International Women's Day 2023 is a day of celebration, reflection and action. It's a day to honour the achievements of women and advocate for gender equity. This year's theme, ‘Embracing Equity’, highlights the importance of creating a world where all women have the opportunity and environment to succeed and thrive. The concept of equity goes beyond just treating everyone the same. It recognises that different people have different needs and challenges, and that in order to truly achieve equality, we need to address those differences.
At Randstad, we have a goal to be the world's most equitable and specialised talent company. We are in a unique position to be able to support women throughout their careers. Our consultants work with women daily to coach around career steps, realising ambition and negotiating salary.
Sadly, women still face unique obstacles such as discrimination around pay and gender at work. More broadly, women experience a lack of access to education and healthcare, as well as an alarming rate of gender-based violence. To create a truly equitable world, we need to actively work to dismantle these barriers.
We are doing important work at Randstad Australia with the aim to address these challenges in the workplace.
working towards pay equity
Our journey to remove the gender pay gap, and maintain pay equity, is ongoing. We have increased transparency and educated our leadership team to ensure that decisions around pay and career opportunities are fair and equitable. This year we have taken steps in our annual salary review to ensure that additional cohorts such as LGBTIQA+ and people with disabilities are given additional attention to ensure that bias doesn’t creep in.
creating family friendly workplace
In 2021, Randstad Australia became the first recruitment and HR service provider to be recognised as a Family Friendly Workplace. By promoting policies and practices that support families and creating a workplace culture that supports women, we can help ensure that women have an equal opportunity to succeed.
challenging bias and privilege
We are preparing to launch Inclusive Leadership training to all of our people leaders in 2023. Embracing equity means recognising and addressing the ways in which our own biases and privilege may impact our interactions with women. By actively working to challenge our own biases, confidently calling out bias when we see it and learning from women's experiences, we can become better advocates and allies for gender equity.
Ultimately, ‘Embracing Equity’ requires a commitment to valuing our diversity and working towards creating a more inclusive and just society.
felicity empson
hr director
Felicity Empson is the HR Director of Randstad Australia.
