December 19, 2022 • 39 mins
There are more accounting jobs than ever and the fight for talent is on. The 2022 Member Remuneration survey provides critical insights for accountants during this skills shortage crisis. This episode takes you through the data – who got paid what, how the profession’s gender pay gap is tracking and the latest on career breaks. There’s analysis on what it means for you and your business plus practical steps on how SMPs can use the survey’s results to attract and retain employees. And you don’t want to miss Tinashe Kamangira FCA, CA ANZ Vice-President and Director at Deloitte Australia explaining how he takes his parental leave to care for his young sons. There are also some great personal insights from this episode’s experts: Chartered Accountants ANZ CEO Ainslie van Onselen and General Manager, NZ Regions Charlotte Evett CA.
Host: CA ANZ Public Affairs Manager – Australia Gillian Bowen.
CA ANZ 2022 Member Remuneration Survey
Narrowing your Gender Pay Gap Playbook
How to become a Chartered Accountant
Get in touch with the podcast: podcast@charteredaccountantsanz.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Gillian Bowen (00:07):
Hello, my name is Gillian Bowen. I'm the Australian manager
of Public Affairs at Chartered Accountants, ANZ or ANZ. This
is small, firm, big impact.
Tinashe Kamangira (00:21):
When they see, um, yeah. Leaders actually taking the parental leave.
I guess it gets them to think that they can
or know that they can take it to whatever happens
in terms of career or whatever. I would never take
it back.
Ainslie van Onselen (00:36):
It also shows that accounting is a really well paid
and really highly valued and trusted profession, and that's really important.
It's really important for students to see that. And also,
you know, those kids in Year 8, Year 9, Year 10 at the at the moment who are
thinking about what kind of career they want to go down.
Gillian Bowen (00:54):
It's the podcast giving you and your clients the up
to date information you need to do your jobs each fortnight.
I share resources, tools and expert advice provided by CA ANZ
and a range of people across our profession. So make
sure you're following the pod in your favourite podcast and
if you've got an idea for the show Email podcast@
chartered ccountants ANZ.com Today we have chartered accountants, ANZ CEO
(01:18):
Ainslie van Onselen and Charlotte Evett, NZ Regions General manager.
The topic our recent member remuneration survey, but not just remuneration.
The gender pay gap is on the list and the
fight for talent within our profession, especially for SMPs. Ainslie and Charlotte.
Welcome to Small firm Big Impact.
Ainslie van Onselen (01:36):
Hi Gill, great to be here.
Charlotte Evett (01:38):
Thanks for having me, Gill It's great to be here.
Gillian Bowen (01:40):
Look, Ainslie, why do we look at what our profession
pays and it's often a taboo topic, a confidential topic?
Ainslie van Onselen (01:49):
Well, I'd probably say it's three reasons. Firstly, for the
individual member, we have about 100 and almost 140,000 members now,
so it's critical for them. And then secondly, our organisational
employers where which, you know, which employ our members. And
then thirdly, I think it's a social issue, a social
equity issue. So if we look at the first, it's
(02:10):
important for individuals to be able to assess their own
personal situation, compare and contrast, if you like, so they
can see, what am I getting paid versus other people
out of my age, my tenure, my gender, the size
of the firm that I belong to, or even the sector,
whether it's private, corporate government, etcetera. And then on the
(02:32):
flipside of that, for our organisational members who are employers
of our members, this data enables them to be able
to see the effectiveness of their own efforts over time,
and particularly obviously as we know, during a tight labor market.
Gillian Bowen (02:46):
Mm hmm.
Ainslie van Onselen (02:47):
And then thirdly, I think it's just a really important
social equity issue. It's important to shine a spotlight on
these issues, such as the gender pay gap and more importantly,
to know what we do with those facts. When we
find issues and challenges of this nature, we can then
work as a profession to develop solutions to address it.
Gillian Bowen (03:05):
Hmm. Look, I want to go through a few of
the insights from the latest ANZ remuneration survey. It's just
been released, Charlotte. What does it tell us about the
median total remuneration in Australia and New Zealand?
Charlotte Evett (03:18):
Well, Gill there was some good news there. Median total REM grew 11%
in both Australia and New Zealand this year, so up
to $150,000 in Australia and nearly $136,000 in New Zealand.
So 11% is a pretty big jump. This really clearly
shows what an attractive proposition a career in the accounting
(03:41):
profession is. Not only is it is it really varied
and interesting work, but it also pays pretty well, which
is important to people as well. I think it's really
important to mention here that this is the median remuneration
across all roles and for membership of all tenures . So
new members right through to members who have been working
for quite a while and not everyone in the profession
(04:02):
is paid the same. So just to give you some examples,
the members who'd been working longer, of course reported higher remuneration.
Those were 15 to 20 years. Tenure reported total remuneration
of over 225,000 in Australia and 170,000 in New Zealand,
and that's up from 182 K and 157 respectively in
each country. And those working in commerce, which is really
(04:25):
a catch all phrase for roles,... roles in an organization
that aren't in an accounting firm or a not for
profit or government. So they reported total median remuneration of
180,000 in Australia and 160,000 in New Zealand, which is
on the higher side. And I guess we could contrast
a contrast that with those working in public practice where
(04:47):
the median earnings were 115,000 around in Australia and 103,000
in New Zealand. So that big headline number covers off
lots of different variances.
Gillian Bowen (04:59):
Hmm. Look, Ainslie, Charlotte mentioned it briefly there, but what
does this growth tell you about a career in accounting?
Ainslie van Onselen (05:06):
Well, I think it reflects the current fight that we have
for talent in a really tight labor market. It's unprecedented, really.
So I think the numbers reflect that. But then, you know,
Charlotte's touched on this. It also shows that accounting is
a really well-paid and really highly valued and trusted profession.
And that's really important, really important for students to see that.
(05:28):
And also, you know, those kids in year eight, year nine ,
year 10 at the moment who are thinking about what kind
of career they want to go down. It's important for
them to say that actually accounting is a really valued profession.
It's very prestigious.
Gillian Bowen (05:39):
Well, Year 12 results, I think are coming out this week.
Ainslie van Onselen (05:42):
So I'd encourage them to really, really think about accounting
as a as a future path forward. We arrange for
executive mentoring for a lot of students, but also students
who are still at universityw Who are deciding what to do.
And when I talk to those students you know I've been
at UTS, UNSW , round the traps, etc.. What I always
say is that accounting brings the three C's. So it's
(06:05):
certainty of income, certainty of lifestyle and certainty of a
place in society. And the reason I say that is
because we're about to go into some rocky territory and
inflation is sky high. We're about to go into uncertain, uncertain,
I guess, economic times. We know the cost of living
is really, really exponentially growing. And I remember as a
(06:28):
country girl in the nineties that my parents had a
farm and they were paying 18% interest rates, 18% on
their on their farm. They almost lost the farm. They didn't,
but they almost did. It was really, really deeply uncomfortable
time for them. And so when I was I witnessed
that I was in a public school, co-ed public school
down south in Western Australia. And when I was looking
(06:48):
at what career I wanted to choose, I could see
the value in a profession because it gave those three
things certainty of income, lifestyle and a place in society.
And so I think that's why you know, this, you know,
I would encourage people to think about that because if
you're going into uncertain times, much worse shape, although it
might sound fun, you know, there's a lot of business
(07:10):
values that happen and insolvency statistics are showing that. But
if you want certainty. Accounting profession is fantastic. It's terrific
for that.
Gillian Bowen (07:19):
Look, Charlotte, let's dive into what the survey reveals on
the gender pay gap. What can we learn there?
Charlotte Evett (07:27):
That's a really good question, Gill. So based on the
average full time remuneration, our survey found that the gender
pay gap in Australia had reduced from 28 to 24%
and in New Zealand from 34 to 30%, so that's
still an uncomfortable truth, as Ainslie described it last year.
But it's certainly heading in the right direction, which we're
(07:48):
thrilled to see. This year we also calculated the gender
pay gap using the respondents median hourly pay thus revealed
a gap in Australia and New Zealand of 19% in
Australia and 23% in New Zealand. So a bit lower,
but still a sizeable gap. So we used median hourly
(08:10):
pay to enable us to draw from a much wider
data dataset and look at remuneration data from casual and
part time employees as well. So these are more often
women and more often relatively lowly paid. So it enabled
to bring us a much greater pool of data to
more fairly reflect the gender pay gap.
