Update: Pay and Employment Equity Reviews in the Tertiary Sector No.5

March 2009

The first university to undertake a review

Congratulations to Massey University which has committed to undertake a review in 2009! As the first university to comprehensively analyse its pay and employment practices using a gender analysis, and develop an action plan to redress any identified inequities, Massey will be leading the way in the university sector.

News!
Comment
ITP sub-sector group update
Update from ITPs
Universities update
Wānanga update
Project managers’ corner
Key dates

PaEE reviews in the changing economic and employment climate

On Friday 20 February the Government announced that there is no money available for pay rises in the state sector, and as part of that, stated that “…two PaEE investigations have been discontinued”. What was being referred to here are pay investigations, not PaEE reviews.

There is no change to the PaEE review process in the tertiary sector. In a press release on 20 February Tony Ryall affirmed that “departments [public sector bodies] will still be expected to continue to address equality issues as part of being a good employer”. Similarly, in a speech to the Tertiary Women’s Focus Group the day before, Pansy Wong, the Minister for Women’s Affairs, focused on the gender pay gap and stated the need “to ensure women have full and unfettered opportunities to meet their full potential”.

PaEE reviews in the tertiary sector remain at full steam ahead.

The pay investigation for Special Education Support Workers has been completed. It is on the NZEI union website. The report itself is only the first 11 pages of the large document.

http://www.nzei.org.nz/Group+Special+Education/Support+Workers+Pay+Investigation.html

And a timely reminder from the EEO Commissioner…

Referring to the public service PaEE reviews, the EEO Commissioner Dr Judy McGregor noted in her press release on International Working Women’s Day (March 8th):

“Job retention is everyone’s first priority, but there are pay issues such as the low proportion of women in management positions, women’s lower starting salaries and performance pay, and poorer career advancement for part-timers who are mainly women, that don’t lead to unaffordable remuneration movement.”

Comment – Occupational gender segregation

One of the reasons for the gender pay gap nationally is that men and women do different work, and that female-dominated work tends to pay less than male-dominated work. It can be expected that this finding may be replicated in institutions, and some ITPs are seeing occupational segregation is a key explanation for the gender pay gap within organisations.

It can be tempting to leave it at that – a reason for pay differences that is beyond the power of individual organisations to control. It is certainly true that forces well outside of the control of organisations contribute to men and women being dominant in different occupations.

It perhaps would not matter so much if male and female dominated occupations attracted similar remuneration.

However, in the PaEE review process it is important to explore the factors that may be supporting or maintaining occupational segregation and the any gender pay gap between men and women’s occupations. These include:

the job families or groupings that occupations are assigned to (e.g. administration rather than ‘technical’ – especially when there are differences between the job groups in terms of things like starting salaries, opportunities for advancement etc)
the career paths within and between occupations
whether those doing the recruitment (including external consultants) actively consider women for work that is, or has been, traditionally done by men
whether work of similar value (job size) is similarly rewarded
whether job sizing methods meet the NZ Gender Inclusive Job Evaluation Standard (Standards NZ website)
the nature of the salary bands for male and female dominated occupations (number of steps, length of the scale etc). It is useful to check things like whether available increment steps are similar in dollar size, how many steps there are between the bottom and the top of the scale – canpeople in some occupations progress to the top of the scale faster?

ITP sub-sector group meeting – update

The ITP sub sector group met on 26th February. One of the key issues discussed was the need for project managers to maintain communication with staff and with senior management throughout the course of the review. There was acknowledgement that there are stages in the review process (such as when data analysis is being undertaken) when it feels are if there is not a lot to report. The group came up with some ideas for sources of information to keep up regular communication with staff and to keep senior management abreast of developments. The ideas are in the Project Manager’s Corner.

Rae Torrie, Project Manager for PaEE Reviews in the Tertiary Sector, told the group that she intends to have regular phone contact with the project managers. This will enable the sub sector group to have a better handle on where each ITP is at in terms of their project timelines and for Rae to offer assistance if necessary.

The sub sector group is also turning its thoughts to the final ITP sector report. The TST Steering Group has signed off on the outline of the report and the sub sector group has begun to document issues and activities from the ITP and wānanga reviews that need to be included in the report. Completing the report within the required timeframe does depend on ITPs providing the final reports and action plans by the end of August at the very latest.

