Creating a more equitable and inclusive workplace

At MartinJenkins we aim to help make Aotearoa a better place, and for us a better country includes workplaces where all people are treated fairly and with respect.

We aspire to equity and transparency in our firm’s own pay and employment practices. Earlier in 2023 we reviewed how we’ve been doing, and we found that while we still have a gender pay gap, it has narrowed over the last five years.

The review found there are no systemic inequities in rates of pay and advancement at MartinJenkins. On the other hand, we found that some of our current practices – for example, how we set starting salaries – need some attention to prevent inequities developing in the future. Among other work we’re doing to address that problem, our managers are paying particularly close attention to pay relativities at each consulting level when recruiting and during performance review rounds.

Our review found several significant positives. Representation of women at senior levels has increased, and there is significant opportunity for flexible working in all roles. We have a generous parental leave policy and our people see our workplace culture as accepting, liberal, and respectful.

The gender pay gap at MartinJenkins

We reviewed the state of the gender pay gap at our firm in early 2023. These are the figures for the current gap, using averages (the mean), and comparing them with five years ago:

The average gender pay gap for our whole firm is 10% (down from 12% in 2018).
The gap is 4% for the firm when you exclude our Partners (down from 6%).
For our consulting workforce (that is, excluding Corporate Services and Partners), the gender pay gap is zero (down from 2% in 2018).
For our Corporate Services team, which is two-thirds women, we have a reverse pay gap (favouring women) of -4% (in 2018 it was -3%).

We're continuing to work on pay and employment equity at our firm

Coming out of our recent review of pay and employment equity, we’re making several changes in how we do things:

More formal standards and guidance – Our firm has grown a lot in the last five years, and so it requires more effort to ensure we’re being consistent in our decisions around pay and conditions and in the opportunities we provide our people to progress and develop. So we’re adopting more formal standards and guidance, including competency frameworks.
More support for our managers – We’ve outgrown the informal mechanisms we’ve used until now to prepare managers for their roles. So we’re going to give new managers more guidance, tools, and support, such as formal induction and training, including on applying our policies on pay and employment equity.
More transparent decision making – Our review found our decision making on pay and conditions wasn’t transparent enough, meaning our people haven’t had the information they need to be assured we’re being fair and consistent. So we’re going to publish more information both externally (on paygapinsightshub.nz), and internally (including our salary bands and the basis for them).

A more inclusive and diverse workforce

An inclusive workplace and a diverse workforce are key to us doing our best work as a firm. By being inclusive we make sure we’ve got access to the most talented and dedicated people. Also, our kaimahi need to be a diverse collective that both reflects and understands the communities we serve.

A core priority we’ve set for ourselves for 2021–2025 is our aspiration for a high-performance work culture where all our people are highly engaged and motivated. We’ve captured this in te reo with “Wawata”. A precondition for that is to be a place where a diverse workforce feels both comfortable and inspired, where all kaimahi can stretch out and fulfil their potential.

Tuputoa and the Great Employer Matrix (GEM)

We are pleased to be a partner with TupuToa, whose focus is to develop strong leadership pathways that maximise the potential of Māori and Pacific people in our communities.

As part of our commitment to TupuToa we are also part of a small group piloting the Great Employer Matrix in 2023. This work is designed to progress Māori and Pacific leadership through understanding which levers really help with progressing more Māori and Pacific people into senior, well-paid roles.

Supporting parents and whānau

Supporting our MartinJenkins parents and their whānau has always been important for us. Our Parental Leave policy tops up the government’s parental leave payments to 80% of the primary carer’s salary for 20 weeks.

This allows partners sharing the primary carer role in the first year of their child’s life to take up to 20 weeks’ leave. It’s a policy that a number of our male employees have benefitted from.