Gillian Bowen (08:29):
Mm hmm. Ainslie What's your reaction to this figure then,
this year?
Ainslie van Onselen (08:33):
Well, I think the improvement Gill probably gives me a sense
of hope that the work our profession is doing to
close the gap is showing signs of improvement. But look,
I don't think I'll be celebrating just yet because it's
still a substantial gap, particularly when you compare it to
the OECD average for both those countries. And so that,
(08:54):
to me, you know, is still not acceptable. And we
really still do have a long way to go to
get everyone onto the same page about the seriousness of
the issue. But just noting, you know, it's still a
very highly paid and highly numerated profession for both for both genders.
But it's the gap that I think we can really,
really address. And what was really curious about the findings
(09:16):
here is that the perception between men and women, so
the majority of of women who was surveyed, 70% believe
that there is a gender pay gap, while the majority
of men also 70%, remain skeptical that a gap exists.
Mm hmm. And so when I think about that, I
wonder why is that the case? But then I think
(09:39):
it's because of this. I think when you don't have
a lived experience of something, it's really hard to see it. Right.
So majority of men don't have this lived experience of
a gender pay gap. So they don't really they're not
looking out for it. They don't see it they don't witness it.
They don't viscerally experience it. And you see that in everything,
like casual racism, casual sexism. You know, in this case,
(09:59):
the gender pay gap. Unless it's your lived experience, you're
not going to be acutely aware of it. Mm hmm.
Gillian Bowen (10:04):
And a lot of it ties into as well, I believe,
into understanding how the gender pay gap is measured and
whether or not we're all using the correct or the
same methodology. And it can be quite tricky to get
an understanding of that. Charlotte, how is the gender pay
gap measured in our survey?
Charlotte Evett (10:24):
Well, and our survey, Gill, we use median hourly wage.
So I guess I'll go back to the beginning and
say it's important to highlight that equal pay for equal
work is really different to the gender pay gap. And
I think that's where the misconception comes in for some people.
And back to Ainslie's point she made earlier about different
(10:47):
men and women having different views on whether the gender
pay gap exists. I've actually heard a lot of people say, well.
We pay the same for same the same role. There
is no gender pay gap in our organization.
Ainslie van Onselen (10:58):
That's so true. You know what they really talking about
is equal pay, which I think was, you know, legislated
in the seventies.
Charlotte Evett (11:05):
That's exactly right. Not to say that it doesn't still happen,
that equal pay is not awarded for equal work. But
so I think it's a misunderstanding. There are many people saying, well, no,
there is no gender pay gap because we pay the
same for the same roles. Although, as an aside, our
survey did find right from the very, very beginning of
(11:26):
an individual's working career, a gender pay gap exists right
from year one. So... go figure that. So what the
gender pay gap is in the way we've calculated it is
actually the difference in the average earnings of men and
women across all roles in a workforce. So that's, you know,
right from your most junior person to your most senior person,
(11:47):
you can cut it different ways. So you can measure
the gender pay gap for an organization, for an industry
or for a workforce or even for a country. So,
for example, in Australia, I believe the national gender pay
gap is 14.1%. And in New Zealand it's around 9.2%,
so what it actually measures is the pay difference between
(12:08):
all women and all men, regardless of their role, how
long they've been working there, where they're located all those
other differentiating factors. And for us we calculated the gender
pay gap across all members of all members that responded
to our survey of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.
So across the profession.
Ainslie van Onselen (12:30):
So we had an unprecedented amount this year too , didn't we?
Charlotte I think.
Charlotte Evett (12:33):
We had a fantastic response this year. Ainslie We had
almost 8000 members respond, which is a really significant number
in terms of our survey, and it just, just shows
how robust our data is. So yeah, but back to
I guess there are a range of different ways that
the gender pay gap can be calculated. There's no , or
(12:54):
there is best practice, but there, there is not just one way.
This year we aligned to the statistics New Zealand methodology,
so that uses median rather than average wages. So that's
a small but important difference because median is the preferred
metric when a dataset has outliers. So a small number
(13:17):
of very, very high earners, for example, which we definitely
have in the accounting profession. So that can skew the
overall result. So but, but it is an evolving field.
But yeah.
Gillian Bowen (13:28):
So now we've got an understanding of the sort of
data that's in the survey. We've got the results. We've
got an understanding on how it is that we've measured
it all together. I want to bring you back now
to what it is that chartered accountants is doing in
this space. And what it is that we're doing to help SMPs
work out and understand why it matters and what it
is that they can do to fix it? Ainslie What
(13:50):
is CA ANZ doing?
Ainslie van Onselen (13:52):
So Gill, great question. We're doing two things primarily. So
one is advocacy and the other is education. Now, advocacy,
it's part of our charter that Chartered Accountants Australia and
New Zealand advocates for the public good so that we're
not a lobbyist or an advocate for the public good.
And so this really does form part of that advocacy, right?
(14:14):
In terms of female workforce participation, whether it's on a
country scale or whether it's on a specific professional scale,
as this particular remuneration survey looks at. So that's what
we're doing a lot of in this space. I was
very fortunate to be invited to Prime Minister Albanese's jobs
summit earlier this year, where diversity and female participation in
(14:38):
particular was really just part of almost every single conversation
and every single topic that was on the agenda for
the two days. So we're very much in the thick
of that and advocating specifically more broadly in media at
the jobs summit, as I said, but also specifically in
our assets such as acuity, our social media access, etc..
(15:00):
We're very much in those spaces as well. We're also doing
a lot of specific advocacy as well. And I'll just
give you an example. So. So one is on the
superannuation cap. We are leading the charge in this space
in Australia in advocating for a lifetime cap on your
superannuation contribution rather than what's in place at the moment,
(15:21):
which is your annual superannuation cap of $25,000 per year.
And why we're doing that is because it actively works
against women who have, for example, myself, who've taken sort
of seven years out of their profession, so not working
full time during that time. And so therefore not either
paying any super at all or very limited super. And
(15:43):
so then after and it's called the motherhood penalty, right? So
basically there's a sort of pattern. KPMG did a great
study on this, which shows that women when they've got
children under seven generally wait until their children are seven
or older. The youngest child is seven or older and
therefore able to go into the school gates themselves and
(16:04):
therefore not as relying on sort of the parent being
at home and having to walk them through the school gate.
They then go back onto either full time work or
more active participation in the workforce. So then you've got
these seven lost years where you weren't paying any super
and you can't make it up because you're still stuck.
So you now on a higher income, you now back
earning in the sing it, the swing of things accelerating
(16:25):
your career and you can't catch up on your super
because your annual cap is 25,000. You actively disincentivized from
doing that. So we're really advocating in that space. And
then finally, on gender pay gap, specifically, we've got a
great toolkit, great resource for SMPs and for all employers,
which is the gender pay gap playbook, which is a
really educative approach and how you can reduce the gender
(16:47):
pay gap in your particular environment, whether that is a
small firm, an entrepreneurial firm, a small accounting practice or big,
or if you want to learn from what the Big
Four are doing we've given case studies in the in the
pay gap playbook toolkit, which is on our website. And
you can see all of those. And there's also no
(17:09):
one silver bullet. Every firm has a different approach. And
so we outline all these different approaches and you can
kind of pluck... if you're an SMP, you can pluck what you think might
work for you and your organisation. And the reason why
I think, you know, one of the other questions you
asked was why is that important for SMP? Well, it's
really important because they all fighting for the same talent
(17:30):
as the big end of town, right? So and the
big end of town actively. I've chatted to members down
at Melbourne who are in public practice and they're actively
their talent, particularly that five or six year out mark
through which are highly sought after, who have not only
done their CA, then they've got years on the ground practice,
(17:50):
but under their belt they're being actively poached from the
small and medium sized firms. So if that's happening and,
you know, and often poached because of, you know, high
remuneration sometimes, but it's not just about REM. So fighting
for if you're seen as an organisation to be actively one
aware of this issue, do a gender pay gap audit
(18:11):
and we show you how to do that in the
toolkit and then show and visibly show to your people
what you're doing to address it, acknowledge there's an issue.
If there's an issue, normally there is, and then go
about looking like you're doing all the steps you need
to do to try and improve it, and that will
get you great brownie points with your people, particularly your
(18:32):
female employees. When they say that you actually, you know,
actively trying to champion and address this issue.
