Metcash WGEA Pay Gap Statement 2022-2023

Metcash is fully committed to championing and promoting diversity, which includes our commitment to gender equality, gender pay equity and equal opportunities for advancement.

Each year, to comply with the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012, we provide our employee salary data to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) to determine the gender pay gap across our team members. The WGEA report which summarises the outcome of this analysis is published on the WGEA website and is also provided to the Metcash Board of Directors.

The WGEA gender pay analysis covers all our team members, including those employed under Enterprise Agreements (EAs) and Modern Awards, as well as those monthly-paid team members employed on a Total Employment Cost (TEC) basis. The data provided covers every element of remuneration, including penalty payments, overtime, allowances and any incentive awards paid over the year.

For the 2022/23 WGEA analysis, the median gender pay gap at Metcash was 3.9%. This means that the median total remuneration of all males was 3.9% higher than the median for all females. This compares to the Australian average gender pay gap of 21.7% across 4.8m employees, as reported by the WGEA, and an industry benchmark for Wholesale peer companies of 14.1%. This is a pleasing result and confirms our unwavering commitment to gender equity which is supported through the following initiatives:-

  • – Regular reporting to our governing body, reflecting gender split across each business pillar, and tracking these against industry benchmarks to maintain our focus on 40:40:20
  • – Parental Leave benefits with 12 weeks paid leave, an additional 6 weeks of superannuation payments to support closing the gender pay gap, 4 weeks paid leave for secondary carers, all with no qualifying period.
  • – Refreshed Employer Value Proposition (EVP) that reflects a diverse and inclusive workforce
  • – Employer Brand Campaigns with representation of diverse groups to attract talent and support an inclusive culture
  • – Inclusive Leadership Training (a program that builds on the current understanding of unconscious bias and shifts behaviours & habits to being more inclusive at Metcash)
  • – Targeted Women in Leadership program for emerging female leaders
  • – Gender diversity underpins all talent management identification and reporting, keeping a spotlight on gender balance in succession planning and talent development
  • – New talent acquisition technology to support gender-balanced shortlisting
  • – The Metcareers framework has been developed to give greater visibility of career opportunities across the organisation. The framework breaks own stereotypes inherent in some roles and allows people to easily identify transferable skills, like-for-like roles and promotions
  • – Flexible work is embedded in the organisation, including in our frontline roles to attract a more diverse workforce
  • – An active and committed Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council

In addition to the WGEA report, we also undertake our own analysis of gender pay focused on the TEC team members only, both before and after the annual remuneration review. We focus on TEC team members because the terms of the EA’s and Modern Awards determine remuneration, regardless of gender, so there is no scope for any gender-based pay inequity for our EA team members for those performing like for like roles. Our own analysis focuses purely on the TEC of our team members rather than elements such as incentives which are subject to performance outcomes. We undertake this analysis to ensure we are comparing like-with-like and our ultimate objective is to close any gap between the average TEC for males and females. Following the 2023 remuneration review, the overall average gender pay gap for our TEC employees was 2.1% in favour of males. We strive to address this gap through the remuneration review.

The difference between these two numbers can be explained by the both the gender profile of our business and the remuneration elements included. We have a higher representation of males in our EA covered roles, especially in our Distribution Centres, and when we include these roles in the data, with the additional allowances and overtime provisions, the median remuneration for males shifts upwards and the gender pay gap widens.

Our commitment to gender diversity is demonstrated through our target of 40:40:20 representation by FY25. We continue to track progress, with our current representation of females at [32.3]%, along with [35.3]% female representation across All Managers. In key areas, we have already reached this target, with the Metcash Board at 50%, Group Leadership Team (GLT) at 60% and KMP/Exec/GM Level at 41%.

Metcash is committed to creating an inclusive culture which underpins our ambition to establish Metcash as a Favourite Place to Work and fosters a high-performing organisation that values and harnesses the distinctive abilities of each person and promotes diversity.