How To Combat Gender Discrimination In The Workplace

If you want to combat gender discrimination with limited effort, put it into recruitment and promotion. Those two processes set the composition of every level, and errors there compound for years while everything downstream only redistributes what they produced.

In recruitment. Write the criteria before you see applications. Strip identifying detail from the first screen where you can. Use more than one assessor. Ask every candidate the same questions. Drop the vague fit assessment, which is where preference enters wearing a professional coat.

In promotion. Publish the criteria and the process. Do not rely on people putting themselves forward, because willingness to self-promote is not evenly distributed. Check who was considered, not just who was chosen. And treat part-time and flexible roles as promotable, or flexibility quietly becomes a ceiling.

Workplace Gender Equality Agency data shows the aggregate result of these decisions across Australian employers. This is general information rather than legal advice.

See Sentrient’s equal employment opportunity course and workplace compliance courses.