The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) has today lifted the veil of wage secrecy in Australia, publishing the base salary and total remuneration median gender pay gaps for private sector employers across the nation with 100 or more employees. 

The results show half of these employers have a gender pay gap of more than 9 per cent, with the disparity between industries extreme. The accommodation and food services industry, for example, has a low mid-point gender pay gap of 1.9 per cent. By comparison, the mid-point gender pay gap in the construction industry is 31.8 per cent. 

Stakeholders value transparency, especially with the growing international corporate reporting movement shifting to the assessment of businesses on more than their financial performance as part of their Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) commitments. 

How a company looks after people, the planet and profits matters – and gender pay gap performance now poses a very real reputational risk for individual companies and industries as a whole, as the disparity between the pay of different genders is scrutinised. 

As corporate communications experts, BBS is working with organisations to develop an accurate and authentic narrative around their gender pay gap performance and strategic commitments. For some companies, this may include acknowledging enough hasn’t been done and outlining the steps that will be taken to close the gender pay gap and create a fairer future in your workplace. 

Even if your business has fewer than 100 employees and is not currently subject to public gender pay gap reporting, it’s still important to consider your current position in line with greater industry-wide scrutiny by internal and external stakeholders.  

Contact us to discuss the reputational risk for your organisation or explore the WGEA data here: https://www.wgea.gov.au/data-statistics/data-explorer