is a significant decline for our grouped cohort, with a rate of only 27%.

In response to ‘fair recruitment and promotion decisions, based on merit’ we received a favourable response of 44%. Similar results were noted for both men and women, although our grouped category’s favourable score fell to 33%. Review of recruitment and selection practices and our approach to development for progression will be included in our GEAP.

For ‘gender is not a barrier to success in my organisation’ there was a favourable response of 76%, with no significant difference when gender filters were applied. Similarly, there was a favourable response of 78% to ‘being Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander is not a barrier to success’.

Regarding ‘sexual orientation is not a barrier to success’ we had a favourable response of 78%. When gender filters are applied our grouped cohort and women returned more favourable results (83% and 81% respectively), with men at 75%. Our 2021-2023 Diversity and Inclusion Plan includes initiatives to ensure sexual orientation is fully accepted and is not a limiting factor. For example, we have established a Pride Network to raise awareness of LGBTIQ+ issues and run events to celebrate differences and encourage open conversations.

Employment Conditions

No employee has accessed Family Violence leave throughout this period, and the People Matter Survey showed that 88% responded favourably they would be supported if they needed to access this leave. When assessed across gendered groups women responded 92% favourably, men 86% favourably and the combined cohort 83%.

The data shows that 77% believe there is a positive culture within Gippsland Water in relation to employees who use flexible work options. There was an 82% favourable response to ‘if a flexible work arrangement was requested it would be given due consideration’.

People also feel that we support employees with family or caring responsibilities, regardless of gender, (87% favourable) and they indicated they have the flexibility they need to manage their work and non-work activities and responsibilities (84% favourable).

The data from the 2021 Gender Audit and the 2021 People Matter survey, and from staff consultations and other research, has been fully considered in developing actions in our GEAP to improve gender equality at Gippsland Water.

Consultation and Engagement

Our consultation and engagement with the workforce aimed to facilitate a transparent and open process to ensure we maintain a contemporary approach to gender equality and meet legislated requirements.

Our Executive Leadership Team (ELT) are committed to drive and fully support our gender equality initiatives. Clear direction and commitment from the ELT, combined with focussed training and briefings for all senior managers, provide a robust foundation to progress gender equality actions at Gippsland Water. The ELT commitment is fully endorsed and supported by our Board, who actively engage in gender equality discussions and seek regular updates on progress.

As well as leadership training and briefing sessions, we ran local team briefs, provided whole of organisation communications from the MD and others, and ran a series of drop-in sessions to share the results of our workforce gender data audit and People Matter Survey results. These staff consultations, which included relevant employee representatives, have helped us to better understand their concerns and ideas, and through the engagement sessions and communications, we have informed them of the GEAP process and intent, the organisation’s commitment to equality, and their role in the journey.

Our Diversity and Inclusion Committee have also been an active consultative partner and will play a supportive, ongoing role across the roll-out of our action plan. We will also continue to engage with staff and seek their input, through regular communications and local team briefs. We will ensure they are kept up to date with progress and continue to have a voice in shaping future initiatives.

We have also considered available research, consulted with external experts and networked with industry colleagues to share and learn from each other.

Gender Equity Action Plan

The data from our GEAP audit and information collected from staff consultation has been considered alongside analysis of best practice research in addressing gender inequality in the workplace. Our GEAP is structured under three priorities:

• Attract Diverse Talent
• Career Support and Progression
• Leadership and Culture

The following pages provide details of our GEAP objectives, actions and measures.

Individual or team accountability will be assigned through our performance development process to capture, monitor and report on detailed KPI’s.

