At Z, we're transparent about our commitment to achieving and maintaining both pay parity and pay equity. While we've made progress, there's more to do.
The gender pay gap has been getting more attention in recent years, and rightfully so. It's an easy gap to talk about because it's literally the gap between the average earnings of men versus the average earnings of women — regardless of the roles they hold.
Committed to equality
Promoting gender equity is not new for us. Over 10 years ago now, we signed up to the UN's Women's Empowerment Principles. In March 2020 we received the Gender Tick, and are also signatories to Aotearoa New Zealand's first pay gap registry.
As part of our commitment, we're constantly working hard to ensure our policies and practices are set up to support all our people equally. You can see this in everything from how we recruit, to our flexibility in ways of working, and our approach to parental leave.
It's also true that even if we have the same pay for the same job (pay equity), we will not close our gender pay gap until we have more women in more of our high-paying roles. So we're doing something about that too.
Walking the talk
Several years ago, we started reporting on our gender pay gap in our annual reports because there’s nothing like making a public statement about your progress.
| Number of employees | Pay gap | |
| Overall pay gap men to women (including the CEO and executive team) | 461 | 1.96% |
| Pay gap men to women (excluding the executive team) | 454 | 2.84% |
| Pay gap men to women (excluding the CEO) | 460 | 0.14% |
Calculated using base remuneration as at 31 Dec 2023.
While we're sitting better than the New Zealand average of 8.6 percent (2023), we still have a way to go. It's also important to note that this disparity can shift significantly as people move into and out of Z.
So while we're committed to closing our gender pay gap completely by FY24, we know real success means continuing to monitor our gap and being systematic in our response — with initiatives and policies to support us along the way.
Honesty is the best policy
We don’t shy away from talking about this, we know that some of these gaps will take some time to resolve.
At Z, we recognise the journey we are on, knowing that we don’t have to report on our gaps but are choosing to do so. Because Z is for Aotearoa New Zealand, and when it comes to our people, we're committed to representing each and everyone equally, without bias.