GM Holden Awarded 'Employer Of Choice For Women' For Fourth Year In A Row!

[JoeT]

GM Holden Awarded 'Employer Of Choice For Women' Citation For Fourth Year In A Row

GM Holden
4 March 2008
www.holden.com.au

The Federal Government’s Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA), announced today that GM Holden is one of only 99 organisations in Australia to be awarded the 2008 “Employer of Choice for Women” citation.

This is the fourth year in a row GM Holden has received the prestigious award and is a particular achievement this year with the EOWA introducing six new pre-requisites.

The new requirements include offering a minimum of 6 weeks paid maternity leave which GM Holden comfortably met with their 2002 policy offering the primary care giver 14 weeks paid maternity leave.

GM Holden was also able to comply with the new conditions by ensuring female managers have the ability to work part-time and with 18% of managers being female it exceeded the industry average of 15%.

Furthermore, GM Holden had to undertake a pay equity analysis and any gap identified had to be less than the industry average. GM Holden performed particularly well in this area achieving a 3% pay equity gap compared to the manufacturing industry average of 18%.

Over and above these criteria, this influential citation is awarded to companies that have demonstrated that they have policies and practices that support women across the organisation which have resulted in a positive outcome for both women and the business.

To support this notion, the GM Holden Women’s Council was established in January 2005 with a mission ‘to drive Holden business performance and brand by championing the contribution of women’.

Since the introduction of the Council, GM Holden has achieved some key goals in the area of employment of women. These include:

Since the introduction of 14 weeks paid maternity leave in 2002 and the availability of flexible work options for parents returning from parental leave, return from maternity leave rates increased from 67% to nearly 90%.
Over 50% of all women who return after maternity leave have returned to some form of flexible arrangement.
In 2007, 25% of all new hires were women, up from 24% in 2006, this included 27% of all new salaried hires and 21% of all new hourly position hires.
GM Holden’s Women Council have organised special events including a “Women in Engineering” day and other breakfast and lunchtime events featuring high profile guest speakers including GM’s Global HR Vice President, Katy Barclay.
A lactation breaks policy was implemented in April 2005 and a lactation room was opened in Holden’s new Port Melbourne head office in June 2005.
Women’s Council President and Director of Body Interior Exterior & Dimensional Engineering, Judy Brennan, described the citation as an excellent result particularly in light of the new, tougher criteria.

“We’re thrilled to be receiving this award for a fourth year as it firmly cements the fact that GM Holden are leading the way, particularly in the manufacturing sector, when it comes to supporting the huge contribution women make in the workplace,” Brennan said.

“Through GM Holden’s Women’s Council, we continue to strive for equality in an accepting and flexible culture which can positively influence all areas of our business, internally and externally.

“The requirements put forward by the EOWA are great benchmarks and we want to ensure that we continue to not only meet these criteria but exceed them to make sure we remain an employer of choice.”

[Chaz_23]

Does every Holden news, no matter how irrelevant, have to make it to the ticker?

[CobaltSScrazy]

^^^^ Way to be sexist Chaz, should be a post violation.

This is relevant and I highly respect and value women and their contribution to society. Chances are when you need Nursing care, the RN will be a female and if they didn't work in the workplace, you wouldn't have care and possibly die sooner as a result.

The holden saturation when Buick/Pontiac/GMC/Saturn/Saab/Hummer news lacks on this board is disappointing, but so is the lack of GM DAT news and Wuling also.

I am glad for Holden though, way to support the advancemnet of society!

CObaltSS

[JoeT]

It's Holden news and thats why it was posted. Simple as that. This is the Holden news page after all.
The problem isn't too much Holden news, but a lack of other GM news from America, Asia and Europe being posted here.
If you want to see more GM news other than Holden here, search the web press and post them in the 'suggest' page or get over it.
In the future if you have a problem with the way the site is being run contact Admin rather that hijack a news thread.

Anyway, four years in a row! That's a big achievement by Holden and they deserve to be recognised for their efforts. Well done.

[zetaman]

^^^ well said, Joe T. on both counts