Exploring Gender Gap and Diversity Management in Australia

This essay delves into the multifaceted issue of the gender gap within the context of Australian diversity management. It meticulously examines various aspects of the gender gap, including disparities in promotions, pay inequality, and the prevalence of the "glass ceiling" effect, particularly at executive levels. The essay highlights the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions and explores the societal and organizational factors contributing to this disparity. It further analyzes the impacts of gender inequality on organizational processes, employee behavior, and overall structure. The essay proposes several strategies to mitigate these issues, such as implementing targeted programs for women's advancement, fostering inclusive workplace cultures, and addressing systemic biases. Finally, the essay emphasizes the importance of equal opportunities for women in the Australian business landscape and the need for ongoing efforts to achieve gender equality.

Gender Gap
Organization: Behavior,
Structure, Processes

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Gender Gap
Diversity Management: Gender Gap
There are several issues that are confronting the modern day business. Diversity management
is one of the most critical aspects of them. In this regards it is essential that firms notice the
challenges they are facing in the diversity management and hence optimising their processes
s as to overcome those issues. In the modern day business units there are people from
different parts of the world working together from both the genders (Antonczyk, Fitzenberger
& Sommerfeld, 2010). There had been significant debates about the gender equality but it has
not been managed in an appropriate manner. In spite of the policies, regulations and rules
made by the organisations it has become difficult for the management to make sure that they
are able to deal with the gender equality appropriately. This essay is going to discuss the
diversity management in terms of gender gap in the Australia.
Gender gap arises in various areas of HRM. This includes giving priority in the promotions.
Glass ceiling is one of the most significant challenges that firms are facing. This is not only
practiced at executive levels as the data suggests that in Australia the numbers of women that
are placed at the executive levels are lesser than that of the men. There are still 13 companies
on the ASX 200 with no women on their boards and there is significant drop in the female
appointments means the AICD’s target of achieving 30% female representation by the end of
2018 (Ethicalboardroom, 2019). This is the case even when the women comprises of 47%
among all the employees within Australia. Other important issue in such diversity gap is that
that women are not paid as much as men. There is an increment in the gap between the pay of
men and women. Approximately women are paid 15% lesser than when compared to men.
However the gender pay gap had been reduced to 14.5% from 17.2% (Australian Human
rights commission, 2018). In 2017, Australia was ranked at 35th position on global index for
measuring gender equality (Kennedy, Rae, Sheridan & Valadkhani, 2017). The situation is
worse for the women that comes from other ethnic backgrounds or are from the minority
sections.
Smith, Caputi & Crittenden, (2012) believes that it is not that management not wants people
to go at the top but it is also seen that men employees also do not want women to be a boss.
Hence in order to manage the better team environment within organisation, management is
also not promoting women after certain levels. At the lower levels this diversity gaps is not so
much reflective. There are different points of views towards it. For instance another

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Gender Gap
researcher Berry & Franks, (2010), the gender gap is also seen in the areas like rewards
where it is also seen that women have to do much more in order to get recognised when
compared with their colleagues who are men. In the case of promotions, salary increase,
reward distributions etc. are also some of the areas where there is discrimination at certain
levels. There has been a perception made that women employees are better handlers of
customers hence their roles are also defined according to it only where positions such as
customer support, front desk, HRM etc. are given to the women employees and men are
posted in the core jobs. This automatically makes the average pay of the women employee to
be on the lower side.
The first and the most important reasons of not placing the women at the top of the
management or at the CEO position is that there is rhetoric in the society of Australia where
it is said that women are not able to handle the pressure and are weaker in making strategy
decisions. It is also believed that women have greater responsibilities at home hence they are
not able to fully dedicate their time to their professional life (Soleymanpour Omran, Alizadeh
& Esmaeeli, 2015). This is also reflected in terms of the fact that Australian society is highly
segregated in terms of genders where female employees seems to more in the industries such
as child care, health and community services, aged care.
It has also been seen that the political endowment of women have also decreased in Australia.
This has reduced their say in the government policies hence getting reflected in other aspects
of the society such as business houses. Another major reason behind it is fact that there is a
quite larger numbers of people that have experienced sexual harassment or any kinds of
physical and sexual violence in their lifetime (Adapa, Rindfleish & Sheridan, 2016). It is also
seen that there are quite larger numbers of women who leave jobs after their marriage and
hence companies also restricts themselves from investing into the women employees. Cases
such as paid maternity leaves also play a negative role in their progress within the workplace.
It is also believed that it is difficult for the women employees to work for additional hours
and even management cannot force them to do so hence they are understood as lesser
committed participants in the organisational development.
Mayes & Pini, (2014) it is also a fact that the pipelining of women have not been done
appropriately. This can be illustrated by the fact that Women that come within the
organisation are negotiating with the HR on the lower salaries when compared to men. This is
because their previous owners have paid her lesser. They are not in the position to negotiate

