Update: Pay and Employment Equity Reviews in the Tertiary Sector No.6

31 March 2009

News

Almost there!

Five ITPs (Otago, Telford, Waiāriki, NMIT and UCOL) and Te Wānanga o Aotearoa plan to have their review reports and action plans finalised by the end of April.

News!
University update
Wānanga update
Update from ITPs
Project managers’ corner
Key dates

University update

Massey University has started the pay and employment review journey! Discussions are underway to establish the university sub-sector group.

Wānanga update

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa (TWOA) is currently completing their issue identification and action planning. They will complete their review report and action plan by 30 April.

Update from ITPs undertaking a PaEE review

Janice Burns (acting for Rae Torrie) contacted all the project managers for the ITPs to get an update on progress. Five ITPs will complete their reviews by the end of April, and the other institutions that started last year will complete in May or June. The ITPs that started the review early this year are due to complete their reviews by August.

Below is a summary of progress to date.

ITP	Progress
Aoraki Polytechnic	Examining issues Finished May-June
Bay of Plenty Polytechnic	Ironing out PEEAT issues Finish date end June
Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology	Committee training complete Sorting out data for running PEEAT Finish date end August
Eastern Institute of Technology	Are identifying the issues Finish date April-May
Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology	Finishing the final report Finish date end April
Northland Polytechnic	Survey about to go out Committee training complete Finish date end August
Otago Polytechnic	Report being finalised Finish date end of April
Tai Poutini Polytechnic	Have completed gender profile Finish date end May
Telford Rural Polytechnic	Finishing completing the gender profile Identifying issues Finish date end April
The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand	Survey ‘out’ Ironing out PEEAT issues Committee training complete Finish date end August
UNITEC	Survey being piloted Committee training complete
Universal College of Learning	Doing a final examination of the issues Following up with part time staff on their particular issues Finish date end April
Waikato Institute of Technology	Survey out and PEEAT data coming on stream Committee training complete Finish date end August
Waiāriki Polytechnic	Working through last of PEEAT material Finish date end April
Whitireia Community Polytechnic	Planning the project set up.

Project managers’ corner

Identifying issues for part- time staff

The UCOL project manager gave a good example of some further exploratory work they are doing in response to one of their survey findings. They have a large number of part time staff and felt they needed to understand the experiences of these staff better. They have sent an email survey, with just four to five question, by way of follow up to all part-time staff. One of the questions asks why people are working part-time and another inquires about their access to project work (as a career enhancing opportunity).

Occupational segregation

The issue of an equity analysis of female-dominated occupations came up again in discussion. Janice referred the project managers to the information in UPEERTS 5.

Reporting findings to staff

An issue raised by one of the project managers was the best process for reporting findings to staff and seeking ideas on addressing the issues. Keeping staff connected to the process is important. They will inevitably be part of any changes the organisation is suggesting and need to feel there is some relationship between their input and the committee’s decisions. Remember, even if their feedback, “does not change your findings, it may influence the way the organisation needs to respond” (p. 20 of the Workbook).

Suggestions for how to seek feedback can be found in Step 3 of the Workbook (pp. 20-21). One of the simplest ways, and one that has been effective in a number of places, is to send a personal email to staff outlining the issues and inviting their suggestions. However, the process of getting information to staff and inviting feedback will vary between organisations, partly depending on your ‘culture’ of communication. In the teleconference discussion the project managers agreed that it is important to time this communication when the committee is confident about the issues they have identified and prioritised.

Sector-wide issues

As project managers many of you will now be working with your committees on responses to identified gender issues. It is important to keep an eye out for factors that contribute to gender inequities that may not be within the power of the organisation to change but which may have some sector-wide implications. Examples of these factors may be the labour market, collective agreements, or funding – and there may be others we have not yet thought of! Keep your eyes open for these and do report on them.

General

Remember to send your completed gender profile to Rae (those who haven’t already done so!). She is willing to provide feedback to assist your gender analysis. Those institutions which have previously received some gender analysis feedback on their data have reported that they found it useful to feed into their committee discussions.

Rae will be making regular phone contact with the project managers.

Teleconference

Six project managers joined Janice Burns on the teleconference on 18th March. There was a mixture of ‘old hands’ and new project managers. While facing different current issues, it was useful for new people to hear others reflect on some of their experiences (e.g. on issues for part time workers, occupational segregation, working with PEEAT, and reporting project findings to staff) during the course of their reviews.

One reminder was the importance of keeping minutes of the committee’s discussions. This should not be a verbatim recording but rather a ‘logic trail’ of decisions and the rationales for those decisions – especially around deliberations of ‘explainable and justifiable’ and the issues that are selected as priority for the organisation. These minutes will be invaluable when writing the final review report.

The next teleconference will be on April 1st from 10-11.30 with Rae Torrie. We would urge the new project managers to diary this fortnightly opportunity for discussion and feedback.