27 February 2024
KPMG Australia champions gender equality and creating an inclusive and equitable culture. We have a longstanding commitment to gender equity and reducing the gender pay gap – reporting our gender pay gaps publicly since 2021 through Our Impact Plan. We welcome WGEA’s publishing of gender pay gaps.
KPMG’s median base salary gender pay gap (12.9% for the reporting period 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023) is significantly lower than the professional services industry average of 16.6%.
There are several drivers for KPMG’s current gender pay gap, including having a lower proportion of women in leadership roles and a higher proportion of women working in part-time roles. We have initiatives in place to continue to improve our gender pay gap and create a truly diverse and equitable workplace. KPMG’s Gender Equity Action Plan (GEAP) outlines our actions and commitments to further drive gender equality. This is reviewed and refreshed regularly to ensure it remains relevant and addresses the needs of our people and the firm.
KPMG’s market competitive parental leave policy supports both parents to take leave to care for their new child and has been developed to increase women’s participation in the workplace. Already, we have seen an increase in men taking paid parental leave to care for their families, which in turn enables women to return to work and their careers.
Tracking and reporting against our targets keeps us accountable. We utilise a dashboard which provides up-to-date pay gap data for all divisions and grade levels across the firm to help us to track and monitor our progress on an ongoing basis. This enables better decision-making regarding salaries for new hires and promotions over the course of the year to support reducing the gap. In addition, we have specially trained ‘bias disruptors’ who participate in performance review calibration sessions across the business, where they believe there is evidence of unconscious bias.
Moving forward we will adopt WGEA’s methodology in our gender pay gap reporting, to ensure consistency. Currently our methodologies vary, with WGEA disclosures based on a different time period and calculation approach to how we have calculated and disclosed reporting in our Impact Plan.
We know that having more women in key decision-making positions delivers better organisational performance, greater productivity and profitability, which is why we are working to achieving 40% women in partnership by 2025. Women represent half of the members on our KPMG Board and National Executive Committee and have done so since 2021. Advancement and building the leadership pipeline for women is vital to achieve these targets and to continue to close the gender pay gap by increasing the number of women in leadership roles. To grow these pipelines, we have refreshed our women in leadership programs to further develop our future leaders and set them up for success.
The barriers to a more equitable workplace will take time to remove especially when it comes to gender equity. We believe that everyone should have equitable access to power, resources, and opportunities, and is treated with dignity, respect, and fairness – no matter their gender – as these are fundamental human rights. This is at the core of our gender equity work and will continue to drive our commitments when it comes to building a truly inclusive workplace for all.
Dorothy Hisgrove
National Managing Partner – People & Inclusion
dhisgrove@kpmg.com.au
Lainie Cassidy
Director – People & Inclusion
lcassidy1@kpmg.com.au
