Latest / Best of Business / Louise Upston: Acting Minister for Women on the Government's new scheme to reduce the gender pay gap

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Louise Upston: Acting Minister for Women on the Government's new scheme to reduce the gender pay gap · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Now, the governments announced it's planning to bring involuntary reporting
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  Speaker 2: of companies gender pay gaps. The gender pay gap is
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  Speaker 2: currently eight point six percent in the Ministry for Women
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  Speaker 2: will work on a way to help businesses calculate their
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  Speaker 2: pay gaps. Louise Upston is the acting Minister for Women
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  Speaker 2: and with us now, Hey Louise, Hey doing Heather very well,
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  Speaker 2: thank you. So what order is this going to be.
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  Speaker 2: Is it going to be public reporting of the pay
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  Speaker 2: gap or is it just going to be reporting it
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  Speaker 2: privately to the Ministry for Women.
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  Speaker 3: No, So this is basically developing a tool that men's
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  Speaker 3: business are able to calculate their own gender pay gap.
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  Speaker 3: What we know is that the first understand what the
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  Speaker 3: gap is and then each business can develop a plan
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  Speaker 3: for how to reduce it. So the first part is
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  Speaker 3: making sure that there's a consistent fool that businesses can use.
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  Speaker 2: Right and so when that tool is will it be
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  Speaker 2: publicly reported or just reported privately to the government agency.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it won't be reported to the government agency. It's
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  Speaker 3: for businesses to use themselves.
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  Speaker 2: Reported themselves if they want to.
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  Speaker 3: That's right. So we do know for Champions to Change organizations,
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  Speaker 3: they are already participating in a process where they are
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  Speaker 3: looking at their gender pay gap. Some businesses are reporting
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  Speaker 3: it publicly. What we want the focus to be on
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  Speaker 3: is businesses have a tool that is consistent and simple
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  Speaker 3: to use where they can measure their own gender pay
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  Speaker 3: gap and then they can develop a plan to reduce
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  Speaker 3: the gap in their workforce. We think this is a
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  Speaker 3: really important first step. So businesses can take those steps
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  Speaker 3: and we can see the gender pay gap reduce.
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  Speaker 2: Don't these tools already exist?
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  Speaker 3: Some of them do what we do know we've learned
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  Speaker 3: from the example in Australia be incredibly complicated. And what
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  Speaker 3: we do want to do is make sure it's as
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  Speaker 3: easy as possible for businesses to measure the ender pay gap.
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  Speaker 2: Which is why I mean, we're not the first people
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  Speaker 2: in the world to be doing this, right, this is
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  Speaker 2: done all over the world. It's already been done by
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  Speaker 2: some businesses in New Zealand. So why don't we just
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  Speaker 2: use the tool they've already got.
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  Speaker 3: Well, there's some level of concern around the tool that's
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  Speaker 3: being used, so we want to make sure we've got
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  Speaker 3: a simple one that is effective. What we don't want
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  Speaker 3: to do is have a very expensive regulatory system like
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  Speaker 3: they have in Australia. The costs about ten billion dollars.
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  Speaker 3: They have a separate regulator and every business over a
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  Speaker 3: particular size has to report. We want a practical tool
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  Speaker 3: that we're developing with business that other businesses will then
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  Speaker 3: pick up a new So.
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  Speaker 2: It's not as simple as saying you've got one hundred
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  Speaker 2: and twenty women and on average they get paid X,
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  Speaker 2: and you've got one hundred and twenty men in the
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  Speaker 2: business on average get paid a bigger X. It doesn't
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  Speaker 2: work like that. You don't just add them together and
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  Speaker 2: divide it by the number.
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  Speaker 3: No, because if you think about part time employment and
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  Speaker 3: you think about bonuses, you think about are we calculating
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  Speaker 3: mean average or media and so it is about But
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  Speaker 3: what we do want to make sure we're doing is
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  Speaker 3: being able to calculate it consistently and have a tool
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  Speaker 3: that businesses can be confident about. And also if you
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  Speaker 3: are if you are a potential employee looking at going
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  Speaker 3: to work for an organization and they publish their gender
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  Speaker 3: pay gap, you want to have confidence that that information
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  Speaker 3: is accurate.
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  Speaker 2: Louise, I'll tell you what my problem with the gender
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  Speaker 2: pay gap is. You could tell me how we fix
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  Speaker 2: the situation. Okay, let's look at the business that I
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  Speaker 2: work for. The two highest earners in this business I
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  Speaker 2: would take a punt, would be the CEO bloke and
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  Speaker 2: Mike Costing bloke. Now, that would skew things like that's
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  Speaker 2: going to skew things massively in the male favor. But
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  Speaker 2: it's not. That doesn't that's not unfair because Mike Hosking
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  Speaker 2: is in that position regardless of whether he's a bloke,
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  Speaker 2: because he is just the best at that job, and
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  Speaker 2: the CEO just happens to be a bloke, could be
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  Speaker 2: a lady, but this time it's a bloke. So how
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  Speaker 2: do you get around that where you've got some very
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  Speaker 2: prominent high owners who will skew things and make it
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  Speaker 2: look like there's a gender pay gap when perhaps if
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  Speaker 2: you come down a level, there's no gender pay gap.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. So what some sectors are doing that are much
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  Speaker 3: further down this track than others is they are able
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  Speaker 3: to look at their data and assess what's the gender
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  Speaker 3: pay gap in the senior leadership team, what's the gender
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  Speaker 3: pay gap at the operational level of the business. What
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  Speaker 3: is the gender pay gap in Auckland. So they are
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  Speaker 3: able to analyze their data in a range of different
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  Speaker 3: ways that can lead to meaningful actions that they then
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  Speaker 3: take to reduce the gender pay gap. So they're taking
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  Speaker 3: it in consideration some of those things, absolutely, and it's
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  Speaker 3: got to be meaningful and it's got to leave to
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  Speaker 3: options a business can take to lead to change that
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  Speaker 3: reduces the gender pay gap, because that's the end goal here.
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  Speaker 3: We want to reduce the gender pay gap.
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  Speaker 2: Luis, thank you so much. Appreciated that this is Louise Upstin,
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  Speaker 2: acting Minister for Women. I'll tell you what, it's a
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  Speaker 2: good thing that they're not going through with it making
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  Speaker 2: it compulsory, right, because that is just red tape all
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  Speaker 2: over the shop when David Seen was doing such an
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  Speaker 2: admirable job at the moment of cutting the old red tape.
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