Tackling gender pay gap with water

Daughter Water has been expertly formulated using a potent combination of old wives tales to help CEOs conceive baby girls.
MORE than 3000 chief executives across the country will be sent a bottle of ‘Daughter Water’ as part of a radical campaign to raise awareness about the growing gender pay gap.
The Workplace Gender Equality Agency has seized on international research which indicates the pay disparity in an organisation begins to shrink when the boss has a daughter.
As part of its national pay equity campaign, to be launched today in Sydney, the statutory agency will dispatch specially designed bottles of ‘Daughter Water’ to the heads of more than 3000 companies who have not conducted an internal gender pay analysis. Disparity ... bottles of ‘Daughter Water’ will be sent to chief executives across the nation. Source:
Supplied
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WGEA director Helen Conway admits the gimmick is unorthodox.
But she said creative new approaches were needed, because the disparity between what Australian men and women are paid is higher than ever.
Nohing changes ... organisations are not required to conduct a gender pay gap analysis. Source: Getty Images
“It is a slightly ridiculous way of attracting attention to this issue and getting people to focus on it,” Ms Conway said.
“But every year we talk about the pay gap, and we have equal payday and nothing changes.”
The WGEA will also launch a new website which will allow employees to check whether their company has done a gender pay analysis.
Close the gap ... Helen Conway, director of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, says a creative approach is needed. Source: Supplied
Each year about 4800 Australian organisations which employ more than 100 staff are required under federal legislation to report to the WGEA about the gender composition of their staff, their policies to support gender equality, remuneration data and whether any pay gap analysis has been conducted.
Organisations are not required to conduct a gender pay gap analysis, and about three quarters of reporting companies, including News Corp Australia and both the Seven and Nine Networks, have not carried one out in the last 12 months. Many companies instead said their pay was set primarily through awards or industrial agreements.
Make people think ... the new campaign is not about naming and shaming, says Helen Conway. Source: Supplied Ms Conway said most organisations genuinely believe they pay their staff fairly, but a data analyses would show whether inexplicable pay gaps have emerged.
“This campaign is about raising awareness among leaders about the pay gap that may exist in their organisation and once we raise that awareness, we provide them with the wherewithal to fix any problems they have,” Ms Conway said.
Ms Conway said the campaign was not about naming and shaming organisations, but encouraging chief executives to have the kind of light bulb moment that sometimes comes with having a daughter.
A spokeswoman for the WGEA said the campaign was funded almost entirely through corporate sponsorship and a partnership with advertising agency DDB.

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