Jozef Imrich, name worthy of Kafka, has his finger on the pulse of any irony of interest and shares his findings to keep you in-the-know with the savviest trend setters and infomaniacs.
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-Kurt Vonnegut
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Elizabeth has been instrumental in improving gender equity in Australia. Now the former Sex Discrimination Commissioner is seeking change on a global scale.
Allyship from men is essential to the cause of dismantling the patriarchy and achieving gender equality. But simply calling yourself an ally for gender equality misses the point of allyship altogether.
Together with the University of Sydney’s Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) program, Sydney Ideas presents a conversation moving beyond labels, to ways we can engage and activate allies in solidarity and support to promote gender equality.
This conversation discusses intergenerational perspectives on allyship for gender equality – its importance, how to activate allies, and what effective and accountable allyship looks like
It also found sexual harassment occurs at an "unacceptable rate" with both women and men reporting attempted or actual sexual assault.
Broderick made several key recommendations, including the creation of a safe way for people to make the allegations. She has made it clear that organisations can no longer expect, if they have a problem with sexual harassment, that it will stay secret.
"Workplace dynamics have permanently changed and we need to lead for that new environment. And if you don't get that, maybe you shouldn't be working in a contemporary workplace," Broderick told the Sydney Morning Herald.
"Leaders need to understand that not only have workplace dynamics changed but also your ability to keep these things quiet has changed as well. And we need a different response."
Elizabeth's story My mum had a strong view that competition destroyed relationships. If you're at the same school you're competing for friends, you're competing in all the tests. So we always went to different schools, even from kindergarten. And now, being a parent myself, I realise what a hassle that must have been. My mum would drive Jane in that direction, my dad would drive me in this direction. How much more difficult could they make it?
Sometimes we used to dress in each other's uniform and go to each other's school. One day when Jane came to my school, I forgot to tell her it was the day of the big science exam. I did very well, actually. I came second. And I remember being so anxious at her school because I was going to her German class. I had never spoken German in my life, and it was clear that neither had Jane - the teacher never even realised!
My mum, Margot, was very principled, very strong. She wouldn't have described herself as a feminist, but she lived by feminist ideals. And my dad, Frank, both his parents died before he was 10 and he was brought up by his brothers. For that reason, family is very important to him.
We have another sister, Carolyn [a sports medicine specialist]. The three of us are really tight. We all live within about three streets of each other and Dad.
Without our shared parenting arrangement, I don't think I'd be able to do the work I do. For the kids, it's beautiful because they have three mothers within 90 seconds. If one mother's not there, they wander over to see what's for dinner in another mother's house. Last night, my kids took themselves off because Jane was serving up something a bit tastier. That's pretty usual.
I never really thought of myself as a leader; I still don't. I'm an individual trying to create positive change in the world and so is Jane. We might have gone down different paths with our careers, but we've come to a point where on a number of projects we work together.
When I first became sex discrimination commissioner, I heard there was some great work going on in the West Kimberleys. I met with the female elders there. They'd had 10 suicides in the previous 10 months and they had lobbied hard for restrictions on alcohol.
I saw how strong these women were. Jane and I talked about it. She's got a medical background, so we agreed that I would introduce Jane to the women and together we would lift their voices. We had a dream that all of us would go to the United Nations and tell the rest of the world this story of the women of Fitzroy Crossing. Jane and our friend [filmmaker] Melanie Hogan spent a month with the women creating a video.
We arranged with the Australian government to launch the video at the United Nations in front of indigenous populations from 192 countries. It's one of the highlights of my career. None of that would have been possible without Jane. She's a good listener, a warm and kind person, and she doesn't go in with the answers. It was the beginning of her journey into indigenous health.
I definitely see us growing old together. I think we'll work together at something in the social sector, perhaps at a global level, to create positive change in the world.
Being a twin is the greatest gift; having someone who knows everything about you, who is a soul mate. You can't get a greater gift than that.
The driving force behind a landmark report into the culture of EY says leaders should not be promoted further if they cannot manage and develop staff – even if they perform well financially for the firm.
Former sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick also told the ongoing Senate inquiry into consultants that “most professional services firms have a culture of long working hours” because of their time-based billing systems.
Former sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick. Tim Bauer
Ms Broderick noted her report into EY’s culture had reached similar conclusions to Ziggy Switkowski’s report into PwC’s tax leaks scandal: both organisations had put the pursuit of financial returns above their personnel, and staff at both did not feel empowered to speak out about bad behaviour.
“The area where I see a lot of overlap is in lack of psychological safety… [Dr Switkowski] pointed to a number of areas where people, if they’d felt safe to speak out, some of these issues might not have ended up where they did,” she said during the Thursday-night hearing in response to a question from Labor senator Helen Polley.
“I think we saw very much that similar issue at EY, particularly where people weren’t speaking up about sexual harassment or racism or indeed, most importantly, the long working hours culture. I think the analysis that is in that [PwC] report, as well as the analysis in our report ... are useful learnings across the whole sector.”
EY has accepted all of Ms Broderick’s 27 recommendations, while PwC’s new leadership has promised wide-scale reform in the way the firm is structured, governed and led.
‘Profit over people’
In the Broderick report, EY staff described the firm as having a business model which put “profit and delivery over people”. In a similar vein, the Switkowski report into PwC blamed the firm’s tax leaks scandal on a “shadow” culture that tolerated bad behaviour in the pursuit of profit “growth at all costs” and a lack of governance that “went unexamined and uncorrected for many years”.
The Broderick review also found 11 per cent of EY personnel reported routinely working more than 61 hours a week, while about 33 per cent reported regularly working more than 51 hours a week.
Ms Broderick told the inquiry that professional services firms were prone to having “long working hours” because the system typically operated on billing by time, which meant that time not billed today was “worth nothing tomorrow”.
Ms Broderick highlighted World Health Organisation research that showed working 51 hours or more a week routinely “[led] to health issues ... [and] at EY we found that a significant proportion of people told us their health had already been harmed by long working hours”.
She described one experiment that EY will run, known as utilisation relief, which allows participating staff to adjust downwards their billable hour targets.
“So, for example, if I’m required to work eight billable hours a day, that should be adjusted downwards because to work eight billable hours I have to work 12 hours a day ... I’ve got to go and have lunch and go the bathroom and everything else. So it should be adjusted downward.”
‘If you can’t manage people, you can’t go forward’
Ms Broderick said part of changing the culture at EY would involve shifting key performance indicators away from being purely financial. One of her recommendations was to change the way performance was measured.
Her team recommended that the firm “set an expectation that all leaders must achieve a certain level of capability in people leadership, including capability in leading diverse teams, to be eligible for progression”.
“I mean, we actually said that for promotional prospects, if you can’t manage people and develop people, then your financials should not be a reason that you’re able to go forward,” she said.
“In fact, you shouldn’t be able to go forward if you haven’t got that people management perspective.”
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