100 Days for Change

The overarching aim of the 100 Days for Change project is to empower and motivate individuals and organisations, across a range of industries and sectors, to make all kinds of large and small scale changes to improve gender equity at all levels.

The WLA is asking individuals and organisations to announce and celebrate the changes they are making in order to publicly demonstrate mainstream Australia’s appetite for change. These changes are being recorded on the WLA 100 Days for Change website.

Some of the initiatives that have been posted on the 100 Days for Change website so far:

Esyltt Graham from Chiropractic First has organised an event at a local high school to speak about gender equality in small business and how women can successfully combine family, parenting and being a business owner.

Sharon Pask the CFO at Toyota Frankston has pledged to increase their workforce to 40 per cent female employees by 2020.

Quinn Cramer from Women and Firefighting Australasia has announced the launch of an online mentoring program to increase female access to mentors and encourage male champions of change to mentor more females.

Kristie Smith is creating a community network of Murri women in her local area who aspire to be in leadership roles.

And the Australian Local Government Women’s Association Tasmania is encouraging and supporting women to nominate in the October local government elections.

Ambassador for the 100 Days of Change campaign Tracy Spicer said that while women have come a long way in the workplace, there’s still a long way to go.

“What I love about this campaign is the focus on practical change, from the grassroots to the top end of town: action, not words. It will be exciting to see what we are able to achieve.

We hope that this collective action will increase momentum towards achieving equitable working conditions and opportunities for all,” she said.

WLA says it’s easy for corporate leaders to fall into the mindset that change can only really happen at a state or national level but there is in fact so much that can be done by individual organisations and indeed employees within those organisations.  WLA says implementing any combination of the strategies listed below would work to improve the position of women in an organisation:

• Create a mentoring program for up-and-coming female leaders
• Implement strategies to improve work/life balance
• Start a women’s network
• Increase super contributions for women
• Create male and female gender equality champions
• Implement organisational quotas for gender equality
• Re-design processes and systems to remove unconscious bias
• Create a campaign around the importance of gender equity
• Offer specific development opportunities to female leaders
• Implement paid paternity leave
• Celebrate and highlight successful women leaders in your organisation/industry
• Offer flexible working opportunities for all staff
• Provide unconscious bias training for all staff
• Implement a wellbeing program that measures and improves social capital
• Create a forum for employees to openly discuss gender equality
• Create an awareness campaign around sexual harassment
• Self-audit board and leadership teams for gender equality
• Fund childcare services for your employees
• Conduct a gender pay gap analysis
• Host an event to celebrate International Women’s Day
• Implement strategies which support job share arrangements
• Create a culture that rewards outcomes not hours worked
• Collect data on organisational culture through an employee opinion survey
• Implement a pay parity policy
• Start the process to becoming an Employer of Choice for Gender Equality
• Educate line managers on ways to support women during maternity leave
• Offer maternity leave development and support programs
• Implement measures to ensure all employees have the same access to career progression
• Acknowledge the effectiveness of differing leadership styles
• Offer crèche facilities
• Implement a program to support parents and carers
• Create gender KPIs for line managers linked to reward outcomes
• Actively promote the benefits of flexible work arrangements to all employees
• Create a Male Champions of Change group
• Implement a strategy to improve the gender balance of your board and senior leadership team
• Implement an unbiased recruitment process – remove candidate names from resume screening process

To learn more about the 100 Days for Change campaign, register to be involved and pledge how you will take action to improve gender equity visit the website.