Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA)

Overview 

Gender pay equity is a critical issue across the Australian workforce, with the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) collecting and reporting data from organisations with more than 100 employees across the country. 

Shine Lawyers’ position is that the WGEA's methodology may not provide an accurate reflection of the complexities involved in submitting data for organisations that have complex role and salary bandings.  

Shine Lawyers Chief Executive Officer, Carolyn Barker AM, oversees a workforce of nearly 1,000 employees across Australia, of whom 75% are women, many in leadership roles.  

“While we support WGEA’s mission to promote gender equality in Australian workplaces, we feel there is confusion between gender pay gap analyses and gender pay parity.  In short, when the median for females employed at the firm is compared to the median for males employed at Shine the comparative base is skewed. The reality of how our people are actually paid is based on like for like and this is called gender pay parity.” 

“We are working to close that gap with a number of initiatives in place to achieve pay parity.” 

“We regularly conduct gender salary reviews when looking at salary adjustments and have enhanced our salary banding to ensure experience, expertise and workload are accurately reflected by remuneration.” 

Gender Pay Parity 

Every year, as part of our commitment to equity, we work closely with Mercer, one of Australia’s leading independent remuneration research specialists, to help us determine our gender pay parity position.   

The gender pay parity results for Shine Lawyers is -2.1%.  This means that, on average, women are paid 2.1% less than men for doing comparable work.  The Australian legal industry benchmark by Mercer stands at circa -1.0%. 

We ourselves are deep within the data.  As part of our remuneration framework we have undertaken an internal pay parity analysis determining a similar result.   

WGEA Results 

Shine Lawyers is part of the Shine Justice group, which also comprises of Stephen Browne Personal Injury Lawyers, Bradley Bayly Legal, Sciaccas Lawyers and Carr & Co Divorce and Family Lawyers.  In this current year, the WGEA results show a degradation in both Shine Lawyers and Shine Justice Gender Pay Gap as per the below table.   

*Note: Shine Lawyers is the only firm within the Shine Justice group who employs over 100 employees, therefore, has a gender pay gap result.  The Shine Justice result includes Shine Lawyers and all other firms within the Shine Justice group, collectively employing 1000+ employees. 

Findings

A deeper review has identified several factors that have influenced our results for both Shine Lawyers and Shine Justice. These are:

Workforce composition

Shine’s workforce is predominately female and despite having strong female representation across all levels of the firm including leadership, there is a disproportionate number within the clerical and administration group. Consequently, this group is within our lower pay quartiles. Conversely, male representation is generally in more senior professional roles which are then paid in the higher pay quartiles. This composition impacts both the median and average results.

Median

The median gender pay gap calculates the difference in salary between the median female incumbent versus the male incumbent (represented as a percentage). Deeper analysis has identified, specifically for Shine Lawyers, that the median gender pay gap result was based on a female clerical and administrative role and a more senior male legal professional role. Two distinctly different levels of roles including formal qualifications, technical legal skills and practical experience.

Structural changes to Shine’s workforce

Between reporting periods several strategic decisions were made for the long-term future of the business including our focus on our core business of Personal Injury and Class Actions.

Action Plan

The fact remains that our gender pay gap has purposely and decisively been a focus for us over the years. We strongly believe in the importance of gender equity to create and foster an inclusive work environment.

Since the latest WGEA submission we have undertaken the following steps:

1. Enhanced our salary banding process using more accurate and detailed data

2. We have incorporated gender review into salary adjustment processes

3. Addressed any immediate individual concerns as part of the annual remuneration process

4. Completed a pay-parity analysis post the annual remuneration review process

5. Established a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee

6. Reviewed policies and processes through a diversity, equity and inclusion lens to assist in eliminating any form of bias.

We recognise our opportunities and will continue to address any identified gaps, by committing to the following over the next 12 months:

1. Enhancing awareness of gender pay parity with our managers through recruitment and selection, promotions and salary reviews

2. Maintaining a focus on recruitment, selection and promotion of diverse talent based on merit

3. Looking for opportunities to shift our gender composition of our workforce for better gender balance

4. A continued focus on gender equality actions including, flexible working arrangements and reviewing our existing paid parental from an inclusivity perspective

Conclusion

Shine believes in remunerating all employees fairly and based on merit. We have a structured framework to support remuneration, reward and promotions based on team members achieving successful outcomes for our clients and our business. While we acknowledge our gender pay gap result, we remain focused on reducing our own internal pay parity gap.