Gillian Bowen (18:38):
I'll put a link to the gender play book in
the show notes, and it's got specifics in there about
how to conduct a gender pay gap analysis, to consider
the causes of it, to build a business case for
closing it, for developing some actions to then do that.
And it explains in detail how to go about embedding
diversity and change in the culture of your workplace. So
(19:01):
check out that link. It's in the show notes and
don't miss it and read up there. Charlotte I wanted
to move on then to what our members think about
the gender pay gap, because we did ask them that too,
didn't we?
Charlotte Evett (19:11):
We absolutely did go. And just before we do that,
can I just mention another plug for our playbook? And
in addition to what Ainslie mentioned, doing the the gender
pay gap analysis, etc., you actually to embed it in
your organisation, you actually need to start and we say
this in the playbook with having some discussion, you know,
(19:33):
make it an agenda item at your board and your
executive level meetings and actually really discuss it and like
you said, show that you're actually taking concrete action off
the basis of doing the analysis. So is one thing
doing the analysis that certainly draws attention to the issue,
but actually doing something about it is so incredibly important.
(19:56):
And there might be things like, you know, publishing pay
for certain roles or really actually when there are promotions
that are up for grabs, you find a lot of
men will jump at them and a lot of women
will sit back and say, actually, I'm not I'm not
sure I'm not quite ready. You know, 100 reasons why
they wouldn't apply. So actually seek out those employees and
(20:18):
tap them on the shoulder and have a chat to
them and encourage them actively to go for for those promotions.
But the playbook has lots of concrete examples that you
can use to help to embed real diversity into your
your work. But back to your question, Gill, what do
our members think about the gender pay gap? That's a
(20:38):
good and interesting question. And they certainly spoke to us
loud and clear. So eight out of ten of all
the respondents said to us that they think it's really
important for CA ANZ to help address the gender pay gap which is fantastic,
a fantastic endorsement of the really important work that we're
doing in the space. What I would say there the
(21:01):
the operative word is CA ANZ to help address the gender
pay gap, because it's not something we can do on
our own. We're doing some great work. Our survey highlights
that there is a gender pay gap. We're sort of
shining a light on it and we're opening up that discussion.
But change needs to come from everyone within the profession.
(21:22):
It needs to come from individual members and it needs
to come from organizations as well so we can be
the catalyst for the change if you like. But we
need all of our members to to step up and
get on board.
Gillian Bowen (21:36):
So I want to play you some snippets from an
interview with the Vice president of Chartered Accountants, ANZ Tinashe Kamangira FCA .
He's a director at Deloitte Australia and we've asked him
about career breaks and helping his young son and helping
him take care of his young son.
Tinashe Kamangira (21:52):
Really fortunate. Deloitte has a generous parental leave policy. I had
up to 36 months for each child. I was able
to use 18 weeks, so I decided to take it flexibly.
So I didn't take it the first year. And it
was partly a discussion between my partner and I because
(22:13):
it was kind of like she was going to be
home anyway for the first year. And then when she
wanted to go back to work, it meant that because
we've got some family support, if I took a day,
she worked sort of two days or two and a half,
and we had her parents look after my son as well.
So there was no daycare. So he hasn't ...he's two
(22:33):
years old and hasn't been to daycare and unlikely to
go to daycare even next year because because of the
arrangement that we have. So, yeah, it means I get
to spend more time with him. I don't think many
people had used the parental leave the way I was
going to use it, which is one day a week
and was supportive. I think I think supportive in a
(22:54):
lot of ways, partly because I guess there was still
the connection to work. So I was really fortunate having
the flexibility to use it over a period of time,
and I actually really enjoyed it. You know, I come
back into the office on a Tuesday, on a Wednesday,
and I'm like, Oh, I'm here for some time off.
But I think for me personally, it gave me a
(23:15):
a different appreciation to what it's like to be a
primary carer, right? So in because I've got I had
him every Tuesday for a long period of time so
you know, I had him on the weekends too. Right. But
I had him just to myself on Tuesdays so Yeah. Gave
me a good appreciation to what, what it's like to
(23:36):
be the sole parent.
Gillian Bowen (23:38):
And I just wanted to play one more part where
you can listen to how his team reacted to what
it was that he was doing with this arrangement.
Tinashe Kamangira (23:46):
I actually think it's good for them to see people
in leadership positions, not just talk the talk, but walk
the talk. Because quite often in organizations you have policies
and you know, procedures and, you know, no one really
takes uses it a particular way. But when they see, yeah, leaders
(24:07):
actually taking the parental leave, I guess it gets them
to think that they can or know that they can
take it too and not feel like it's odd. I'm
a bit scared to take it. I shouldn't ask. But yeah,
because I'm taking it. It's anyone should be able to
take it to.
Gillian Bowen (24:24):
And he goes on to say some amazing things about
the impact that it had on his family life.
Tinashe Kamangira (24:33):
I asked the boss this and she said she said
she thinks it's made a fundamental difference to not just
the family life, but relationship as well. Relationship with my son. Relationship with,
my partner too. So, yeah, it's made it's made made
a huge difference, which is why I said whatever happens
(24:54):
in terms of career or whatever, I would never take
it back. And I plan on actually doing this for
a long time, too. So yeah, just it's, it's been really,
really good.
Gillian Bowen (25:06):
Ainsley, what did you think? Listening and hearing all of that.
Ainslie van Onselen (25:11):
I thought it was just beautiful when I was running
Inclusion and Diversity in women's markets at Westpac, that was
one of the things that we really struggled with is
exactly to his point, we had these policies and procedures
in place but we really needed men to be actually
taking that parental leave and caring leave that we had
(25:33):
provided for some time. And exactly what he said in
terms of being visible as a senior leader. It's amazing the
shadow impact in a positive way that that provides to
your teams and people around you. We often hear sort
of in the female gender lens sense, you can't be what
you can't see, you can't be what you can't see.
(25:56):
And I think that is the same for men taking
parental leave, right? If other men, particularly junior men, don't
see their senior male leaders and colleagues taking parental leave,
then how can they feel comfortable doing it themselves? It's
going to be that stigma attached to it. So it
was just really I actually my heart just sang listening
and hearing what Tinashe had to say. And I also
(26:19):
actually really agree with his point on the impact on
family life in terms of improving the relationship not only
with your child, but also with your partner. That was
the same with us. We were very fortunate Pete and I in terms
of having similar type arrangements where we were both carers
of our young children and he did as many nappy
changes as I did and as many, you know, mashed
(26:42):
up carrots as I did and everything else. And you
can see it to this day with our girls now
14 and 16, that beautiful bond that they have with
their father and will always have because of that really
special time that he's had and continued to have with
them ever since. So I don't think that they just
cannot be underestimated. And the more you get this groundswell
of men taking parental leave, the more it will become
(27:05):
normative like we've seen in other countries around the world.
Gillian Bowen (27:09):
It's interesting, yeah, that the conversation there about challenging the norms,
challenging what we think. Charlotte. What did you think about that?
What do you think about career breaks?
Charlotte Evett (27:19):
Now I've taken three career breaks myself and worked sort
of in a range of part and full time roles
since I had my children, which was my eldest daughter
is 18 years old now. I think they are so
important if that's something that's important to you. And I
really enjoyed listening to what Tinashe had to say. I remember
(27:44):
when I had my oldest daughter, I was working at
an investment bank in London, and I remember having one
of the women's sessions that they ran there and hearing one
of the senior leaders talk about career breaks. And she
said she had had two children for her first child
she took, I think, three months. And her lesson from
(28:07):
that was that it's very important to take a career break,
but maybe don't take one as extravagant and as long
as that, maybe a couple of weeks, but definitely take one.
And I can remember being quite shocked and...
Gillian Bowen (28:20):
if people could have seen my face.
Charlotte Evett (28:23):
Well, I guess it was a different time.
Gillian Bowen (28:25):
It was... a different industry.
Charlotte Evett (28:28):
But yeah, I, I mean, if it's important to you,
you should definitely do it. And we love that the
times that we're in now have changed a lot since
my experience 18 years ago. But it wasn't so much.
And for me again, in terms of career progression and
the race, I guess it wasn't so much career progression,
(28:48):
it wasn't so much taking a career break that affected
my career progression, but it was more working part time.
And I think that's something that, again, that is changing now. So. Hmm.
Gillian Bowen (29:02):
And so did you have something else you wanted to
say on that?