Priority 1 - Attract diverse talent

Objective	Actions	Measures	Timeline (FYE)
			2022	2023	2024	2025
1.1 We attract a diverse range of candidates	Develop a targeted approach to improve gender composition across all levels Update recruitment, selection and progression approaches to focus on broader capability aspects	Recruitment strategy and related processes updated (including shortlisting expectations)		ü
		10% increase p.a. in the number of female job applicants in STEM and leadership roles  (our ability to realistically achieve this – consider)		ü	ü	ü
		Positive increase towards our gender targets for women achieved (D&I Plan)		ü	ü	ü
1.2 We provide a variety of pathways into Gippsland Water	Design and implementation of a Traineeship program, with a focus on diverse participants Design and implement an Aboriginal Recruitment approach Provision of STEM awards in local secondary schools Provision of scholarships with a work placement for women studying science or engineering at university Develop a school traineeship initiative in partnership with Gippsland Environmental Agencies and GLAWAC	Traineeship program launched	ü
		STEM awards launched, process in place	ü
		University scholarships awarded annually, with >50% of recipients progressing to undertake vacation employment with us		ü	ü	ü
		Traineeship programs in place with a >50% conversion rate from trainee to employee		ü	ü	ü
1.3 Our corporate communications are accessible to all and appeal to a broad audience	Development and roll-out of Communications and Engagement Strategy	Communications and Engagement Strategy completed and launched	ü
	Accessibility enhancements identified and implemented	Enhancements completed and integrated and a range of accessible promotional materials on hand	ü
1.4 We seek and build productive partnerships that support our talent attraction approaches	Ongoing relationships to be established or maintained with community organisations engaged with people with disabilities, First nations, multicultural communities	Regular communications with community through relevant organisations, and analysis and dissemination of information/data collected	Ongoing
	Work in partnership with Latrobe City and GLaWAC to trial an aboriginal early engagement initiative	Initiative launched		ü
		Review of effectiveness			ü	ü
	Develop and implement a plan to improve effectiveness of existing partnerships with secondary schools, Llens and universities to increase awareness and interest in STEM careers	Plan developed and launched		ü
		Review of effectiveness			ü	ü

Priority 2 – Career support and progression
Objective	Actions	Measures	Timeline (FYE)
			2022	2023	2024	2025
2.1 We have identified and developed a broad scope of internal ‘talent’	Revise talent identification process to ensure our talent lens has a focus on women and includes talent at lower banded levels	Complete review and update process	ü
		10% p.a. increase in number of promotions and higher duties positions offered to women		ü	ü	ü
	Provision of a mentoring program for identified talent, with a focus on developing women	Mentoring program launched	ü
		100% of identified woman offered a mentorship		ü	ü	ü
2.2 Our remuneration and benefits policies/processes are fair and equitable	Undertake annual gender pay audits and address any pay discrepancies	Gender pay audits conducted annually, data analysed for gaps, actions implemented to close gaps	ü	ü	ü	ü
		Gender pay gap closed				ü
	Audit existing policies and procedures (including the application of GIA’s to external facing policies), to ensure gender neutrality and accessibility	Audit completed, relevant processes/policies updated and communicated to staff	ü
		50% of GIAs completed annually on new or due for review policies and procedures	ü	ü	ü	ü
2.3 Our staff are supported in meeting their career goals	Understand the gendered career progression/ career transfer goals of women and support with development plans	Complete analysis including focus group consultation		ü
		Set and achieve relevant targets (e.g., increase in woman in technical or leadership roles)		ü	ü	ü
	Investigate and consider the application of gender targets in the succession planning process	Gender targets decision integrated into relevant processes and policies	ü
	Conscious support for development and promotional opportunities for women, including opportunities to present to ELT and Board	Career progression initiative launched		ü
		All intersectional ‘not a barrier to success’ gender equality indicators return a minimum of 80% favourable scores when gender filters are applied		ü	ü	ü
2.4 Our leaders support women to develop and progress	People Managers have structured career conversations with female reports to identify and resolve any conflicts/barriers (including intersectionality factors) to women achieving their work goals and progressing their career.	Structured conversation process developed and implemented; all people managers trained		ü
		10% increase p.a. for women’s responses to ‘equal chance at promotion’ and ‘gender is not a barrier to success’ in the People Matter Survey		ü	ü	ü

