Improving our diversity

At TSA, we understand the value of gender equity and offering equal opportunities to develop and grow all of our people. Our vision is to create a diverse workforce, to match the variety of projects we work on and the range of clients who we work with.

Our People and Culture team recently finalised and submitted the FY20 Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) report for TSA to comply with the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 for the Australian Government. The Act requires non-public sector employers with 100 or more employees to submit a report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) for the preceding 12-month period.

What is the WGEA report?

The report considers many areas of gender equality, including gender composition at different levels within the business, remuneration, strategies and policies in place that help encourage and improve gender equality – things like supporting flexible working arrangements for employees with family and caring responsibilities, reducing harassment or discrimination and improving consultation.

WGEA Act’s primary goals are to:

• Promote and improve workplace gender equality, including equal remuneration between women and men.
• Promote consultation between employers and employees about workplace gender equality.
• Recognise women’s disadvantage in the workforce and help employers remove barriers that stop them from fully and equally participating.
• Encourage employers to end gender discrimination, including for family and caring responsibilities.
• Boost Australian business productivity and competitiveness by advancing workplace gender equality.

We are working towards a goal

The numbers in our WGEA Report help to confirm that we are making progress and seeing change for the better. Our vision at TSA is that we want to create a diverse workforce that can respond to diverse projects and client needs. Our Executive and Group Board regularly review and monitor various metrics (including gender) to ensure equality is maintained.

We are part of the new trend

TSA started voluntarily reporting in 2016 when our team was under 100 with 30% of the team female. We’ve come a long way, and have further to go, in a traditionally male dominated industry 43% of the (reported) TSA workforce are women (compared to 39% twelve months ago). An exciting trend in the report is that we have a growing number of women at APM and PM levels which we hope will translate into more women in leadership roles in future, as our APMs and PMs develop into great leaders.

We also have parity in our remuneration across the majority of our workforce, with outliers typically attributable to years of experience. Another item that stood out of the report was a significant increase in female promotions, with 47% of promotions awarded to females, up from 29% in the last reporting period.

How we are tracking against Australia’s Gender Equality Indicators

Gender equality cannot be achieved overnight, but we are committed to maintaining a culture of respect, trust and ownership whereby all our people are given equal opportunity to grow and develop to achieve their full potential. Some of the initiatives that have been implemented in the past 12 months include:

• Launch of our Health and Wellbeing, Best4Life, program.
• Increased opportunities to work on diverse projects across different sectors/locations.
• Sponsorship of our people to attend future leader programs.
• Continued facilitation of the ‘Lean In’ program.
• Group wide membership with the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC).
• Launch of our Flexible Work Policy.
• Continued opportunities to attend and participate in internal and external training programs, including TSA’s APM & PM Forums.
• Improved focus on internal communication.
•  Continuing Social Committee activities for all employees.

We will continue our efforts with the hope that we continue to progress positive trends towards greater diversity in our business and the industry overall.