Ainslie van Onselen (29:06):
Well, I had a career break as well as I
sort of probably mentioned before, so. And it's interesting because
similar to Charlotte, I had some pretty interesting experiences. Like
I was the only female partner at the law firm
that I was at. And I had a really large
jury trial coming up. It's a matter that I'd worked
on a particular piece of litigation that I'd worked on
(29:28):
with the client for over. Gosh, it was about eight
years at that point. So I was really keen to
be there at trial, I'd lived and breathed that case. So I offered to
my partners, my fellow partners, when my daughter was only
six months, that I would be able to come back
part time in that last 6 to 12 months and
work on the trial. I specifically wanted to do that
(29:50):
particular matter, and then I'd like to sort of probably
come back in a part time or full time. I
wasn't really sure at that 12 month mark and I
was statutory, entitled to have 12 months off completely, but
they just weren't prepared to do the flexibility. So they said, No, no,
we want you to come back. If you come back
at all, we want you to come back full time.
But my daughter's only six months and that was kind
(30:11):
of unacceptable to me. So I actually ended up setting
up my own practice, my own small, medium sized practice.
So I have lived experience of what that's like from
doing all your own finances and not having that support
around you. It's really hard to find the time to
do both your billable hours and also your business admin.
But in the end it was actually the best thing
that ever happened to me. Gill I tell you, because well,
(30:33):
when I was a salaried partner at that previous partnership,
but this meant I actually got to eat what I killed.
And so I actually was earning more money even though
I was working part time. The irony. And secondly, I
also did my masters while my kids were little and
while I had this practice that I was running. And
the reason why I mention that is because there's proven
studies to show that if you do postgraduate study as
(30:56):
a woman, as a female, you'll actually get about 16
to 20% higher income as a result. Now, the benefit
of my masters I did in applied finance because I
found that kind of thing interesting, was that when it
did come, time for my kids were seven, my youngest
was seven. To have a look about what I wanted
to do it was either go back into full time law as
(31:16):
a partner and I was talking to some firms at
that point or do something completely different, and I decided
to go with management at one of the big four banks.
And if I hadn't done that Masters, I wouldn't have
had the skill set around to really probably have taken
the amazing opportunity that I did, which then, you know,
led me to being able to be considered to be
CEO of this amazing organisation, Chartered Accountants.
Gillian Bowen (31:40):
I love understanding. Go ahead Charlotte .
Charlotte Evett (31:41):
Sorry Gill I was just going to say so, Ainslie what
I learnt from what you just said is you just
backed yourself and put what was important first for you
and it paid off.
Ainslie van Onselen (31:52):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've been reading and writing about
diversity in professions for a long, long time, and I
remember being as a baby lawyer in my twenties. His
female barista explained to me what it felt like going
from being in a law firm to being a barista.
And she said it felt like jumping off a cliff.
But there was a trampoline at the bottom, and I
remember those words so distinctly when I was looking at
(32:14):
creating my own small business to go, Okay, it's going
to feel like jumping off a cliff. And it did.
And it was very scary. But gosh, I had a
soft landing and yeah, you do. You just have to
back yourself.
Gillian Bowen (32:25):
Mhm. I feel like this ties in well then as
well Ainslie because you're mentioning about how you wanted the
conditions in your own work environment to be correct for
what you valued and what you needed. And that takes
me then to the part of the survey where employers
are considering and employees are considering more than money and
(32:46):
some listening long may scoff at that because everyone needs money.
Everyone wants money. But Charlotte, the survey did find out
some interesting points on other non remuneration based employee benefits.
What did it discover?
Charlotte Evett (32:59):
Well, in short, workplace flexibility, which I don't think will
be a surprise to anyone , was was at the
top with 73% of respondents saying that they really, really
valued workplace flexibility. And I think to that I would
say not workplace flexibility now when you provide it, it
(33:20):
has to be genuine, flexible, genuinely flexible. Everybody provides an
element of flexibility. But as an employer, to set yourself apart,
if you want to attract your top talent in this
tight labour market, it needs to be genuinely flexible, not
just lip service. Second, and interesting, but not surprising at
all is the quality of leadership. So 64% or almost
(33:42):
two thirds of people said that to them the quality
of leadership was really important. And when you think about it,
we spend a lot of our days, a lot of
our weeks, a lot of our years with with our leaders.
And they say you have sort of you're influenced a
lot by them, the five people you spend the most time around.
So having really great quality, genuine leadership that really shows
(34:05):
that they care about you. And that clear and all
those other important factors is very, very important. And then 62%.
But I mean, you could almost say they were all
pretty equally important was meaningful work. And again, that will
come as no surprise to anyone. We all like to
feel that what we're doing makes a difference and it's
meaningful that it interests us. So workplace flexibility, quality of leadership,
(34:30):
meaningful work.
Gillian Bowen (34:31):
And Ainslie I feel then that could tie in nicely
with what SMPs can offer future workers. And this ties
in nicely as well with that skills shortage and with
attracting and keeping employers employees and not having them be poached.
What do we know about that aspect?
Ainslie van Onselen (34:48):
Well, it it's to Charlotte's point really, Gill, that if
you provide flexibility and choice in that flexibility so have flex
in flex, I say not inflexible flex working, you'll be
able to retain and attract your talent. And particularly retention
is key in these in this particular market. And the
(35:10):
survey showed that, you know, for those mid-career employees so
that 30 to 49 year old bracket, that's where flexibility
was really critical for them. And it's no surprise that
our data at Chartered Accountants shows that women leave the
profession earlier than men. And often that's because they're just getting
that of they're being left behind because they're not going
(35:30):
through those senior ranks. A lot of this gender pay
gap is caused by women not being at that really
pinnacle senior ranks of the profession or in corporate. And,
you know, if if women sort of lose hope that
they're not being treated fairly in the workplace and not
being and not having transparent access to data, then that's
what they will do. They'll make their choices and go elsewhere.
(35:52):
You know, we've got the Tech Council of Australia really
beating a drum pretty loudly to say, well, we have
we don't really have as much of a gender pay
gap as other professions and we've got all these great,
great jobs. So come and come to us. So it's
not like the profession should be ignoring this, that they're
really at risk of losing their talent, not just to
other accounting professions, but to other industries and other other associations.
(36:16):
So we really need to be looking at it from
that perspective. You know, interesting, I think our younger employees,
they're looking more for those prioritized career pathway opportunities.They like
being back in the office in many respects because they get
that one on one mentoring where it's those with young families
that really need to be able to balance that work
life kind of aspect where flexibility is key. And if
(36:37):
you can keep your workforce engaged, allow them to work
the way that they work. So rather than being based
on presenteeism and bums on stage, really look at actually
output and productivity and teaching your leaders how to do that,
how to lead based on output and productivity rather than
whether you can see people and that's what you that's
(36:57):
the benefit of COVID. One of the great things with
COVID is it's changed our understanding of where and how
you can work totally, fundamentally transformed it. So and flexibility,
we know from the survey was much more highly rated
by women than men. So again, if you want to
retain and attract your best talent, which includes your female
(37:18):
talent and not lose them either to under productivity or
underutilisation in the workforce or to other firms, then put
your put your listening ears on and hear how they want to work.
Gillian Bowen (37:32):
Hmm. Charlotte, we're almost out of time. Is there is
there any final piece of advice that you'd like to
give to an SMP who really needs staff or staff with
the right expertise or they worry they want to keep
their expert staff from leaving. Any final pieces of advice
before we wrap up?
Charlotte Evett (37:46):
We. Well, one little thing, Gill, we had one of
the firms we interviewed for the gender pay gap playbook
or a case study, if you like. And they tried
they'd really struggled to find employees they were a small
firm in the north island of New Zealand, a rural area.
They cut their working day to a down to a
six hour work day, so employees only had to be
(38:08):
at work from nine till three. Their productivity went through
the roof as opposed to not being able to find
talent or employees. They now have a waitlist and, you know,
they're lauded as an example of a really progressive accounting firm.
So I think outside the box, be flexible. Be really,
truly flexible would be my tip. I love.
Gillian Bowen (38:29):
That idea. We've covered so much there's still heaps of
the survey that we haven't covered. There's so many elements
in there to talk about. It's been a jam packed
episode three. If you want to see the full CA ANZ
remuneration survey, it's on our website in our Diversity Equity
and Inclusion Hub. I'll put a link to it so
it's easy to find in the show notes and you
can find our gender pay gap playbook for SMPs there
(38:51):
as well that we've talked a lot about this episode.