Update from ITPs undertaking a PaEE review

Three of the ‘new’ ITPs – The Open Polytechnic, CPIT, and Wintec – completed PaEE review committee training during February. Training for the remaining organisations – Unitec, NorthTec, and Whitireia – is timetabled for the two weeks beginning 23 March.

More regular phone contact with the project managers has now commenced, and the next UPERTS will provide an institution-by-institution update on where ITPs are at with their reviews, and summarise any issues they are encountering.

A word to chief executives and senior managers

The entire senior management team at CPIT, including the chief executive, recently attended the introductory session of the PaEE review committee training. This was terrific, as senior managers have a key role in leading the review, in telling staff why it’s important, encouraging and freeing staff up to participate (whether as committee members or simply to complete the survey), and in the longer term, potentially being responsible for implementing some of the recommended actions.

Remember that the review will help your institution to:

Identify areas in which it is doing well/achieving gender equity, and knowing you can have confidence in this from an evidence base (rather than anecdotal information)
understand the way in which gender issues may manifest in this institution, and strategies that can be adopted to redress these.

Universities update

Massey will shortly begin scoping the PaEE review with stakeholders, and will have the review underway before the middle of the year.

Wānanga update

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa is completing its PaEE review in early 2009.

Project managers’ corner

Project Manager for PaEE Reviews in the Tertiary Sector on leave 2-20 March

Janice Burns will be stepping into the shoes of Rae Torrie for 3 weeks while she is on leave. The focus of Janice’s involvement over this time will be in the ITP and wānanga sectors, primarily developing a stocktake of where participating TEIs are up to in the review process, how close they are to completing the reviews, and identifying and providing any assistance needed to keep on track to complete by end March. Her primary engagement over this time will be with project managers.

Communication with staff and senior management

As mentioned earlier the ITP sub sector group discussed the importance of regular communication with staff and management throughout the review process. This keeps the review ‘alive’ and keeps people connected to its purpose and eventually its outcomes. Staff will have participated in the survey and then perhaps hear nothing of the review for some time.

Below are some suggested sources of material for inclusion in updates for staff or review ‘bulletins’. They may be particularly useful in periods where you are waiting for the analysis to be done and the issues to be identified or prioritised. You could:

use material from UPEERTS – for example people may be wondering what the ceasing of the pay investigations means for their review
summarise interesting information from the PaEE public service case study material which was provided to the committee at their training day, and is also available at the PaEE Unit website: www.dol.govt.nz/services/payandemploymentequity
describe what the section you are currently analysing (rewards, participation, respect and fairness) is about (see the Workbook)
go and look at new material or interesting information on the PaEE Unit website (as above)
provide a general update on the tertiary sector (e.g. new institutions joining the project).

Teleconference

The latest teleconference was held on 27 February. Four project managers and Rae Torrie participated. This is a really useful forum, especially as committees get to the analysis stage, and we spend some of the teleconference talking about particular findings and ways to explore them further and consider whether they are explainable and justifiable.

The next teleconference will be held on Wednesday 18 March from 10-11.30am with Janice Burns.

Deadline for completing ITP PaEE review reports

All PaEE review reports and action plans are due by the end of August 2009.

Sending information in to Rae Torrie (and copied to Janice Burns between 2 and 23 March)

Project managers are asked to send the following information as it becomes available:

the gender profile template, initial PEEAT and survey information. (This can be sent at the same time (or before) it goes out to committee members)
the key PaEE issues for your institution
the actions you have developed to address the identified issues.

Timeline

Project manager Margaret Doyle has developed a very useful project timeline for the Open Polytechnic, and Margaret is happy for others to adapt it for their own use. It is a good tool for seeing at a glance where the project should be at any point in time. A copy is being sent to the project managers by email.

Reimbursement of travel costs

This is a reminder that project managers who attended the project manager training day in Wellington on 10 December are eligible to have your flight costs reimbursed. Send an invoice, and copy of your flight details to Kristine Kilkelly, Deputy Secretary People and Business Capability, Ministry of Education, PO Box 1666, Wellington.