Cathy Hendry: Strategic Pay managing director on the results from the latest Directors' Fees Survey

Strategic Pay's latest Directors' Fees Survey has uncovered an unexpected trend in the nation's private sector boardrooms.

The data shows women are out-earning their male counterparts - despite still being somewhat under-represented.

Strategic Pay managing director Cathy Hendry says this is 'surprising' - but it's still good to see.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We need to talk about the gender pay gap, and no,
not in the way that you think we're about to
talk about the gender pay gap. In a surprise to us,
the latest survey of New Zealand company directors shows that
female directors are in fact earning more than their male counterparts.
Kathy Hendry is Strategic pays Managing Director. They've done the
survey and is with us. Now, Hey, Kathy, hi, there
were you surprised by this?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Ah, yeah, we were surprised.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Yes, we're earning more.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it was off. It does
off a backdrop of sort of quite an underrepresentation, so
you know, but it's good to see in the private
sector at least that you know, they are earning bit more.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah, I was kind of surprised that at least one
of the categories, female non executive directors rather than chairs
obviously earned seventeen percent more in their fees. How on
is what's going on?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Right? Well, so when we actually looked at it, it's
to do with where the which sort of boards the
woman as sent on. So what we're seeing it's quite
a small sample around just sort of over three hundred
or three hundred ninety two directorships, And what we're seeing
is that while the women aren't making up much of
a much of the sample, they're sitting on the large

(01:16):
more likely to be sitting on the large listed orcs,
and that they pay a lot more. And so that's
actually what's driving those gaps that we're seeing.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, okay, is this actually what we want? Like do
we actually want do we want women to be paid
significantly more than men or do we actually want it
to end up kind of roughly the same?

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, they're going to be a game, Yeah, we do.
We want them We want fear paid, don't. We want
to see male and females being paid fairly for the
work we're doing. And so I think in this instance, though,
what we're seeing is when they're sitting on the board
with their male counterparts are getting paid the same. But
it's more when you look across the whole sampole of

(01:55):
directors and where the women are sitting compared to the
whole sampole of directors across board businesses, that's when we've
seen that gap, right.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Okay, But yeah, so I mean this just proves, doesn't
this show up the fact that we are really not
comparing apples with apples in whether we're whether we're comparing
it in order to show that women are being paid more,
or comparing it to show that women are being paid
less stats Telfords, don't they.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Oh, I know, I mean I don't think so. You know,
when we actually look at and when you look at
pay gaps across we've got a really large database and
when we look we can see, you know, similar size roles,
and we can see gaps between male and female pay
there as well. So when you are looking apples for apples, yes,

(02:42):
the big headlines in this instance, we're looking across the
whole sample. But you know, and so that that's going
to be giving us more dramatic gap, which is, you know,
which is newsworthy. But you know, when you actually start
breaking it down and looking at the sun pools, you
know you're still seeing time and time again that women

(03:04):
are getting paid less than their male counterparts.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
But aren't these women on these listed companies being paid
the same as their male counterparts on the listed companies?

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yes they are, Yes, are not.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Being paid the same.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
So the woman that so, I suppose the first question
is why we only seek such a really small proportion
of women getting into these larger listed orcs. Why you know,
why are we only seeing sort of one or two
represented on large listed boards versus their male counterparts when
we've got you know, equal representation of women and men

(03:39):
and and you know being born and entering into the
workforce and also women being are actually in New Zealand
are actually often more more likely to be better educated.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Than what do you think it is?

Speaker 2 (03:54):
I think I think the issue is is that we're
just not seeing the same representation at senior levels either. Yeah,
and so it's what it's flowing through.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
I mean it's still the case, Kathy, or is it changing?

Speaker 2 (04:09):
That's changing? It is changing. Yeah, it's brilliant to say.
I mean even in the director's sample, like back in
twenty fourteen, you know, women only made up fourteen percent
of chairs in the sample and now they're up at
twenty eight.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Well, can I answer that question for you?

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Then?

Speaker 1 (04:24):
Maybe is it possible that the reason that we have
such such small representation of women on these these very
very in these very very senior levels on boards is
because we haven't for a long time seen women represented
at the executive levels of businesses, right, and so you
have to give women some years to get some experience
there in order to then feed through to the board level.
So it will happen. We just need to give it

(04:45):
a bit of till.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
It will happen. Corrects correct, Yeah, absolutely, And I mean
the positives here is that you're seeing when they are
getting on the boards, they are getting into these larger
listed orcs too, which is great.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Kathy, Thank you. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much,
Kathy hen managing director at Strategic Page.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
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