Please rate and review the pod and share with your fellow
CAs and your clients too. And the podcast has an email,
so feel free to get in touch podcast @ chartered accountants
ANZ dot com. Let's start a conversation. Thank you to Tinashe
for sharing his story and also Ainslie van Onselen and Charlotte Evett for
(39:11):
letting me pick your brains on Small Firm Big Impact.
Ainslie van Onselen (39:15):
Thanks, Gill. Great to be here. Any time.
Charlotte Evett (39:17):
Thanks, Gill. That was really enjoyable.
Gillian Bowen (39:19):
Bye bye.
Hello, my name is Gillian Bowen. I'm the Australian manager
of Public Affairs at Chartered Accountants, ANZ or ANZ. This
is small, firm, big impact.
Tinashe Kamangira (00:21):
When they see, um, yeah. Leaders actually taking the parental leave.
I guess it gets them to think that they can
or know that they can take it to whatever happens
in terms of career or whatever. I would never take
it back.
Ainslie van Onselen (00:36):
It also shows that accounting is a really well paid
and really highly valued and trusted profession, and that's really important.
It's really important for students to see that. And also,
you know, those kids in Year 8, Year 9, Year 10 at the at the moment who are
thinking about what kind of career they want to go down.
Gillian Bowen (00:54):
It's the podcast giving you and your clients the up
to date information you need to do your jobs each fortnight.
I share resources, tools and expert advice provided by CA ANZ
and a range of people across our profession. So make
sure you're following the pod in your favourite podcast and
if you've got an idea for the show Email podcast@
chartered ccountants ANZ.com Today we have chartered accountants, ANZ CEO
(01:18):
Ainslie van Onselen and Charlotte Evett, NZ Regions General manager.
The topic our recent member remuneration survey, but not just remuneration.
The gender pay gap is on the list and the
fight for talent within our profession, especially for SMPs. Ainslie and Charlotte.
Welcome to Small firm Big Impact.
Ainslie van Onselen (01:36):
Hi Gill, great to be here.
Charlotte Evett (01:38):
Thanks for having me, Gill It's great to be here.
Gillian Bowen (01:40):
Look, Ainslie, why do we look at what our profession
pays and it's often a taboo topic, a confidential topic?
Ainslie van Onselen (01:49):
Well, I'd probably say it's three reasons. Firstly, for the
individual member, we have about 100 and almost 140,000 members now,
so it's critical for them. And then secondly, our organisational
employers where which, you know, which employ our members. And
then thirdly, I think it's a social issue, a social
equity issue. So if we look at the first, it's
(02:10):
important for individuals to be able to assess their own
personal situation, compare and contrast, if you like, so they
can see, what am I getting paid versus other people
out of my age, my tenure, my gender, the size
of the firm that I belong to, or even the sector,
whether it's private, corporate government, etcetera. And then on the
(02:32):
flipside of that, for our organisational members who are employers
of our members, this data enables them to be able
to see the effectiveness of their own efforts over time,
and particularly obviously as we know, during a tight labor market.
Gillian Bowen (02:46):
Mm hmm.
Ainslie van Onselen (02:47):
And then thirdly, I think it's just a really important
social equity issue. It's important to shine a spotlight on
these issues, such as the gender pay gap and more importantly,
to know what we do with those facts. When we
find issues and challenges of this nature, we can then
work as a profession to develop solutions to address it.
Gillian Bowen (03:05):
Hmm. Look, I want to go through a few of
the insights from the latest ANZ remuneration survey. It's just
been released, Charlotte. What does it tell us about the
median total remuneration in Australia and New Zealand?
Charlotte Evett (03:18):
Well, Gill there was some good news there. Median total REM grew 11%
in both Australia and New Zealand this year, so up
to $150,000 in Australia and nearly $136,000 in New Zealand.
So 11% is a pretty big jump. This really clearly
shows what an attractive proposition a career in the accounting
(03:41):
profession is. Not only is it is it really varied
and interesting work, but it also pays pretty well, which
is important to people as well. I think it's really
important to mention here that this is the median remuneration
across all roles and for membership of all tenures . So
new members right through to members who have been working
for quite a while and not everyone in the profession
(04:02):
is paid the same. So just to give you some examples,
the members who'd been working longer, of course reported higher remuneration.
Those were 15 to 20 years. Tenure reported total remuneration
of over 225,000 in Australia and 170,000 in New Zealand,
and that's up from 182 K and 157 respectively in
each country. And those working in commerce, which is really
(04:25):
a catch all phrase for roles,... roles in an organization
that aren't in an accounting firm or a not for
profit or government. So they reported total median remuneration of
180,000 in Australia and 160,000 in New Zealand, which is
on the higher side. And I guess we could contrast
a contrast that with those working in public practice where
(04:47):
the median earnings were 115,000 around in Australia and 103,000
in New Zealand. So that big headline number covers off
lots of different variances.
Gillian Bowen (04:59):
Hmm. Look, Ainslie, Charlotte mentioned it briefly there, but what
does this growth tell you about a career in accounting?
Ainslie van Onselen (05:06):
Well, I think it reflects the current fight that we have
for talent in a really tight labor market. It's unprecedented, really.
So I think the numbers reflect that. But then, you know,
Charlotte's touched on this. It also shows that accounting is
a really well-paid and really highly valued and trusted profession.
And that's really important, really important for students to see that.
(05:28):
And also, you know, those kids in year eight, year nine ,
year 10 at the moment who are thinking about what kind
of career they want to go down. It's important for
them to say that actually accounting is a really valued profession.
It's very prestigious.
Gillian Bowen (05:39):
Well, Year 12 results, I think are coming out this week.
Ainslie van Onselen (05:42):
So I'd encourage them to really, really think about accounting
as a as a future path forward. We arrange for
executive mentoring for a lot of students, but also students
who are still at universityw Who are deciding what to do.
And when I talk to those students you know I've been
at UTS, UNSW , round the traps, etc.. What I always
say is that accounting brings the three C's. So it's
(06:05):
certainty of income, certainty of lifestyle and certainty of a
place in society. And the reason I say that is
because we're about to go into some rocky territory and
inflation is sky high. We're about to go into uncertain, uncertain,
I guess, economic times. We know the cost of living
is really, really exponentially growing. And I remember as a
(06:28):
country girl in the nineties that my parents had a
farm and they were paying 18% interest rates, 18% on
their on their farm. They almost lost the farm. They didn't,
but they almost did. It was really, really deeply uncomfortable
time for them. And so when I was I witnessed
that I was in a public school, co-ed public school
down south in Western Australia. And when I was looking
(06:48):
at what career I wanted to choose, I could see
the value in a profession because it gave those three
things certainty of income, lifestyle and a place in society.
And so I think that's why you know, this, you know,
I would encourage people to think about that because if
you're going into uncertain times, much worse shape, although it
might sound fun, you know, there's a lot of business
(07:10):
values that happen and insolvency statistics are showing that. But
if you want certainty. Accounting profession is fantastic. It's terrific
for that.
Gillian Bowen (07:19):
Look, Charlotte, let's dive into what the survey reveals on
the gender pay gap. What can we learn there?
Charlotte Evett (07:27):
That's a really good question, Gill. So based on the
average full time remuneration, our survey found that the gender
pay gap in Australia had reduced from 28 to 24%
and in New Zealand from 34 to 30%, so that's
still an uncomfortable truth, as Ainslie described it last year.
But it's certainly heading in the right direction, which we're
(07:48):
thrilled to see. This year we also calculated the gender
pay gap using the respondents median hourly pay thus revealed
a gap in Australia and New Zealand of 19% in
Australia and 23% in New Zealand. So a bit lower,
but still a sizeable gap. So we used median hourly
(08:10):
pay to enable us to draw from a much wider
data dataset and look at remuneration data from casual and
part time employees as well. So these are more often
women and more often relatively lowly paid. So it enabled
to bring us a much greater pool of data to
more fairly reflect the gender pay gap.
Gillian Bowen (08:29):
Mm hmm. Ainslie What's your reaction to this figure then,
this year?
Ainslie van Onselen (08:33):
Well, I think the improvement Gill probably gives me a sense
of hope that the work our profession is doing to
close the gap is showing signs of improvement. But look,
I don't think I'll be celebrating just yet because it's
still a substantial gap, particularly when you compare it to
the OECD average for both those countries. And so that,
(08:54):
to me, you know, is still not acceptable. And we
really still do have a long way to go to
get everyone onto the same page about the seriousness of
the issue. But just noting, you know, it's still a
very highly paid and highly numerated profession for both for both genders.
