As an ASX-listed company and one of the world’s leading toll road developers and operators, we recognise we have an important role to play in progressing gender equality within our organisation and our industry.
Australia’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency has today published gender pay gap data for relevant employers, increasing transparency with a goal to speed up the rate of change in lowering the gap.
At Transurban, we have been focused on taking strategic action over several years to accelerate gender equality, including enhancing the representation of women in leadership roles and in our broader workforce as well as ensuring pay equity in comparable roles, both significant contributors to the gender pay gap.
Our results, published today, show we are progressing. During the past three years our gender pay gap has reduced, with the median gap for total remuneration declining from 13.9% to 13.0%. This is compared to the national median gap of 19% and our own industry subdivision’s median gap of 23.4% (heavy and civil engineering).
But we recognise that a gap remains, and we’re working on reducing it.
Our holistic approach to advancing gender equality is helping us to remove barriers that have historically limited women’s engagement in the infrastructure sector. We work to encourage girls and women into our industry, create equitable career pathways and opportunities, and address the gendered challenges that can hold careers back, such as access to flexibility and parental leave, and ensuring pay, performance and development outcomes are equitable.
Some of our recent actions include:
- Contributing to our industry’s pipeline of women employees, including through our women in STEM mentorship program. Established in 2014, this program has supported more than 100 women in their early STEM careers.
- Driving equitable talent processes and development opportunities, contributing to an increase in internal management appointments of women (45% in FY23, up from 32% in FY22).
- Supporting flexibility in a range of ways, including hybrid working and the option to purchase up to six weeks’ leave each year.
- Supporting working parents by providing all employees, regardless of gender or caring status, with 16 weeks’ paid parental leave, and superannuation contributions on unpaid leave. In FY23, 60% of employees accessing parental leave were men.
Our investment is paying off. We achieved, and have sustained, gender-balanced representation (40% women, 40% men, 20% any gender including non-binary) across our overall workforce and in senior leadership since 2022.
With International Women’s Day approaching on 8 March, we support the United Nations’ theme for this year’s event, Count her in: invest in women; accelerate progress. And recognising there’s more work to be done – at Transurban, and both nationally and globally – to reduce the gender pay gap and advance a gender-equal society, we will continue our own efforts to invest in women and accelerate progress, and support more talented STEM-skilled women to grow their careers in our exciting and rewarding industry.
See a snapshot of Australia’s gender pay gap performance (Source: WGEA)
