Pay equality will see more women take senior roles: Minto

Addressing the issue of pay inequality between men and women is critical to bringing more women into senior roles, TAL chief executive, Jim Minto believes.

Speaking in his role as the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s Pay Equality Ambassador, Minto revealed that 74 per cent of Australian employers have never done a gender gap analysis, while the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that women earned 18 per cent less than men for performing the same role.

Minto said that closing the gender pay gap was a “business priority” for Australian employers, adding that “there is no basis for gender pay inequality”.

“Every employer can fix this now,” he said. “It just needs the urgent attention it deserves to ensure we get rid of it, once and for all, this blight on our modern society.

“We spend a lot of time talking about numbers of women in senior roles whereas we ignore the key issue of pay equality which apart from being right and fair for all women is one of the key building blocks to us having more women in senior roles.”

In the last two years, TAL has seen the gender pay gap ratio of women’s salaries to their male peers’ fall from 18 per cent to 1.5 per cent across the company.

Minto said that other aspects of the life insurer’s broader gender equality program including flexible working arrangements and hiring both genders on equal pay for the same roles, had helped “to dismantle the gender-based stigmas that previously bogged down flexibility discussions”.

“We strongly believe our gender equity and diversity and inclusion efforts will be reflected in the quality of service we’re able to deliver our customers and in our long-term sustainability as Australia’s largest life insurer,” he said.