Lisa O'Dwyer

 Lisa O’Dwyer is the Co-Manager of Workplace Diversity at the University of New South Wales within the Human Resources Department, a role she job shares with Jennifer McLoughlin. Lisa has held various positions within the Human Resources Department since commencing in 1993 and graduated from UNSW with a Bachelor of Arts in 1990. Lisa is the Presiding Member of the Board of Management of Tigger’s Place Childcare Centre, UNSW.

The aim of the UNSW Women’s Employment Strategy 2008–2010 (WES)¹ is to address the under-representation of women in senior academic and management positions at UNSW.

The University is committed to regarding equal opportunity as a basic human right, but the harsh reality is that there are not as many women as men represented in sections of the workplace within the University. This is a particular concern within the science and technology sector. Because of predicted skills shortages in these areas², a strong business case can be presented to implement processes to improve the representation of women, particularly in more senior positions where the gender imbalance is perceived to be greatest.

At UNSW, the WES aims to facilitate a greater retention of women by involving more staff members in the consideration of the issues and the formulation of strategies to optimise their involvement in both employment and corporate affairs within UNSW. Each faculty and/or division is responsible for creating its own plan to achieve the aims of the WES, and each is expected to devise its own targets and evaluate the concomitant achievements and progress towards these targets. The outcomes will be monitored through reports that will be submitted to the Manager of the Workplace Diversity and Gender Equity Strategy Committee (GESC).

In order to provide a common structure for planning and reporting procedures, the University has subscribed to the Chief Executive Women’s CEO Kit for Attracting and Retaining Female Talent (CEO Kit)³ which The Women’s Employment Strategy (WES) within the Faculty of Science at UNSW provides a primary tool for an analytical and fact-based approach that aims to uncover barriers impeding the advancement of women in the institution, and also makes factors such as organisational culture measurable and manageable. The Human Resources Department is facilitating meetings to kick-start the planning process within the faculties and divisions, and is considering each Dean and Divisional head as a “CEO” for the purposes of using this kit and implementing its implied strategies, which are centred around five basic questions:

1. Is identifying and promoting female talent a top priority for our CEO, leadership and board?

2. Are we appointing our fair share of female talent?

3. Is organisational culture driving our female talent out?

4. Does our pay distribution by gender tell a story?

5. Are we managing our female talent for leadership roles?

Within the Faculty of Science, the intention is to apply the aims and objectives of the WES by encouraging staff members themselves to formulate a plan of action in a series of planning meetings. Although all existing centrally formulated policies and programs will continue, as they are considered effective and valuable, the WES aims to move away from the centralised one-solution-fits-all approach and seeks to involve more people in finding ways to improve the representation of women. The Faculty of Science has some particular issues that may not apply to other faculties and divisions, so this is an opportunity to use the CEO Kit to examine data in a systematic way.

Initial examination has shown that the representation of women in the professional and technical staff within the faculties is largely adequate, so it has been decided to try to minimise the complexity in the initial stages by focussing the initial set of planning meetings on academic staff and their issues. The long-term view is to extend the process to include an examination of the professional and technical staff data in subsequent years.

With the support and advice of the Faculty of Science Dean’s Gender Equity Advisory Committee, it has been seen as important that the initial Faculty Implementation Committee be a model for future action. Its members have therefore been carefully selected to be representative of academic, professional and technical staff from culturally diverse backgrounds, and of both genders. Its first planning meeting to be led by the Dean, Professor Mike Archer, will occur in November.

It is also to be noted that, as expressed in the Women’s Employment Strategy (p.4), the overall strategies within the University are not confined to improving the representation of women only, but are being implemented alongside other policies aimed at ensuring that all students and staff, from whatever cultural or ethnic background, are encouraged to achieve their full potential; to the ultimate benefit of themselves, the University and the development of a ‘clever country’.

In the future, we at UNSW look forward to reporting on the positive ways in which this analytical approach can identify problems that have so far hindered female participation at senior levels within the University, and, more importantly, discussing (perhaps in future editions of this Journal) successful strategies that the University may implement to redress this imbalance.
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