Well over half (61%) of Australian women would consider leaving their job if they find out that their organisation has a gender pay gap — regardless of how big the gap is, according to new research by HR tech unicorn, HiBob.
More than one-third (36%) of men also express a willingness to leave, signalling a growing sense of solidarity and shared concern regarding pay disparities in the workplace.
The publication of gender pay gaps by the Australian government’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) looks to be the final straw for many women in the workplace, with fewer women (36%) compared to men (55%) saying that organisations are doing enough to close the gap. One-third of women (31%) go as far as to say that their organisation will never prioritise closing the pay gap.
As for what would encourage women to consider a new job at a new company, pay has rocketed to the top of the list of reasons, with 78% saying they’d consider a new job for more money (up from 36% last year). Pay is then followed by a strong and healthy company culture (43%), then flexible work models (42%), and a clearer path to promotion (36%).
“Pay is the foundation of the relationship between employees and employers — and if there’s a gap between genders, nothing damages that relationship more,” HiBob chief people officer, Nirit Peled-Muntz said.
“I don’t believe organisations deliberately set out to pay one gender more than another, but we do have a problem in Australia, and it’s something organisations need to prioritise fixing. Because not only is pay equality fair, it helps improve profitability. Research by McKinsey says that companies with the highest levels of gender and ethnic diversity are 15% and 35% more likely, respectively, to have financial returns above their industry’s average.”
As for potential ways organisations could solve the gender pay gap, more than four in five (83%) women say that organisations should conduct annual pay equality audits, and a further four in five (84%) say that organisations should conduct performance and promotion audits annually to ensure they’re being done fairly.
84% of women also say organisations should promote and support diversity in leadership, and 79% say organisations should make diversity a core business value and foster an inclusive culture.
“Fixing the gender pay gap is the big ‘people challenge’ of our time, but an organisation can’t fix it if it doesn’t have the right employee remuneration data easily to hand. Getting that information is key to understanding why a gender pay gap exists within an organisation so you can take steps to rectify it,” Peled-Muntz added.
The research also finds that pay is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the challenges facing Australian women in the workplace. 40% of women believe that men are promoted more often or quicker than women within their company, (compared with 18% of men who think this), indicating a huge disconnect in perceptions between genders. One in four women (26%) say that a colleague has made them feel uncomfortable or less qualified in the workplace based on their gender.