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Gender Gap
with the new employers as much as their men colleagues can do. On the other hand Leigh,
(2013) believes that another important reason for this disparity among the men and women
employees is the fact that that leadership development programs that has been designed by
the companies are also according to the men. It is also seen that people sitting at the executive
chairs also do not promote uplifting of women employees at the top position sitting beside
them to make strategic decisions. Even the motivations from the side of top officials are also
for the men employees. This lies deep down in the society as according to hofstede model
also Australian society scores high on the masculinity.
Gender inequality brings several types of negative outcomes to the diversity management and
it also has impact on the organisational structure, behaviour and processes. First is the impact
on organisational processes in terms of the fact that it does not allows companies to bring a
very different aspect to the business which a women employee can easily bring to the
decision making. For the companies in which half of the employees working within the
organisation is women this can be bigger loss to the company (Ethicalboardroom, 2019). This
also reduces the numbers of women at different levels of the organisational structure. Another
outcome will be on behaviour of the women employees as it leads many women employees
to leave the work. They remain demotivated hence their productivity also remains on the
lower side. This leads to their turnovers in higher numbers. Most of the women employees
leave their jobs in the middle only rather than completing their retirement age. The pay in the
gender gaps results in more numbers of poor to be women especially the independent ones.
Till the time when they retire they do not have enough money left with them.
In order to improve the situation it is critical that management have a planned approach
towards increasing the numbers at the higher levels of the organisational structure. Situation
can only be enhanced slowly and hence a long term efforts by HRM will be required. Since
the change starts at the lower levels hence companies should ensure that the teams that they
have found at the lower levels of the organisational structure are led by women employees
(Australian Human rights commission, 2018). This will improve the acceptance among
employees to be led by women boss. It is also advised that women employees have a slow
growth rate hence companies should have a special growth needs that can improve their
overall performance within the organisation. A special platform must be provided to the
women employees so as to promote their voice. This will also boost their confidence and will
support their talent as a leader. Such platforms will also help the management to identify the
women that have potential to take part in the strategy making. At the same time, it will also

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help the employees in speaking about the challenges that they are facing at the workplace.
Companies also need to improve the workplace security for women so that they can more
freely work while avoiding problems like sexual harassment. Women employees should be
given very different kinds of pension scheme so that these employees also want to work for
the organisation for longer period of time (Work180, 2019).
In conclusion it can be said that since the numbers of women graduates are increasing at
much faster rate hence countries like Australia show check that whether the companies
working within its territory are able to provide equal opportunities to the women or not. Any
kinds of discrimination on the basis of gender especially in terms of the glass ceiling must be
avoided as it has direct impact on the motivation of women workers and hence results in
outcomes such as high turnovers. Firm needs to give equal pay to the women and men
working as a colleague in the same organisation.

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References
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Explaining women's absence from senior roles in regional accounting firms in
Australia. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 35, 100-110.
Antonczyk, D., Fitzenberger, B., & Sommerfeld, K. (2010). Rising wage inequality, the
decline of collective bargaining, and the gender wage gap. Labour economics, 17(5),
835-847.
Australian Human rights commission, (2018) Face the facts: Gender Equality 2018.
Retrieved from: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/education/face-facts-
gender-equality-2018
Berry, P., & Franks, T. J. (2010). Women in the World of Corporate Business: Looking at the
Glass Ceiling. Contemporary Issues in Education Research, 3(2), 1-10.
Ethicalboardroom, (2019) Gender Diversity in Australia. Retrieved from:
https://ethicalboardroom.com/gender-diversity-in-australia/
Kennedy, T., Rae, M., Sheridan, A., & Valadkhani, A. (2017). Reducing gender wage
inequality increases economic prosperity for all: Insights from Australia. Economic
Analysis and Policy, 55, 14-24.
Leigh, A. (2013). Battlers and billionaires: The story of inequality in Australia (Vol. 1).
Black Inc..
Mayes, R., & Pini, B. (2014). The Australian mining industry and the ideal mining woman:
Mobilizing a public business case for gender equality. Journal of Industrial
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Smith, P., Caputi, P., & Crittenden, N. (2012). How are women's glass ceiling beliefs related
to career success?. Career Development International, 17(5), 458-474.
Soleymanpour Omran, M., Alizadeh, H., & Esmaeeli, B. (2015). The analysis of glass ceiling
phenomenon in the promotion of women’s abilities in organizations. International
Journal of organizational leadership, 4, 315-323.

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Work180, (2019) Australian Companies Truly Supporting Gender Equality (AICD report).
Retrieved from: https://au.work180.co/blog/australian-companies-truly-supporting-
gender-equality-aicd-report-2017