But it's the gap that I think we can really,
really address. And what was really curious about the findings
(09:16):
here is that the perception between men and women, so
the majority of of women who was surveyed, 70% believe
that there is a gender pay gap, while the majority
of men also 70%, remain skeptical that a gap exists.
Mm hmm. And so when I think about that, I
wonder why is that the case? But then I think
(09:39):
it's because of this. I think when you don't have
a lived experience of something, it's really hard to see it. Right.
So majority of men don't have this lived experience of
a gender pay gap. So they don't really they're not
looking out for it. They don't see it they don't witness it.
They don't viscerally experience it. And you see that in everything,
like casual racism, casual sexism. You know, in this case,
(09:59):
the gender pay gap. Unless it's your lived experience, you're
not going to be acutely aware of it. Mm hmm.
Gillian Bowen (10:04):
And a lot of it ties into as well, I believe,
into understanding how the gender pay gap is measured and
whether or not we're all using the correct or the
same methodology. And it can be quite tricky to get
an understanding of that. Charlotte, how is the gender pay
gap measured in our survey?
Charlotte Evett (10:24):
Well, and our survey, Gill, we use median hourly wage.
So I guess I'll go back to the beginning and
say it's important to highlight that equal pay for equal
work is really different to the gender pay gap. And
I think that's where the misconception comes in for some people.
And back to Ainslie's point she made earlier about different
(10:47):
men and women having different views on whether the gender
pay gap exists. I've actually heard a lot of people say, well.
We pay the same for same the same role. There
is no gender pay gap in our organization.
Ainslie van Onselen (10:58):
That's so true. You know what they really talking about
is equal pay, which I think was, you know, legislated
in the seventies.
Charlotte Evett (11:05):
That's exactly right. Not to say that it doesn't still happen,
that equal pay is not awarded for equal work. But
so I think it's a misunderstanding. There are many people saying, well, no,
there is no gender pay gap because we pay the
same for the same roles. Although, as an aside, our
survey did find right from the very, very beginning of
(11:26):
an individual's working career, a gender pay gap exists right
from year one. So... go figure that. So what the
gender pay gap is in the way we've calculated it is
actually the difference in the average earnings of men and
women across all roles in a workforce. So that's, you know,
right from your most junior person to your most senior person,
(11:47):
you can cut it different ways. So you can measure
the gender pay gap for an organization, for an industry
or for a workforce or even for a country. So,
for example, in Australia, I believe the national gender pay
gap is 14.1%. And in New Zealand it's around 9.2%,
so what it actually measures is the pay difference between
(12:08):
all women and all men, regardless of their role, how
long they've been working there, where they're located all those
other differentiating factors. And for us we calculated the gender
pay gap across all members of all members that responded
to our survey of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.
So across the profession.
Ainslie van Onselen (12:30):
So we had an unprecedented amount this year too , didn't we?
Charlotte I think.
Charlotte Evett (12:33):
We had a fantastic response this year. Ainslie We had
almost 8000 members respond, which is a really significant number
in terms of our survey, and it just, just shows
how robust our data is. So yeah, but back to
I guess there are a range of different ways that
the gender pay gap can be calculated. There's no , or
(12:54):
there is best practice, but there, there is not just one way.
This year we aligned to the statistics New Zealand methodology,
so that uses median rather than average wages. So that's
a small but important difference because median is the preferred
metric when a dataset has outliers. So a small number
(13:17):
of very, very high earners, for example, which we definitely
have in the accounting profession. So that can skew the
overall result. So but, but it is an evolving field.
But yeah.
Gillian Bowen (13:28):
So now we've got an understanding of the sort of
data that's in the survey. We've got the results. We've
got an understanding on how it is that we've measured
it all together. I want to bring you back now
to what it is that chartered accountants is doing in
this space. And what it is that we're doing to help SMPs
work out and understand why it matters and what it
is that they can do to fix it? Ainslie What
(13:50):
is CA ANZ doing?
Ainslie van Onselen (13:52):
So Gill, great question. We're doing two things primarily. So
one is advocacy and the other is education. Now, advocacy,
it's part of our charter that Chartered Accountants Australia and
New Zealand advocates for the public good so that we're
not a lobbyist or an advocate for the public good.
And so this really does form part of that advocacy, right?
(14:14):
In terms of female workforce participation, whether it's on a
country scale or whether it's on a specific professional scale,
as this particular remuneration survey looks at. So that's what
we're doing a lot of in this space. I was
very fortunate to be invited to Prime Minister Albanese's jobs
summit earlier this year, where diversity and female participation in
(14:38):
particular was really just part of almost every single conversation
and every single topic that was on the agenda for
the two days. So we're very much in the thick
of that and advocating specifically more broadly in media at
the jobs summit, as I said, but also specifically in
our assets such as acuity, our social media access, etc..
(15:00):
We're very much in those spaces as well. We're also doing
a lot of specific advocacy as well. And I'll just
give you an example. So. So one is on the
superannuation cap. We are leading the charge in this space
in Australia in advocating for a lifetime cap on your
superannuation contribution rather than what's in place at the moment,
(15:21):
which is your annual superannuation cap of $25,000 per year.
And why we're doing that is because it actively works
against women who have, for example, myself, who've taken sort
of seven years out of their profession, so not working
full time during that time. And so therefore not either
paying any super at all or very limited super. And
(15:43):
so then after and it's called the motherhood penalty, right? So
basically there's a sort of pattern. KPMG did a great
study on this, which shows that women when they've got
children under seven generally wait until their children are seven
or older. The youngest child is seven or older and
therefore able to go into the school gates themselves and
(16:04):
therefore not as relying on sort of the parent being
at home and having to walk them through the school gate.
They then go back onto either full time work or
more active participation in the workforce. So then you've got
these seven lost years where you weren't paying any super
and you can't make it up because you're still stuck.
So you now on a higher income, you now back
earning in the sing it, the swing of things accelerating
(16:25):
your career and you can't catch up on your super
because your annual cap is 25,000. You actively disincentivized from
doing that. So we're really advocating in that space. And
then finally, on gender pay gap, specifically, we've got a
great toolkit, great resource for SMPs and for all employers,
which is the gender pay gap playbook, which is a
really educative approach and how you can reduce the gender
(16:47):
pay gap in your particular environment, whether that is a
small firm, an entrepreneurial firm, a small accounting practice or big,
or if you want to learn from what the Big
Four are doing we've given case studies in the in the
pay gap playbook toolkit, which is on our website. And
you can see all of those. And there's also no
(17:09):
one silver bullet. Every firm has a different approach. And
so we outline all these different approaches and you can
kind of pluck... if you're an SMP, you can pluck what you think might
work for you and your organisation. And the reason why
I think, you know, one of the other questions you
asked was why is that important for SMP? Well, it's
really important because they all fighting for the same talent
(17:30):
as the big end of town, right? So and the
big end of town actively. I've chatted to members down
at Melbourne who are in public practice and they're actively
their talent, particularly that five or six year out mark
through which are highly sought after, who have not only
done their CA, then they've got years on the ground practice,
(17:50):
but under their belt they're being actively poached from the
small and medium sized firms. So if that's happening and,
you know, and often poached because of, you know, high
remuneration sometimes, but it's not just about REM. So fighting
for if you're seen as an organisation to be actively one
aware of this issue, do a gender pay gap audit
(18:11):
and we show you how to do that in the
toolkit and then show and visibly show to your people
what you're doing to address it, acknowledge there's an issue.
If there's an issue, normally there is, and then go
about looking like you're doing all the steps you need
to do to try and improve it, and that will
get you great brownie points with your people, particularly your
(18:32):
female employees. When they say that you actually, you know,
actively trying to champion and address this issue.
Gillian Bowen (18:38):
I'll put a link to the gender play book in
the show notes, and it's got specifics in there about
how to conduct a gender pay gap analysis, to consider
the causes of it, to build a business case for
closing it, for developing some actions to then do that.
And it explains in detail how to go about embedding
diversity and change in the culture of your workplace. So
(19:01):
check out that link. It's in the show notes and
don't miss it and read up there. Charlotte I wanted
to move on then to what our members think about
the gender pay gap, because we did ask them that too,
didn't we?
