Media Release

MARKING 10 YEARS OF ACTION ON GENDER EQUALITY: CHAMPIONS OF CHANGE COALITION 2020 IMPACT REPORT

11 December 2020

Champions of Change Coalition release the 2020 Impact Report detailing action and impact on gender equality, advancing more and diverse women into leadership and building respectful and inclusive working environments for all employees.

The third annual Impact Report presents the actions taken on gender equality from data contributions from more than 185 organisations operating in 155 countries, and is understood to be one of the largest cross sector voluntary public disclosures on gender equality measures globally.

The Champions of Change Coalition’s aggregated results this year confirm an improvement in organisational gender equality actions and a sustained increase in women’s representation in most employment categories, since the first Champions of Change Coalition Impact Report in 2018.

Champions of Change Coalition 2020 outcomes

Representation of Women

• 84.6% of Members have achieved or improved gender equality overall
• 81.4% have rates of women’s promotions that are either gender balanced or greater than women’s representation overall
• 84.8% of Member organisations achieved gender balance in recruitment, or improved women’s representation in recruitment, that led to improved women’s representation in the past year
• 62.9% of Members have achieved or improved gender balance in key management personnel since their baseline year

Accelerating change – creating conditions that enable all employees to thrive*

• 95.3% have a formal policy or strategy in place for preventing and responding to sexual harassment
• 94.1% have flexible access to parental leave for all parents – (up from 89.2% last year) (comparison to 2019–20 Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) reporting organisations: 52.4% offer parental leave for primary carers, 46.4% offer parental leave for secondary carers)
• 94.0% are mainstreaming flexible work (up from 88.1% last year) (compared to 75.9% of 2019–20 WGEA reporting organisations)
• 82% are taking approaches to address domestic and family violence as a workplace issue (up from 74% last year) (compared to 66.4% 2019–20 WGEA reporting organisations)
• 80.1% have systems in place to address bias and ensure equality in recruitment and promotion processes (up from 76% last year)
• 70.1% are conducting and acting on pay equity audits every two years (down from 77% last year) (compared to 46.4% of 2019–20 WGEA reporting organisations)

In December 2020, 10 years after its formation as the Male Champions of Change, the 250 Member Coalition of cross sector leaders for gender equality, changed its name to the Champions of Change Coalition with the tagline ‘men stepping up beside women on gender equality’.

“Over the past 10 years our Members have built a platform for committed and influential men to step up beside women leaders and work constructively towards a gender equal world, creating the workplace conditions and cultures that enable more and diverse women to thrive,” says Elizabeth Broderick AO Founder and Convenor of Champions of Change Coalition.

“Progress towards gender equality is not universal. There have been setbacks and certainly there is a long way to go. But as we look back over the past decade, we appreciate the impact of the actions of our Members and Groups in Australia and internationally,” says Broderick.

“As businesses focus on recovery and rebuilding efforts post COVID-19, our determination is not to simply return to work as we knew it. We are firmly committed to capturing this unique opportunity to redefine and rebuild workplace systems and cultures to be truly gender equal,” says Annika Freyer, CEO Champions of Change Institute.

Practical actions to shift the system

An integral part of the Coalition’s strategy involves the Members stepping up and leading innovative and disruptive initiatives designed to challenge the status quo and shift (disrupt) the systems of inequality beyond their organisations and industries.

In 2020 Champions of Change Coalition worked with partner organisations to explore and provide practical actions for leaders in all organisations to adapt to address critical issues and maintain focus on gender equality during and following the COVID-19 disruption:

Sexual Harassment – challenging current ineffective systems for managing sexual harassment in the workplace, making the prevention of sexual harassment a key accountability of Boards, CEOs and executive teams akin to occupational health and safety issues, and challenging the use of traditional NDAs. Disrupting the System Preventing and responding to sexual harassment in the workplace

Domestic and Family Violence – embedding workplace responses to domestic and family violence to include support for employees who are experiencing domestic and family violence, and approaches to employees who use violence and abuse.

Employees who use Domestic and Family Violence a workplace response and Workplace response to domestic and family violence during COVID 19

Accelerating Change on flexible ways of working – capitalising on Members’ experiences and lessons during COVID-19, the Champions of Change provided leaders with practical actions to make lasting change and gender equality improvements through flexible working.

Read Report: 2020 Champions of Change Coalition Impact Report

The Champions of Change Coalition is a globally recognised, innovative strategy for achieving gender equality, advancing more and diverse women in leadership and building respectful and inclusive workplaces. In the strategy men of power and influence step up beside women leaders, forming the Champions of Change Coalition, to lead and be accountable on gender equality issues in their organisations and communities. The Champions of Change Coalition brings together more than 250 leaders from 220 organisations with over 1.5 million employees across 155 countries.

For further information please contact Lisa Jervis 0419 432 239 lisa.jervis@championsofchangecoalition.org