BVN Employer Statement to Gender Pay Gap

On Tuesday 27 February 2024, the Australia government’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) has, for the first time, publicly released statistics on gender pay gaps for all private sector organisations with 100+ employees.

Why? Because transparency can promote positive change.

BVN supports WGEA’s publication of gender pay gap information as part of national efforts to advance gender equality in the workplace.

The following statement looks at the definition of a gender pay gap, details BVN’s gender pay gap, and outlines the steps the firm is taking to accelerate our progress in closing this gap as we continually improve diversity and inclusion across all our studios.

The concept of like for like pay parity refers to the idea that men and women who are doing the same job with the same level of experience and qualifications should be paid the same amount. This is also known as equal pay for equal work.

Our annual salary review ensures that all BVN employees, in like for like roles, are paid equally regardless of gender.

The gender pay gap measures the difference in earnings between men and women* in the workforce. This gap exists across all industries and is typically measured as the difference between the median annual pay of men and women.

If a company has a larger proportion of men in high-paying roles and a larger proportion of women in low-paying roles, then the median pay for men will be higher than the median pay for women, even if men and women are equally qualified and perform equally well.

* Acknowledging women and those who identify as women, regardless of gender assigned at birth. Note that WGEA has not included non-binary data in its assessment as the agency in the process of establishing a baseline level for this information.

In 2023, WGEA calculated the national gender pay gap as 21.7%.

Architecture and design falls into the Professional, Scientific and Technical Services industry comparison group (along with engineering, law, accountancy etc), which in the 2022-2023 reporting period had a gender pay gap of 19.7% for median total remuneration and a gender pay gap for median base salary of 19.2%.

For 2022-2023, the gender pay gap across our total workforce.

• Median total remuneration pay gap: 18.5%
• Median base salary pay gap: 18.5%

Currently BVN has 327 employees. Women represent 50% of BVN’s total workforce.

BVN’s gender pay gap of 18.5% is a function of composition. We currently have more men in senior roles than women as reflected in the diagram below.

Improving female representation at senior levels continues to be an area of focus as we address the gender pay gap. BVN is proactively advocating, mentoring, investing in and developing our female leaders, and we are seeing the results of these efforts.

The gender pay gap metric is one valuable tool for measuring, monitoring and understanding our progress so we know where to focus our energy.

While we are making progress in this important area, we still have work to do to enable women to achieve their potential in a supportive, inclusive culture.

BVN’s strategy to close the gender pay gap is guided by WGEA’s Six Gender Equality Indicators.

BVN’s initiatives to close the gap and balance leadership composition include:

• Monitoring and measuring composition of workforce and governing bodies: We have been tracking the gender composition of our titles for the last 6 years, and this data indicates an improvement of composition within the Associate, Senior Associate and Practice Director groups. Since 2020, we have always achieved minimum 40% female in new appointments. BVN’s Board composition will always be minimum 40% female.
• Flexible working: BVN has implemented improved flexible work guidelines and a hybrid working policy for most roles. The benefits of flexible working are well-documented, especially when those who carry the majority of the caring responsibility (societally in Australia this has long been women) have access to flexible working which allows them to manage the start and finish time of their days, location of work and days worked.
• Family and caring responsibilities: reframed and improved parental leave guidelines and support. Our 12 weeks’ paid parental leave for carers (BVN acknowledges carers equally, without differentiating between primary and secondary carers). This empowers men to share the caring responsibilities and support their partners to get back to work sooner, which can reduce the negative impact on their career. Beyond the 12 weeks’ paid parental leave, when carer’s take unpaid parental leave, BVN continues to pay superannuation for up to 40 weeks to ensure women don’t fall behind men due to caring responsibilities.
• Consultation: BVN has established support networks for women, parents, single carers, menopause and more in the practice. Through our work with Architects Champions of Change (of which BVN was a founding member in 2015), we have had active listening and learning sessions annually to create safe spaces for women to voice the challenges they face, which ensures we are aware of how best we can support them.
• Discrimination free: BVN is committed to providing a workplace that is safe and free from bullying, sexual harassment, harassment and discrimination. We do this by having all the robust policies in place and have outlined our expectations of all BVNers through mandatory workplace behaviours training facilitated by an external HR consultant.

We have also created a more equitable recruitment system by removing gender bias in informal recruitment processes. BVN has standardised interviews and skills-based assessment questions and gender-balanced interview panels. We also track and report the gender data on candidates and successful applicants.

Through these avenues, BVN enables women to reach their potential and progress their careers by intentionally removing barriers and bias. As well as proactively increasing the representation of women in leadership, BVN aims to build equity throughout our processes and environments while enhancing inclusive capabilities across the organisation.

Ultimately, achieving equitable outcomes for everyone is about supporting our entire workforce.