Priority 3 - Leadership and Culture       

Objective	Actions	Measures	Timeline (FYE)
			2022	2023	2024	2025
3.1 Our systems and processes support achievement of our gender equality goals and diversity targets	Review, refine and edit existing data collection and reporting methods (systems) to ensure gender equality indicators can be disclosed and extracted	Improvements in ability to capture gender equality indicator data (targets to be set pending discussions with HRIS provider)		ü
	Create a safe environment for disclosure through education and communication programs including unconscious bias training for all staff, ‘Easy English’ program, Words@Work campaign, etc.	Program developed and launched		ü
		People Matter survey and Organisational Culture Survey ‘Prefer not to say’ responses have reduced by 20%			ü
	Audit existing Organisational Development policies/procedures to ensure gender neutrality and accessibility	Report audit findings to the D&I committee and the ELT for review and consideration of further actions		ü
3.2 Our inclusive culture enables a ‘safe to speak up’ environment	‘Inclusive Leadership’ embedded in our people leader training programs	10% improvement p.a. in inclusive leadership scores in People Matter Survey		ü	ü	ü
	Provision of a campaign based on ‘Safe to Speak Up’ principles, including Family Violence training for staff	Campaign designed and delivered to > 80% of employees			ü
		Favourable responses to ‘safe to challenge inappropriate behaviour’ improves by 10% p.a.		ü	ü	ü
3.3 Our flexible work options are relevant and accessible for all staff	Understand barriers and investigate potential for flexibility with roles that traditionally have not supported flexibility	Consultation completed, roles open to flexibility identified, policy updated, people advised	ü
	Investigate new flexible options that support gender equality, including ‘floating’ public holidays to address different needs	Report presented to D&I Committee and ELT for review and approved changes planned for implementation		ü
3.4 Our staff are culturally aware and cultural safety is ensured	Deliver a cultural awareness education program in partnership with GLaWAC	Tier 1 of cultural training delivered to >80% of employees		ü
	Celebrate and/or acknowledge significant dates or events across the business paired with a supporting educational campaign	Annual calendar of significant dates and events		ü
		20% increase in number of staff accessing DCA resources		ü	ü	ü

 

Leadership and Resourcing

Our Executive Leadership Team (ELT) will monitor progress against the GEAP through regular reporting from the Organisational Development (OD) team and discussions with their senior managers. The OD team have carriage of the plan, working closely with all managers and the ELT. The Board will also receive progress reports through the Executive Remuneration & Capability Committee.

Our ELT will lead the gender equality change by:

• Demonstrating knowledge of and commitment to the GEAP
• Being visible advocates for gender equality internally and across the wider community
• Modelling the principles and approaches within their own areas of influence
• Sponsoring the development and implementation of supporting policies and initiatives
• Monitoring and evaluating our outcomes
• Celebrating our achievements

Our Leadership Blueprint, adopted in 2020 by the senior leadership team, (‘SLT’ - all senior managers and executives), further reinforces leadership support for gender equality. The Blueprint requires our leaders to:

• Walk the talk
• Create connection to the vision and strategy
• Encourage different perspectives
• Care about others
• Listen to understand
• Do what I say I will do
• Help our people to achieve and thrive
• Own it

Our GEAP and the data from People Matter surveys and other surveys will

inform and guide us, driving change in the organisation.

It will be referred to and reported on regularly and new initiatives added through our staff consultations, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, Pride Network officers and of course, by our OD team, SLT, ELT and Board.

Our budgeting process for the next financial year will identify a committed budget for specific GEAP activities. We will consider benefits and cost of appointing a dedicated gender equity officer; however, it is likely that this will be a specific duty of one or more OD team members, with every people leader role also having a level of accountability for gender equality actions.

Measures and Reporting

The success of the GEAP will primarily be measured by positive movement in our annual gender audit analysis and achievement of our GEAP commitments. The results of our People Matter Survey and Organisational Culture Survey will be key references, as well as achievement of measures in our 2021 – 2023 Diversity & Inclusion plan.

