MinterEllisonRuddWatts has announced its gender and pay gap reporting, the first firm in the country to do so.
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The move was prompted by a desire by the firm to demonstrate its commitment to gender and ethnic discrepancies as the law profession, like other businesses, has faced issues relating in particular to the major discrepancy regarding the elevation of women and Maori and Pacifica lawyers into leading positions.
Sarah Sinclair, the firm’s Chair (pictured) said “We understand the power of diversity in business and how it achieves better outcomes for our clients and our firm. Creating an inclusive culture supports diversity and better decision making and advice at all levels of organisations. We are reporting our results as it is, quite simply, the right thing to do.”
MinterEllisonRuddWatts’ pay gaps are:
Employee gender pay gap: 8.0%
Legal staff gender pay gap: -11.1%
Employee ethnicity pay gap*: Māori: 12.4% Pasifika: 4.1%
* Using all other ethnicities as the baseline.
MinterEllisonRuddWatts Chief Executive Andrew Poole said the pay gap reflects the higher number of women in lower paid administrative roles within the firm, which is something that is being addressed through career progression initiatives taken by the firm.
“Our ethnicity pay gaps reflect the progress we are making towards achieving our diversity and inclusion recruitment objectives, he said.
“While New Zealand’s gender pay gap was reported as 9.1% by Statistics NZ in August last year, we know that we have more work to do. We are committed to progressing our diversity and inclusion initiatives throughout our firm to reduce the gaps.”
LawFuel is to shortly announce its list of ‘female friendly’ law firms with the LawFuel survey of New Zealand’s largest New Zealand law firms and the number of female partners.
