The theme for this years International Women’s Day is #EmbraceEquity, and at Asuria, we’re leading the conversation by discussing what it truly means to embrace equity within employment.
Our Mentors and Employment Experts embrace equity every day, throughout all our programs including Workforce Australia Services, Transition to Work, Employability Skills Training, Career Transition Assistance and Self-Employment Assistance.
In particular, Support Mentors of the ParentsNext program, assist and empower women, who make up 95 percent of the program participants, by providing an inclusive environment for them to engage with work or further education.
Asuria’s National Manager for ParentsNext, Mara Russo, supports many parents to develop skills and prepare them to enter employment. Three out of four of our program participants are single parents.
“They’ve had to give up their careers to take on the entire responsibility of raising children when there aren’t affordable childcare options in place or family support system available to them,” explains Mara.
Women in the workforce
The COVID-19 recession hit women in employment much harder than men. Women lost more jobs than men – almost eight percent at the peak of the crisis, compared to only four percent for men - that’s double the amount of unemployment for Australian women.
Women also had an increase in unpaid work – including supervising their children's learning remotely – taking on an extra hour each day more than men; and women were less likely to get government support (1).
Asuria’s Executive Director of Employment Services, Alicea Shaw and her team of Mentors see the impact of women being absent from the workforce, first-hand.
“It reduces their earning potential compared to their partners and impacts their retirement as they are not contributing to their superannuation fund during those years. With most of them impacted, being women, it’s hard not to acknowledge the sacrifice so many of them have had to make,” says Alicea.
When women participate in employment, families and communities benefit as women invest their earnings in health care, education and move off income support. “If more women are easily welcomed into the workforce, it could break the cycle of intergenerational unemployment and welfare dependency,” she added.
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| Asuria’s Executive Director of Employment Services, Alicea Shaw |
Individuals embrace equity
Alicea also oversees our Disability Employment Services and mentions that embracing equity starts with the individual. “We treat all our participants as unique individuals and cater to each of their needs and requirements. Equality and equity do not mean the same thing. Personally, embracing equity means giving everyone what they need to be successful. While equality refers to treating each person the same; equity refers to meeting the unique needs of others without giving an unfair advantage,” she added.
“Women should feel empowered to fulfil their potential and contribute to society without the fear that they have additional barriers to overcome in the workforce. They can be single women with children, women with disability, or simply women who are trying to provide for their family. We know that these factors make a difference and being able to provide a better quality of life to their family can significantly impact their future.”
One of Asuria’s Support Mentors at Mount Barker, Sophie Pelgrim, who was a ParentsNext participant herself, had very low self-esteem and a limited view of her job options when she joined the program. She worked closely with her Employment Expert, Georgina, to explore her study and career choices. As Sophie’s youngest child became older and with the assistance of her Support Mentor, Sophie returned to studies, which increased her confidence and self-worth even more. Asuria’s ParentsNext program was able to support Sophie by paying for her clearances and purchased a laptop for her to undertake her studies. Sophie was so inspired by how much she was supported through the ParentsNext program that she decided that her calling was to assist other parents in the same way that she was supported by Asuria. When a Support Mentor vacancy came up at Asuria’s Mount Barker office, Sophie applied for the position and was successful in obtaining the role. Now Sophie is thriving in a career she’s passionate about, helping other parents on their road to work readiness every day.
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| Asuria’s Support Mentor, Sophie Pelgrim |
Asuria embraces equity
As a business that beats to an Enterprising Heart, we realise that there are negative impacts of a lack of gender diversity and inclusion, and it can affect all areas of a business.
Study after study proves the benefits of having greater women representation, women in leadership positions, and of creating policies that support gender diversity and inclusion.
With a workforce of 65% women and a female CEO for Asuria Australia, we’re proud to have created ways to help overcome barriers to women’s leadership and begin to help leaders of all genders feel able to bring their full selves to work.
CEO of Asuria Australia, Nicole Grainger-Marsh said, “At Asuria, we have rethought policies and practices - from flexible working hours, family-friendly policies and equal pay for equal work to attract and retain more women, and a more diverse workforce overall. We focus on potential, not just experience - keeping in mind that technical expertise is only one of many qualities a leader needs to possess.
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| CEO of Asuria Australia, Nicole Grainger-Marsh |
“If you want to hire, develop and keep a diverse workforce, you have to be willing to have tough conversations about meeting their needs and requirements. You also have to be committed to providing learning, mentorship and other opportunities to develop the women in your workforce and help them become inclusive, collaborative leaders themselves,” she added.
Asuria embraces equity and continuously works towards bringing more diversity to the team. We understand that change doesn’t occur overnight, but we believe that as more organisations and business leaders push for gender equity and inclusion, it will promote women's confidence, and create a more effective, inclusive, and diverse work environment.
We’d like to wish all our participants, employer partners, and team members a very happy International Women’s Day, together we can forge women’s equality so that collectively we can all #EmbraceEquity. To learn more about International Women’s Day, click here.
References:
(1) Source: Women’s work: the impact of the Covid crisis on Australian women 2021, viewed in https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Womens-work-Grattan-Institute-report.pdf
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