Charlotte Evett (19:11):
We absolutely did go. And just before we do that,
can I just mention another plug for our playbook? And
in addition to what Ainslie mentioned, doing the the gender
pay gap analysis, etc., you actually to embed it in
your organisation, you actually need to start and we say
this in the playbook with having some discussion, you know,
(19:33):
make it an agenda item at your board and your
executive level meetings and actually really discuss it and like
you said, show that you're actually taking concrete action off
the basis of doing the analysis. So is one thing
doing the analysis that certainly draws attention to the issue,
but actually doing something about it is so incredibly important.
(19:56):
And there might be things like, you know, publishing pay
for certain roles or really actually when there are promotions
that are up for grabs, you find a lot of
men will jump at them and a lot of women
will sit back and say, actually, I'm not I'm not
sure I'm not quite ready. You know, 100 reasons why
they wouldn't apply. So actually seek out those employees and
(20:18):
tap them on the shoulder and have a chat to
them and encourage them actively to go for for those promotions.
But the playbook has lots of concrete examples that you
can use to help to embed real diversity into your
your work. But back to your question, Gill, what do
our members think about the gender pay gap? That's a
(20:38):
good and interesting question. And they certainly spoke to us
loud and clear. So eight out of ten of all
the respondents said to us that they think it's really
important for CA ANZ to help address the gender pay gap which is fantastic,
a fantastic endorsement of the really important work that we're
doing in the space. What I would say there the
(21:01):
the operative word is CA ANZ to help address the gender
pay gap, because it's not something we can do on
our own. We're doing some great work. Our survey highlights
that there is a gender pay gap. We're sort of
shining a light on it and we're opening up that discussion.
But change needs to come from everyone within the profession.
(21:22):
It needs to come from individual members and it needs
to come from organizations as well so we can be
the catalyst for the change if you like. But we
need all of our members to to step up and
get on board.
Gillian Bowen (21:36):
So I want to play you some snippets from an
interview with the Vice president of Chartered Accountants, ANZ Tinashe Kamangira FCA .
He's a director at Deloitte Australia and we've asked him
about career breaks and helping his young son and helping
him take care of his young son.
Tinashe Kamangira (21:52):
Really fortunate. Deloitte has a generous parental leave policy. I had
up to 36 months for each child. I was able
to use 18 weeks, so I decided to take it flexibly.
So I didn't take it the first year. And it
was partly a discussion between my partner and I because
(22:13):
it was kind of like she was going to be
home anyway for the first year. And then when she
wanted to go back to work, it meant that because
we've got some family support, if I took a day,
she worked sort of two days or two and a half,
and we had her parents look after my son as well.
So there was no daycare. So he hasn't ...he's two
(22:33):
years old and hasn't been to daycare and unlikely to
go to daycare even next year because because of the
arrangement that we have. So, yeah, it means I get
to spend more time with him. I don't think many
people had used the parental leave the way I was
going to use it, which is one day a week
and was supportive. I think I think supportive in a
(22:54):
lot of ways, partly because I guess there was still
the connection to work. So I was really fortunate having
the flexibility to use it over a period of time,
and I actually really enjoyed it. You know, I come
back into the office on a Tuesday, on a Wednesday,
and I'm like, Oh, I'm here for some time off.
But I think for me personally, it gave me a
(23:15):
a different appreciation to what it's like to be a
primary carer, right? So in because I've got I had
him every Tuesday for a long period of time so
you know, I had him on the weekends too. Right. But
I had him just to myself on Tuesdays so Yeah. Gave
me a good appreciation to what, what it's like to
(23:36):
be the sole parent.
Gillian Bowen (23:38):
And I just wanted to play one more part where
you can listen to how his team reacted to what
it was that he was doing with this arrangement.
Tinashe Kamangira (23:46):
I actually think it's good for them to see people
in leadership positions, not just talk the talk, but walk
the talk. Because quite often in organizations you have policies
and you know, procedures and, you know, no one really
takes uses it a particular way. But when they see, yeah, leaders
(24:07):
actually taking the parental leave, I guess it gets them
to think that they can or know that they can
take it too and not feel like it's odd. I'm
a bit scared to take it. I shouldn't ask. But yeah,
because I'm taking it. It's anyone should be able to
take it to.
Gillian Bowen (24:24):
And he goes on to say some amazing things about
the impact that it had on his family life.
Tinashe Kamangira (24:33):
I asked the boss this and she said she said
she thinks it's made a fundamental difference to not just
the family life, but relationship as well. Relationship with my son. Relationship with,
my partner too. So, yeah, it's made it's made made
a huge difference, which is why I said whatever happens
(24:54):
in terms of career or whatever, I would never take
it back. And I plan on actually doing this for
a long time, too. So yeah, just it's, it's been really,
really good.
Gillian Bowen (25:06):
Ainsley, what did you think? Listening and hearing all of that.
Ainslie van Onselen (25:11):
I thought it was just beautiful when I was running
Inclusion and Diversity in women's markets at Westpac, that was
one of the things that we really struggled with is
exactly to his point, we had these policies and procedures
in place but we really needed men to be actually
taking that parental leave and caring leave that we had
(25:33):
provided for some time. And exactly what he said in
terms of being visible as a senior leader. It's amazing the
shadow impact in a positive way that that provides to
your teams and people around you. We often hear sort
of in the female gender lens sense, you can't be what
you can't see, you can't be what you can't see.
(25:56):
And I think that is the same for men taking
parental leave, right? If other men, particularly junior men, don't
see their senior male leaders and colleagues taking parental leave,
then how can they feel comfortable doing it themselves? It's
going to be that stigma attached to it. So it
was just really I actually my heart just sang listening
and hearing what Tinashe had to say. And I also
(26:19):
actually really agree with his point on the impact on
family life in terms of improving the relationship not only
with your child, but also with your partner. That was
the same with us. We were very fortunate Pete and I in terms
of having similar type arrangements where we were both carers
of our young children and he did as many nappy
changes as I did and as many, you know, mashed
(26:42):
up carrots as I did and everything else. And you
can see it to this day with our girls now
14 and 16, that beautiful bond that they have with
their father and will always have because of that really
special time that he's had and continued to have with
them ever since. So I don't think that they just
cannot be underestimated. And the more you get this groundswell
of men taking parental leave, the more it will become
(27:05):
normative like we've seen in other countries around the world.
Gillian Bowen (27:09):
It's interesting, yeah, that the conversation there about challenging the norms,
challenging what we think. Charlotte. What did you think about that?
What do you think about career breaks?
Charlotte Evett (27:19):
Now I've taken three career breaks myself and worked sort
of in a range of part and full time roles
since I had my children, which was my eldest daughter
is 18 years old now. I think they are so
important if that's something that's important to you. And I
really enjoyed listening to what Tinashe had to say. I remember
(27:44):
when I had my oldest daughter, I was working at
an investment bank in London, and I remember having one
of the women's sessions that they ran there and hearing one
of the senior leaders talk about career breaks. And she
said she had had two children for her first child
she took, I think, three months. And her lesson from
(28:07):
that was that it's very important to take a career break,
but maybe don't take one as extravagant and as long
as that, maybe a couple of weeks, but definitely take one.
And I can remember being quite shocked and...
Gillian Bowen (28:20):
if people could have seen my face.
Charlotte Evett (28:23):
Well, I guess it was a different time.
Gillian Bowen (28:25):
It was... a different industry.
Charlotte Evett (28:28):
But yeah, I, I mean, if it's important to you,
you should definitely do it. And we love that the
times that we're in now have changed a lot since
my experience 18 years ago. But it wasn't so much.
And for me again, in terms of career progression and
the race, I guess it wasn't so much career progression,
(28:48):
it wasn't so much taking a career break that affected
my career progression, but it was more working part time.
And I think that's something that, again, that is changing now. So. Hmm.
Gillian Bowen (29:02):
And so did you have something else you wanted to
say on that?
Ainslie van Onselen (29:06):
Well, I had a career break as well as I
sort of probably mentioned before, so. And it's interesting because
similar to Charlotte, I had some pretty interesting experiences. Like
I was the only female partner at the law firm
that I was at. And I had a really large
jury trial coming up. It's a matter that I'd worked
on a particular piece of litigation that I'd worked on
(29:28):
with the client for over. Gosh, it was about eight
years at that point. So I was really keen to
be there at trial, I'd lived and breathed that case. So I offered to
my partners, my fellow partners, when my daughter was only
six months, that I would be able to come back
part time in that last 6 to 12 months and
work on the trial. I specifically wanted to do that
(29:50):
particular matter, and then I'd like to sort of probably
come back in a part time or full time. I
wasn't really sure at that 12 month mark and I
was statutory, entitled to have 12 months off completely, but
they just weren't prepared to do the flexibility. So they said, No, no,
we want you to come back. If you come back
at all, we want you to come back full time.
