9 January 2006

Eliminating Gender Bias at Work

The Department of Labour and Standards New Zealand will develop a Standard for Gender inclusive job evaluation. The Standard will support and promote gender equity in relation to job evaluations. It will also assist the areas of performance pay and and market factors in remuneration.

The Pay and Employment Equity Unit of the Department of Labour (DoL) was established as part of an over-arching Government strategy to ensure employment and remuneration is free of gender bias. This unit is tasked with the strategic leadership of the development of tools and guidelines to provide for gender inclusivity in job evaluation and pay setting.

Currently a gender neutral job evaluation tool is being developed by DoL in conjunction with specialist job evaluation consultancy Mercer (formerly Wyatt Watson) and Top Drawer (equity specialist consultancy). The tool is planned to be available for use in early 2006. The factors and weightings have been designed to facilitate full recognition of work factors, including sometimes overlooked elements of female-dominated occupations.

DoL now wishes to develop a voluntary New Zealand Standard as a “how to” with regard to gender inclusive job evaluation and will enable assessment of conformance with the tools and provide assistance with designing and implementing a fair and transparent job evaluation process.

It is anticipated that the users of the Standard will be employers, private job evaluation services and systems, human resource management practitioners, equity experts and unions.

‘This is a fascinating and often misunderstood aspect of Human Resource Management,’ says Lisa Tipping, GM Business Relationships at Standards.

The Aim

To provide general information, recommendations and procedures which will support and promote gender equity in relation to job evaluations.

Wider goal

This resource is intended to also assist in the area of performance pay and the recognition of market factors in remuneration.

Current status

An expert committee has been constituted with members from private job evaluation services and systems providers, equity experts, unions, Business NZ, HR Institute, DoL and State Services employers.

The committee will produce a New Zealand Standard entitled NZS 8007:2006 Gender inclusive job evaluation, which is expected to be published by next December.

Overseas

Almost thirty years after the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act in Britain, women hold fewer than one in ten of the top positions in the 100 largest publicly traded companies, the police and the judiciary and
only 18 percent of Members of Parliament are female, according to the Equal Opportunities Commission(EOC). The gender pay gap is also contributing to the shortfall in women’s retirement income, which is just 57 percent of men’s, according to the EOC.

In the United States, just 71 of the Fortune 500 firms include gender identity and expression in their policies. This is changing, though – Raytheon, one of the ‘Big Six’ defence contractors, expanded its equal
opportunity employment policy in June 2005 to include transgender and transsexual workers, becoming the first of the six big defence firms to do so. Quoted in the Boston Globe, Raytheon’s Chief Diversity Officer Hayward Bell said:

‘’This will allow people to be who they are, and not have to hide it. It’s also our way of saying that we recognise that these differences exist, and we are looking for your talent and what you can contribute.”

Contact Us

For more information contact Michelle Wessing, Senior Project Manager: 04 498 3957 email: michelle.wessing@standards.co.nz