Reporting on progress will occur via

• Executive Leadership Team Quarterly People Report
• Executive Remuneration & Capability Committee biannual People Report
• Regular updates provided to our Diversity and Inclusion Committee and Senior Leadership Team
• Regular updates via internal communications and team briefs with all staff
• Annual external reporting against progress as per the Commission’s guidance:
  • Submission of our Gender Equality Action Plan – 31 March 2022
  • Submission of our first progress report – 31 October 2023
  • Complete second workplace gender audit – 30 June 2025
  • Submission of our second progress report – 31 October 2027

In addition, specific team and individual KPI’s that support achievement of our GEAP will be monitored and reported through our annual performance management process.

Appendix

Appendix 1: Summary of workpace gender audit

Indicator	2021 Workplace Gender Audit
1 – Gender composition of the workforce	Overall gender composition of the workforce	34% W	66% M
	Overall gender composition of the workforce, by employment basis: Full time   Part time	26% W 68% W	74% M 32% M
2 – Gender composition of governing body	Overall gender composition of the Board	34% W	66% M
3 – Pay equity	Overall organisational gender pay gaps: Mean annual base salary gap –6.2% Mean total remuneration gap – 6.2% Median base salary gap – 8.6% Median total remuneration – 8.6%
4 – Sexual harassment	There were no reported incidents of sexual harassment in the reporting period and no employee reported that they had experienced sexual harassment through the Employee Experience Survey which informed the audit.
5 – Recruitment and promotion	Overall gender composition of:	Women	Men
	Recruitment	30%	70%
	Promotions	37%	63%
	Higher duties	27%	73%
	Internal secondments
	Exits	44%	56%
	Internal career development opportunities
6 – Leave and flexibility	Use of formal flexible working arrangements	71 %	29%
	Use of parental leave in last 12 months	67%	33%
	Average weeks of parental leave taken	6.5 weeks	0.9 weeks
7 – Gendered segregation	Gender composition ANZSCO code major groups:	Women	Men
	1 – Managers	18%	82%
	2 – Professionals	38%	62%
	3 – Technicians and trades workers	16%	84%
	4 – Community and personal service workers
	5 – Clerical and administrative workers	80%	20%
	6 – Sales workers
	7 – Machinery operators	4%	96%
	8 - Labourers	7%	93%

 

Appendix 2: 2021-2023 Diversity and inclusion plan targets

Data Set		Regional Data*	Our Current Data (December 2021)	Our 2023 Targets	Water Industry Adopted Targets 2019 – 2023
Women in Senior Leadership - MD & GMs		N/A	F = 29%	F= 50%	Gender balance 50:50 in all Senior Leadership positions
Women in Senior Leadership - Board, MD & GM			F =xx%	F = 50%	Gender balance 50:50 in all Senior Leadership positions
Women in Third Level Management			F = 18%	F > 40%	Not Specified
Identified Disability		*Not Available	2%	6%	10%
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (ATSI)		1.2%	1%	1.2%	3%
Language Other than English (LOTE)		5.1%	10%	8%	20%
Caring Responsibilities		Not Available	42%	35%	35%
Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans Intersex (LGBTI)		Not Available	3%	7%	7%
Workforce Flexibility (formal & informal flexible arrangements)		35.7% (formal arrangements)	50.3% Formal - 21% Informal -29.27%	35%	35%
Our targets for 2023 have been updated to reflect the industry-wide targets that were introduced by VicWater and DELWP. Modifications based on analysis of regional data from each of the three Local Government Areas (LGAs) in our service area have been made to better reflect Gippsland Water’s community when determining our targets. Where possible the most recent data available has been used in regional analysis. Data sources: 2020 Engagement Survey ABS  - 2016 Census data for each LGA – Baw Baw Shire, Latrobe City, Wellington Shire ABS Quick Stats, Census 2016 for each LGA ABS data – Resident Population and Selected Person Characteristics by Sex – 2019 * Reliable data unavailable for our service region