How Z Energy supports women in its business

Z Energy (Z) has been focused on improving outcomes for women in its business for over a decade, but transforming good intentions into meaningful change takes real commitment. As Head of Employee Experience Rebecca Morrissey explains, transparency, public accountability and genuine authenticity have been key in shifting the dial. 

Walking the talk 

“It’s the day-to-day actions by everyone that are key to delivering on our gender aspirations,” says Rebecca. "And when it comes to closing the gender pay gap and increasing gender representation, we’ve not only had our CEO speaking about it, we’ve had ongoing discussions within our leadership teams as well. That’s really kept the commitment alive.” 

Of course, leaning into big conversations is critical, but having the facts on hand has also been key. “We measure our gender pay gap on a monthly basis, at each of our different career levels as well as overall,” says Rebecca. “This information is then fed back to our people leaders and managers, so when they’re making remuneration decisions, it’s really visible to them – along with other factors like performance, market expectations and so on.”  

But the visibility goes both ways, with Z making the bold move to provide new recruits and internal movers with a clear view too. “We made the decision a few years ago to be transparent about our salaries externally, because we know women are less likely to negotiate their salaries. We wanted to ensure that we were leveling the playing field for those coming into the business,” says Rebecca. 

And the impact of this approach has been significant. “A couple of years ago, our gender pay gap was at about 5 percent overall,” Rebecca explains. “Our ambition was to close the gap by 2030 and for it to remain closed, so we knew we had a way to go. At that time, we were making some considerable changes in our business so, as well as our regular reporting, we also did some modelling of scenarios to show how different decisions would impact that gap.  

“By the end of 2024, excluding our CEO, our gender pay gap was at 0.15 percent, and our gender pay gap including our CEO is 1.78 percent.”  

To put that stat in perspective, the Ministry for Women reports that the gender pay gap in New Zealand currently sits at 8.2 percent (as at 30 June 2024). 

“While it is amazing, it’s something we must continue to focus on. It’s important we remain committed to continually learning and growing,” says Rebecca. 

Support network 

Along with these efforts to change the metrics, Z is working hard to ensure that women are well supported day to day, so that not only do they take up the positions, but they want to stay in them. “Recent focus groups revealed some really positive stories,” says Rebecca. “Our female leaders all gave examples of sponsors or mentors who have played a key role in progressing their careers. It was things like, ‘I know this person spoke positively about me when I wasn't in the room,’ or, ‘this person tapped me on the shoulder for an opportunity I wouldn’t have even considered.’ All of these actions had a real impact on these women and the different career moves they made.” 

Perhaps even more impressively, these actions were individually motivated, rather than required. “We have really great informal sponsorship and mentorship because it’s just ingrained in our senior leaders, but it’s an area where we feel we can do more in terms of formalising those relationships,” says Rebecca. 

Allyship in action 

What has been formalised is the Women Rising and Male Allies programmes which are run across Z and the wider Ampol Group. These have been running for two years now and provide lots of insight to the participants. Leveraging the learnings from our Australia and New Zealand teams will be an important move from here. “We’ve got strong networks, and our Male Allies group is our next focus.” 

Being authentic 

At the heart of all things, however, is creating a great culture that allows everybody to thrive. 

“We know that when people feel they truly belong, our teams will be stronger, our people will be more engaged and we’ll see them performing better across our business,” says Rebecca. “We want people to be able to show up and lead in their own style and be unapologetically themselves, knowing they won’t be disadvantaged for it.  

“In one of our focus groups, we heard from a woman who said she valued hearing her male general manager say he couldn’t be available during a particular timeslot because it was school holidays. The more that we hear those conversations, the more we know that it’s OK to be prioritising family and we can still be successful in our careers. It makes it a lot more acceptable and normal and celebrated. 

“We have come a long way, but we also recognise it is a journey, and we must continue to be transparent, open and willing to have the hard conversations.”