In our industry, and in our practice, men hold more senior leadership positions than women. Forces that contribute to this include a lack of female role models, having children, part-time work and unconscious bias.
Where can we make the most impact?
We have already ensured that more than 50% of our student and graduate hires are women. At our highest executive level, we have also achieved 50% Architectus representation on our board and management groups.
Where our ‘gap’ widens is in roles ranging from middle management and senior management – often a key period for raising young families, a role that still largely lives with women. The data shows us that our parental policy is our most valuable tool in closing the gender pay gap – something our firm has already invested $5.8million in since 2018 (for further detail, please see our WGEA statement here.)
Our research initiative will uncover the lived experience of our policies and return to work practices, to help us identify better ways to support and retain women with young families.
Our research question is: How do our current parental leave policies, including return to work practices, impact the experience of men and women who return to work after an extended period of parental leave?
When we look at our data, of the 122 people who accessed our 16-week paid parental leave benefit, more than 64% were female. When we look at our team who work in a part-time capacity, 70% are female. Our data shows retention is higher amongst staff that have taken one round of parental leave, but plummets after two rounds. This has prompted us to ask more questions.
We know we can only close the pay gap when we have gender balance across our senior roles. We believe a tailored and effective Parental Leave Policy is one way we can seek to retain and grow our women leaders. We look forward to sharing the results of our research with you.
