The time for talking is over and action is now needed on gender equality, Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Director, Helen Conway told a CEDA forum in Hobart.
02/07/2013
The time for talking is over and action is now needed on gender equality, Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Director, Helen Conway told a CEDA forum in Hobart.
"We need to just get on with it, we're sick of the talk and we need to move the needle a lot faster than it has been to date," she said.
"We don't need to do any more research - the case is clear. But it does mean we have to get out of our comfort zone, we've got to think broadly and act expansively.
"We've got to take some risk. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room."
Ms Conway said there are challenges confronting organisations and society but organisations need to ensure gender equality is treated as a central business issue - not something peripheral or to be "flicked down to the HR department".
"Gender equality is not a human resources issue. It's a business issue and you need to align it with your strategy and move it to centre stage," she said.
"Until you do that, you've got no hope of achieving it.
"Organisations need to look at their particular operations and try and understand what their barriers are to gender equality and put in place action plans to deal with those barriers."
Issuing a call to action to "get on the journey", Ms Conway highlighted the important connection between social attitudes and workplace culture.
"The reality is we won't see significant changes in workplaces until we see significant changes in social attitudes. We don't just live in workplaces; we live in families, in communities," she said.
"We have an obligation individually, that in all those arenas, we behave in a fashion that is fair and equitable, and in a fashion that supports gender equality."
CEDA's report Women in Leadership: Understanding the Gender Gap was launched in June 2013.
CEDA's Top 10 Speeches is a collection of the most influential and interesting speeches from the CEDA platform throughout the year.
Read more Leadership | Diversity | Inclusion December 8, 2013Today's leaders cannot exclude themselves from the learning process and must take risks, 2013 Australian of the Year, Ita Buttrose AO OBE has told a CEDA audience in Perth.
Read more Leadership | Diversity | Inclusion June 5, 2013A CEDA survey of the business community has found that more than 50 per cent of respondents, predominantly women, have been discriminated against on the basis of gender in the workplace.
Read more