Gender equity at work is important because it improves the wellbeing of women workers and their families. For employers, actively promoting fairness at work is good business practice, contributing to improved staff performance and engagement. At present there is still a good deal of scope for progress towards pay and employment equity for women at work.

At the Pay and Employment Equity Roundtable in 2009, the Human Rights Commission undertook to create a monitoring framework on pay and employment equity for women. As part of the process of creating the framework the Commission consulted widely. The Commission also obtained a legal opinion about employers obligations on gender equity.

The Human Rights Commission’s pay and employment equity monitoring framework provides your organisation with an opportunity to take part in this self-assessment and monitoring framework. It allows you to measure your organisation’s current performance (a quick ‘health check’) and monitor its progress towards gender equity. The framework concentrates on a few key indicators, and it links you into sources of further information about gender equity at work.

This is a voluntary self-monitoring exercise to help encourage best practice. It is designed to help employers obtain the advantages that go with gender equity.

This framework also helps employers meet their legal requirements under the Human Rights Act and other legislation.

Women also have internationally-recognised rights to be paid equally for doing the same work as men, and for doing work that is of equal value. Both women and men have the right to be treated with fairness and respect and to have dignity at work. Read the International Conventions

Despite having enacted legislation and ratifying international conventions, New Zealand has not yet achieved equal pay or equal opportunities for women.

The Human Rights Commission has responsibilities for promoting gender equality at work. Download Towards Pay and Employment Equity – a self assessment and monitoring tool (pdf)