But my daughter's only six months and that was kind
(30:11):
of unacceptable to me. So I actually ended up setting
up my own practice, my own small, medium sized practice.
So I have lived experience of what that's like from
doing all your own finances and not having that support
around you. It's really hard to find the time to
do both your billable hours and also your business admin.
But in the end it was actually the best thing
that ever happened to me. Gill I tell you, because well,
(30:33):
when I was a salaried partner at that previous partnership,
but this meant I actually got to eat what I killed.
And so I actually was earning more money even though
I was working part time. The irony. And secondly, I
also did my masters while my kids were little and
while I had this practice that I was running. And
the reason why I mention that is because there's proven
studies to show that if you do postgraduate study as
(30:56):
a woman, as a female, you'll actually get about 16
to 20% higher income as a result. Now, the benefit
of my masters I did in applied finance because I
found that kind of thing interesting, was that when it
did come, time for my kids were seven, my youngest
was seven. To have a look about what I wanted
to do it was either go back into full time law as
(31:16):
a partner and I was talking to some firms at
that point or do something completely different, and I decided
to go with management at one of the big four banks.
And if I hadn't done that Masters, I wouldn't have
had the skill set around to really probably have taken
the amazing opportunity that I did, which then, you know,
led me to being able to be considered to be
CEO of this amazing organisation, Chartered Accountants.
Gillian Bowen (31:40):
I love understanding. Go ahead Charlotte .
Charlotte Evett (31:41):
Sorry Gill I was just going to say so, Ainslie what
I learnt from what you just said is you just
backed yourself and put what was important first for you
and it paid off.
Ainslie van Onselen (31:52):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've been reading and writing about
diversity in professions for a long, long time, and I
remember being as a baby lawyer in my twenties. His
female barista explained to me what it felt like going
from being in a law firm to being a barista.
And she said it felt like jumping off a cliff.
But there was a trampoline at the bottom, and I
remember those words so distinctly when I was looking at
(32:14):
creating my own small business to go, Okay, it's going
to feel like jumping off a cliff. And it did.
And it was very scary. But gosh, I had a
soft landing and yeah, you do. You just have to
back yourself.
Gillian Bowen (32:25):
Mhm. I feel like this ties in well then as
well Ainslie because you're mentioning about how you wanted the
conditions in your own work environment to be correct for
what you valued and what you needed. And that takes
me then to the part of the survey where employers
are considering and employees are considering more than money and
(32:46):
some listening long may scoff at that because everyone needs money.
Everyone wants money. But Charlotte, the survey did find out
some interesting points on other non remuneration based employee benefits.
What did it discover?
Charlotte Evett (32:59):
Well, in short, workplace flexibility, which I don't think will
be a surprise to anyone , was was at the
top with 73% of respondents saying that they really, really
valued workplace flexibility. And I think to that I would
say not workplace flexibility now when you provide it, it
(33:20):
has to be genuine, flexible, genuinely flexible. Everybody provides an
element of flexibility. But as an employer, to set yourself apart,
if you want to attract your top talent in this
tight labour market, it needs to be genuinely flexible, not
just lip service. Second, and interesting, but not surprising at
all is the quality of leadership. So 64% or almost
(33:42):
two thirds of people said that to them the quality
of leadership was really important. And when you think about it,
we spend a lot of our days, a lot of
our weeks, a lot of our years with with our leaders.
And they say you have sort of you're influenced a
lot by them, the five people you spend the most time around.
So having really great quality, genuine leadership that really shows
(34:05):
that they care about you. And that clear and all
those other important factors is very, very important. And then 62%.
But I mean, you could almost say they were all
pretty equally important was meaningful work. And again, that will
come as no surprise to anyone. We all like to
feel that what we're doing makes a difference and it's
meaningful that it interests us. So workplace flexibility, quality of leadership,
(34:30):
meaningful work.
Gillian Bowen (34:31):
And Ainslie I feel then that could tie in nicely
with what SMPs can offer future workers. And this ties
in nicely as well with that skills shortage and with
attracting and keeping employers employees and not having them be poached.
What do we know about that aspect?
Ainslie van Onselen (34:48):
Well, it it's to Charlotte's point really, Gill, that if
you provide flexibility and choice in that flexibility so have flex
in flex, I say not inflexible flex working, you'll be
able to retain and attract your talent. And particularly retention
is key in these in this particular market. And the
(35:10):
survey showed that, you know, for those mid-career employees so
that 30 to 49 year old bracket, that's where flexibility
was really critical for them. And it's no surprise that
our data at Chartered Accountants shows that women leave the
profession earlier than men. And often that's because they're just getting
that of they're being left behind because they're not going
(35:30):
through those senior ranks. A lot of this gender pay
gap is caused by women not being at that really
pinnacle senior ranks of the profession or in corporate. And,
you know, if if women sort of lose hope that
they're not being treated fairly in the workplace and not
being and not having transparent access to data, then that's
what they will do. They'll make their choices and go elsewhere.
(35:52):
You know, we've got the Tech Council of Australia really
beating a drum pretty loudly to say, well, we have
we don't really have as much of a gender pay
gap as other professions and we've got all these great,
great jobs. So come and come to us. So it's
not like the profession should be ignoring this, that they're
really at risk of losing their talent, not just to
other accounting professions, but to other industries and other other associations.
(36:16):
So we really need to be looking at it from
that perspective. You know, interesting, I think our younger employees,
they're looking more for those prioritized career pathway opportunities.They like
being back in the office in many respects because they get
that one on one mentoring where it's those with young families
that really need to be able to balance that work
life kind of aspect where flexibility is key. And if
(36:37):
you can keep your workforce engaged, allow them to work
the way that they work. So rather than being based
on presenteeism and bums on stage, really look at actually
output and productivity and teaching your leaders how to do that,
how to lead based on output and productivity rather than
whether you can see people and that's what you that's
(36:57):
the benefit of COVID. One of the great things with
COVID is it's changed our understanding of where and how
you can work totally, fundamentally transformed it. So and flexibility,
we know from the survey was much more highly rated
by women than men. So again, if you want to
retain and attract your best talent, which includes your female
(37:18):
talent and not lose them either to under productivity or
underutilisation in the workforce or to other firms, then put
your put your listening ears on and hear how they want to work.
Gillian Bowen (37:32):
Hmm. Charlotte, we're almost out of time. Is there is
there any final piece of advice that you'd like to
give to an SMP who really needs staff or staff with
the right expertise or they worry they want to keep
their expert staff from leaving. Any final pieces of advice
before we wrap up?
Charlotte Evett (37:46):
We. Well, one little thing, Gill, we had one of
the firms we interviewed for the gender pay gap playbook
or a case study, if you like. And they tried
they'd really struggled to find employees they were a small
firm in the north island of New Zealand, a rural area.
They cut their working day to a down to a
six hour work day, so employees only had to be
(38:08):
at work from nine till three. Their productivity went through
the roof as opposed to not being able to find
talent or employees. They now have a waitlist and, you know,
they're lauded as an example of a really progressive accounting firm.
So I think outside the box, be flexible. Be really,
truly flexible would be my tip. I love.
Gillian Bowen (38:29):
That idea. We've covered so much there's still heaps of
the survey that we haven't covered. There's so many elements
in there to talk about. It's been a jam packed
episode three. If you want to see the full CA ANZ
remuneration survey, it's on our website in our Diversity Equity
and Inclusion Hub. I'll put a link to it so
it's easy to find in the show notes and you
can find our gender pay gap playbook for SMPs there
(38:51):
as well that we've talked a lot about this episode.
Please rate and review the pod and share with your fellow
CAs and your clients too. And the podcast has an email,
so feel free to get in touch podcast @ chartered accountants
ANZ dot com. Let's start a conversation. Thank you to Tinashe
for sharing his story and also Ainslie van Onselen and Charlotte Evett for
(39:11):
letting me pick your brains on Small Firm Big Impact.
Ainslie van Onselen (39:15):
Thanks, Gill. Great to be here. Any time.
Charlotte Evett (39:17):
Thanks, Gill. That was really enjoyable.
Gillian Bowen (39:19):
Bye bye.
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