INTHEBLACK May 2025 - Magazine - Page 50
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CLOSING THE GENDER GAP:
LEADERSHIP, POLICY AND EQUALITY
In this episode, Prue Gilbert, founder and CEO of Grace Papers,
shares insights into the progress on and challenges of gender
equality in the workplace.
PRUE GILBERT,
GRACE PAPERS
DATA-DRIVEN CHANGE
INVESTING IN LEADERSHIP
“Over the past 10 years we’ve seen that gender
pay gap reduce. I think that goes to the heart
of ‘what gets measured, gets managed’.
Where organisations are proactively managing
and reporting against a gender pay gap,
where they’re proactively managing and
measuring against their representation
of women compared with men in leadership
roles, looking at promotion ratios, looking
at turnover, looking at recruitment and
attraction numbers by gender. Looking at
part-time promotions, for example — that’s
where we actually see change. So how much
measurable change you’ll be seeing depends
on how data-driven the organisation’s
strategy is.”
“What we tend to find is, when organisations
invest in that level of leadership — those who
have responsibility for the majority of hiring
and promotion decisions, who are also still
‘on the tools’ and have control over a whole
lot of different systems — they are also really
hungry to be good leaders.”
“Investing in their leadership capability
to better understand how they can drive
gender equality and ensuring that they
understand the risks from an organisational
reputation perspective … is actually the best
way organisations can respond and drive
measurable change.”
BENEFITS OF GENDER EQUALITY
“Targeted interventions around making
it easier for employees to care for their
families, take parental leave and continue
to grow their careers is absolutely critical.
I’m yet to see an organisation that doesn’t
need to invest in that part of it. Many
organisations have the policies, but they
need to evaluate how well and effectively
those policies are being used in order
to achieve their longer-term goals around
gender equality.”
“Organisations that have more equitable,
gender-balanced workforces are safer,
they’re more productive and they
perform better.”
“Workplace Gender Equality Agency
research shows that when boards and
executives are more gender balanced,
they perform better. And it has a direct
correlation with their share price — we also
know that they’re safer.”
50 INTHEBLACK May 2025
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