Lendlease’s commitment to closing the gender pay gap

Lendlease has a strong commitment to creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace, and we’ve made good progress increasing the overall representation of women in our organisation and leadership.  

Currently, our Australian Regional Leadership team is 45% female, and the Lendlease Board of Directors is 40%. And we’re equally focused on future talent – our most recent graduate intake in Australia is 44% female.

Our like for like pay gap (how we pay males and females performing the same role or different work of equal or comparable value) is below 1%.  

While we’re proud of these improvements, we recognise we operate in sectors where there are still many obstacles to achieving gender pay equity, and it remains an ongoing challenge for both our organisation and the property and construction industry. 

WGEA’s 2022-23 report shows that our gender pay gap for median base salary is 24.7% (versus the industry gap of 34.6%) and median total remuneration is 32.2% (versus the industry gap of 39.7%*).

There are several factors that contribute to our gender pay gap, including the underrepresentation of women in senior leadership roles, which typically attract higher fixed pay and performance-based awards/bonuses in the market. Women are also over-represented in part-time work and unpaid leave due to caring responsibilities.

Across our organisation, we’re taking direct and targeted action to address some of the drivers of the pay gap and gender inequality in the workplace. For example:

• Our processes throughout the employment lifecycle – from recruitment to talent and compensation review – have a diversity, equity and inclusion lens. During the annual compensation review process, we review pay equity across genders.
• The recruitment process no longer asks candidates what their current salary is, which can reinforce existing bias.
• Data allows us to set targets and track progress. We assess and report to the Board on both the gender pay gap and equal pay gap.
• In 2023, we enhanced our parental leave scheme to provide all parents 26 weeks paid leave. Superannuation is also paid on the first 12 months of parental leave as we know this is a factor contributing to women’s overall earnings in a lifetime and impact on retirement.
• Bespoke development programs, such as Ignite (our gender equity program), aim to enhance the career progression for our female talent through executive sponsorship and raise awareness of and challenge any potential bias in the system.
• We’ve been a member of the Champions of Change Coalition since 2015. Within Lendlease, we have a number of employee networks which create a safe space for our people to come together and advocate on diversity, equity and inclusion. These networks feed into our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council, chaired by our Australian CEO, Dale Connor.

We know inclusive and diverse workplaces improve business performance and that we have more work to do to improve gender equality. As a business, we’re committed at every level to closing the gender pay gap. 

*WGEA has classified our industry as 3020 Non-Residential Building Construction.