Some Bay employers were being proactive in closing the pay gap. Photo / Getty Images
"You do the mahi, and get paid accordingly. Roles should be differentiated on skills, ability and worth, not gender."
That is the view of Tauranga Business Chamber spokeswoman Anne Pankhurst - and she is not alone.
Her comments come as the latest data from Stats NZ shows the median hourly rate for men was $29 compared to $26.37 for women - a gender pay gap of 9.1 per cent that had seen minimal movement in the past five years.
Pankhurst said the gender pay gap was a very specific topic that spoke to equality and valuing the role of women in the workplace.
"This is the new 'votes for women' frontier."
Pankhurst said it had been assumed women do not do equal roles and were the "second income".
But, she said, the assumptions did not acknowledge women had equal education and the cost of living now required both partners to work in order to feed and house the family.
Pankhurst said men's and women's roles were equally important, relevant and necessary to keep the economy running, making it essential there was no gender bias when it comes to remuneration.
It would be extremely hard to know if a colleague doing the same role was being paid more because of gender, she said.
But she would feel "very cross" if that was the case as it "devalues everything I have to offer an employer if our value is only counted in dollars".
More discussion about added benefits like raising the minimum wage, pay transparency, flexible working spaces increased access to childcare and improving work-life balance would go far in narrowing the gap, she said.
Helping women in the workforce would also add to their sense of worth by recognising their role, she said.
As the workforce tightened, Pankhurst said employers need to work hard to recruit and retain staff and "when that happens in the marketplace, women come into their own".
Pay transparency and non-gender based job applications like setting up a band of remuneration obvious to all applicants would help, she said.
Ryan + Alexander Recruitment Agency director Bernadette Ryan-Hopkins said Bay employers were being very proactive in closing the pay gap where there was disparity with people doing the same role within a business.
But Ryan-Hopkins said women-dominated professions like early childhood education, teaching, nursing, office administration and elderly care were underpaid compared to male-dominated professions.
"These supportive roles hold less monetary value within our society...
"In fact, if we are going to resource these industries in the future, a fundamental shift in attitude and action towards pay in these industries will need to occur."
Ryan-Hopkins said while gender did not come into the initial stage of the recruitment process she was acutely aware women were disadvantaged from a salary perspective later on.
"Women, as primary caregivers, often take career breaks, or work part-time to balance family and financial needs and there is no doubt this significantly harms promotional opportunities for women."
Women were also less confident when asking for a pay rise, she said.
"We are in unusual times though. It is not just women who are looking at their current situation - many people are taking a long, hard look at their lives and we are finding that both genders are seeking other benefits than simple salary increases."
Opportunities to work from home, part-time, flexibly or remotely were becoming more important than just money, she said.
"It will be interesting if this influences the gender pay gap at all as people of all genders look to take career breaks or seek part-time work to pursue other interests."
Cooney Lees Morgan partner Mary Hill said awareness or suspicions about a large gender pay gap was likely to create disharmony in a workplace and risked the emergence of an "us and them" culture.
But Hill said the reasons why a pay gap existed or how to address it were complex and a one size fits all response was not necessarily helpful or appropriate.
While Hill did not support compulsory disclosure of salaries, she said disclosing the criteria on which salaries were based and publishing market information about pay bands for similar roles could enable employees to understand how their salary has been determined and give clearer focus for negotiation.
Hill said paying someone based on their number of years in the workforce can be a blunt tool that did not fairly take into account the experience and expertise of someone who has taken a career break, such as maternity leave.
But provided the personal circumstances of each employee were taken into consideration when negotiating salaries it should not discriminate against women, she said.
"To the contrary, it allows for the different skillset, hard work, loyalty and ambition of many women to be rewarded."
Supporting women back into the workforce after taking time off to have children to ensure they stayed connected to colleagues and up to speed with work developments would also help, she said.
"This is rapidly becoming less about gender, with many men taking career breaks for various reasons and more about fair pay.
"In some industries, this may involve discussions around the living wage and addressing rising inflation.
"In salaried industries, it is about having a set of guiding principles to ensure particular skills, experience and life circumstances are recognised."
Te Arawa Management Limited chief executive Cassandra Crowley said the question was: How do we provide tools to both employers and employees to remove gender-based pay disparity?
"How do we help employers think about unconscious bias in their remuneration models and at the same time equip women to have different conversations about their pay?"
Crowley, who was the 2021 winner of the Westpac Women of Influence Board and Management Award, said employers need to consider how they can offer fair remuneration.
They also needed to consider how to provide development and progression opportunities, while creating flexible working environments attractive to men and women regardless of their life stage, she said.
"The current labour market makes this even more important for business - if you are still demanding all staff work 9-5 physically in the office you will be missing out on some of the best talent available.
"The Bay of Plenty is full of entrepreneurs and business owners and in this category, I think we don't see as many female-led ventures as we should."
Crowley said she was proud to be part of professional organisations that were owning the issues that existed within their membership.
"However the pace of change is unacceptable we need to be more impatient on making progress."
Bay of Plenty Regional Council chief executive Fiona McTavish said the council changed its pay structures in 2019 following staff feedback that internal pay equity was important.
"We now have a system that pays all our people equally for roles of the same size, removing opportunity for gaps in pay related to gender."
The pay structures were transparent, and published to all staff, she said.
"We recognise that without this awareness, a gender pay gap can contribute to low morale and engagement with staff, and higher attrition."
The council was a member of Global Women - like-minded organisations championing for all to address gender pay gaps.
"We fully support further transparency of pay gaps – which will help support change in this area which in turn will enable more diverse and inclusive workplaces."
The couple spend five months a year in America running their business.