ACSO is an organisation that prides itself on inclusivity, equity, and providing a safe workplace, which operates without bias for all. We are deeply committed to equitable treatment for our team members, participants, and partners.
Our commitment to equity and inclusivity extends to the equal treatment of all genders, and we will continue to adapt our strategies and policy as needed in an effort to minimise, and eventually erase, the gender pay gap.
ACSO’s gender pay gap is relatively small compared to other organisations and the national average, and it’s also been steadily decreasing in the last few years.
However, it’s important to acknowledge we still have some work to do.
Our gender pay gap
The most recent report from the WGEA reports that ACSO’s average total remuneration gender pay gap is 1.1% and the median is 3.2%.*
A snapshot of our results
ACSO’s gender pay gap has been steadily reducing over time, particularly in the last four years. This shows that our current gender equity strategy and policies are working, and genuinely making a difference for our team members.
You can see how ACSO’s gender pay gap has reduced here:
While ACSO’s key management personnel is 50% men and 50% women, the numbers are still high for women occupying some of ACSO’s entry-level roles, e.g. administration, coordinators, entry-level workers, which generally have a lower salary.
However, it should also be noted that the numbers for women being promoted, in both management and non-management roles, are notably high – 73% and 66% respectively.
How do we compare to other organisations like us?
ACSO’s gender pay gap is relatively small compared to other organisations and the national average, and it’s also been steadily decreasing in the last few years.
However, it’s important to acknowledge we still have work to do to lessen and eventually erase this gender pay gap.
To give you an idea of where ACSO’s gender pay gap sits compared to other organisations:
- ACSO’s gender pay gap is 1.1% (mean total remuneration)
- ACSO’s gender pay gap is 3.2% (median total remuneration)
- The average gender pay gap of other social services in Australia is 3.2%
- Australia’s national gender pay gap is 21.7%
Equity and inclusion
ACSO’s commitment to inclusion and gender equity
We are deeply committed to equitable treatment of our team members, participants, and partners. We believe in humanity and celebrating the diverse voices of our community through leadership, practice and policy design, to honour and embrace diverse traditions, cultures and experiences of those we support and work alongside.
Our commitment to equity and inclusivity extends to the equal treatment of all genders, and we will continue to adapt our strategies and policy as needed in an effort to minimise, and eventually erase, the gender pay gap.
A holistic view of gender
ACSO believes in providing a safe and inclusive workplace for people of all genders, and our policies adhere to the view that gender is a spectrum, not a binary.
It should be acknowledged that the current reported numbers about the pay gap take a binary view of gender, and do not include non-binary and gender-diverse people. ACSO does have a number of non-binary and gender-diverse team members, who have therefore not been represented in this report.
ACSO is deeply dedicated to supporting people of diverse genders, as well as the wider LGBTQIA+ community. We have a variety of different strategies in place to foster a workplace culture that’s welcoming to people of all genders, as well as strategies to ensure we provide the highest quality of support to LGBTQIA+ clients and participants.
Some of these strategies include paid Gender Affirmation Leave, LGBTIQA+ Cultural Competency Learning and Development with Minus18, and practice resources for frontline team members working with gender-diverse clients and participants.
What are we doing about it?
What we’ll continue to do
ACSO already have several strategies in place that impact the gender pay gap, and they’ve played a part in our gap steadily reducing.
So, we want to make sure we continue to do what’s already working, and will regularly make sure we’re re-examining these strategies to ensure they’re still positively impacting our most valuable asset – our people.
These strategies are:
- Thinking long-term: we’ll be continuing our long-term strategies and succession planning to ensure gender equity.
- Learning: we will continue to offer training and development sessions that educates our team members and leaders about unconscious bias.
- Different kinds of leave: we offer gender-specific leave options, in addition to Annual, Personal, and Long Service leave. For example:
- Parental leave of 14 months for the primary carer, and 2 weeks for the secondary carer.
- Gender Affirmation Leave of up to 5 days of paid leave and 5 days of unpaid leave (total of 10 days) per year for the purpose of gender affirmation.
- Flexibility: we’ll continue to offer flexible work arrangements, which are widely utilised by ACSO’s team members.
- Executive changes: With the recent changes to the composition to the Executive team, we anticipate this will positively impact our WGEA gender pay gap results for 2024.
- Equity and Inclusion Team: We have a dedicated Equity and Inclusion team that works across the business to develop and implement strategic plans with the focus of elevating the wellbeing of our people.
What we’re aiming to do next
While we’re proud of the strategies we already have in place, we acknowledge and respect that there’s still work to do. At ACSO, we want to ensure we’re doing everything we can to lessen the gender pay gap as much as possible.
So, in addition to the continued strategies above, ACSO aims to:
- Learn more about workforce composition: We’ll seek to understand the contributing factors to why we as an organisation and the wider industry attracts different genders to different roles, and how we implement this knowledge with our hiring and promotion processes.
- Research and evaluation: Find new ways to evaluate the progress and efficacy of our ongoing initiatives to lessen the gender pay gap.
* A positive percentage indicates men are paid more on average than women. A negative percentage indicates women are paid more on average than men.
