News

Why pay equi­ty is impor­tant to Swaab

We are pleased to announce that Mary Digiglio has been appoint­ed a Pay Equi­ty Ambas­sador by the Work­place Gen­der Equal­i­ty Agency (WGEA).

The full-time total remu­ner­a­tion gen­der pay gap is 22.4% and only around 4 in 10 employ­ers have con­duct­ed a gen­der pay gap analysis.

At Swaab, we have always been com­mit­ted to gen­der equal­i­ty. Our founder, Fred Swaab, encour­aged par­ents to return to work and we have always had females in senior lead­er­ship roles. 

Cur­rent­ly, females account for 43% of our Part­ners, 66% of our Man­age­ment Team, 51% of our lawyers and 83% per­cent of our sup­port staff.

Equal­i­ty, inclu­siv­i­ty and diver­si­ty are an impor­tant part of our cul­ture. It is with much pride that I cel­e­brate the fact that our gen­der equi­ty has nev­er been a result of set tar­gets, it is just the way we do things at Swaab.

Every year at Swaab we bench­mark all of our roles against year­ly indus­try salary sta­tis­tics to make sure our employ­ees are paid fair­ly for the work they do. Our Peo­ple & Cul­ture team con­duct annu­al salary reviews and we are com­mit­ted to cor­rect­ing any imbal­ances. Start­ing salaries are the same for roles with sim­i­lar skills and experience.

We have embraced part-time and flex­i­ble work­ing arrange­ments across all lev­els of the firm, includ­ing Part­ners. Work­place flex­i­bil­i­ty has been adopt­ed to accom­mo­date care respon­si­bil­i­ties to ensure time out of the work­place does not impact career progression. 

We have for­mal­ly adopt­ed the Diver­si­ty and Equal­i­ty Char­ter by the Law Coun­cil of Australia.

Pro­mot­ing the val­ue women can offer to our entre­pre­neur­ial ecosys­tem is a pas­sion for our firm. We reg­u­lar­ly host Awe­some Wom­en’s Din­ners for women who are dri­ving change across the inno­va­tion, gov­ern­ment, SME, not-for-prof­it and tech­nol­o­gy sectors.

I strong­ly encour­age oth­er lead­ers to make this pledge to close the gen­der pay gap. I look for­ward to work­ing with WGEA to pro­mote and improve gen­der equality.

In other news