Wollongong City Council has been recognised for its commitment to achieving gender equity.
Council has received a Silver Award from the Australian Local Government Women’s Association (ALGWA), an organisation committed to increasing levels of participation of women in Local Government at both elected and senior management levels.
Councils can apply to ALWGA for different levels of accreditation that contribute to achieving the association’s vision for 50:50 gender equity. Wollongong City Council was issued with a Bronze Award in November 2010.
Council lodged the application to attain a Silver Award in September 2015 outlining three projects that are intended to work towards gender equity within the organisation.
The first of these projects is an eRecruitment system that accurately measures and reports gender-related recruitment metrics as part of quarterly reporting requirements. This includes the ability to measure, track and report the ratio of female applicants and successful appointments at every stage of the recruitment process.
Another project is a recruiting consultancy approach for leadership and managerial roles, as well as non-traditional roles for women. This includes undertaking an extensive job vacancy brief with the hiring manager, ensuring Council is strategically drawing upon female networks to advertise and encourage women to apply for vacancies.
Council is also establishing strategies and development opportunities to mentor and sponsor women into leadership roles, as part of a broader stance towards workplace diversity.
Wollongong City Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery OAM said Council was committed to gender equity across the organisation.
“Gender equality is increasingly critical to an organisation’s success and is viewed as a baseline feature of well-managed and leading organisations,” he said.
“Since 2014, Council has increased the overall number of women in management positions.
“The proportion of women in Council’s workforce is 45 percent. We are making sound progress towards narrowing the gender gap and increasing the levels of participation of women across Council.”
