MBIE’s pay gap reduction journey

Significant progress from earlier gender pay gap action plans achieved through:

• Targeted remuneration activities. This includes the introduction of Career and Pay Progression (step-based pay framework and a career progression process), line by line pay review (same or similar roles) and continued monitoring.
• Removing identified bias in career and pay related processes.
• Tools to support pay decisions. This includes recruitment guidelines. MBIE has introduced pay guidelines to help people leaders make more informed decisions around pay and the implications for pay equity.
• Transparency of information through enhanced HRIS reporting of ethnicity and gender and pay gap reporting and dashboards.

Progress from the 2022 to 2023 Pay Gap Action Plan

The 2022 Kia Tū Ranga, MBIE’s Pay Gap Action Plan included a focus on:

1. Maintaining and building upon strong foundations.
2. Supporting diversity and removing bias from our employee experience.
3. Leadership and culture as an enabler for long term change.

Key progress includes:

Maintaining and building upon strong foundations

Data integrity

We have continued to improve the capture, transparency, reporting and accessibility of data relating to gender and ethnicities to drive decision making. Our dashboards and reporting have been further refined to report on gender and ethnic pay gaps on a quarterly basis.

Remuneration and benefits outcomes

Manual/ad hoc reporting is currently being used (whilst we resolve data system issues) to monitor policies and practices to ensure we keep like-for-like gaps minimised.

Ongoing activity

The campaign for people across MBIE to update their own ethnicity and iwi in the HRIS system is pending launch. This remains a focus.

Supporting diversity and removing bias from our employee experience

Attracting and recruiting diverse talent to MBIE and building new pipelines for diverse talent. Improvements have been made to the recruitment experience. 

• Job descriptions and advertisements are simpler and clearer. This allows for more people to see themselves in the role.
• Support people and the opportunity for cultural introduction are encouraged in interviews.
• MBIE karakia is consistently used throughout MBIE and the use of it within recruitment has been piloted, and is pending roll out.
• The People and Culture branch established a new role ‘Programme Lead Māori and Pacific Talent’, a person is in place and will support this mahi.

Ongoing activity

• Release of the recruitment survey to gain ongoing feedback on the recruitment experience.
• Interview questions designed and consulted on to understand Te Tiriti o Waitangi comprehension. Currently undergoing a pilot. Once complete, interview processes will have questions added to allow for demonstration of competency by candidates.
• Creation of talent pools. How MBIE identifies talent internally for appointment, secondments and deployment.

Career progression - providing equitable career progression and promotion opportunities

Feedback gathered from MBIE kaimahi has led to improvements in the career progression process. Changes were made during application rounds to enable a more cultural inclusive experience.

These included:

• the ability to present a verbal application
• emphasis on diverse panels
• an information session for Māori kaimahi to improve participation
• evidence considered from outside work for example, marae, church or community service
• the ability to bring a support person.

The career progression round in April 2023 showed that by gender and ethnicity, people put themselves forward and an equitable proportion of people were progressed.

Specific outcomes were:

• higher number of Māori applicants with a 76% success rate (13 out of 17 applicants)
• females were proportionally more successful than Males (71% compared to 64% of applications received)
• there was a decrease in Pasifika applications (21 in April 2023 compared to 35 in Oct 2022)
• higher participation and higher success rate from within Asian applications, from 67% to 76%.

Processes for application-based programmes such as Te Kākano (Emerging Leader), and Development Fund have been reviewed. Applicants can submit verbal applications, have a support person, and can draw on experiences outside of work.

Ongoing activity

• Integrating career progression with MBIE’s Performance and Development approach. With a view to removing the application round to enable recognition of people’s progression on a more regular basis. This project has been initiated. 
• Development of dashboard to show movements of employees.
• Leadership and learning strategy reviewed as a part of operating model change.

Talent Management

Priority areas for talent and succession planning are being reviewed by People and Culture. This will include a focus on creating a pipeline of diverse leadership talent.

Leadership and organisational culture as an enabler for long term change

Understanding our people’s experiences

• The Enabling MBIE people experience project completed and the report published.
• Employee-led networks have continued to develop and support the needs of MBIE’s diverse communities. Additional detail on networks is at:

Appendix 1 – Papa Pounamu priorities and progress

• MBIE Employee Engagement Survey ‘MyVoice@MBIE’ undertaken in August 2023. Overall engagement was 79% (9% increase from 2021).

Building people leaders’ cultural competency to strengthen inclusion and reduce bias

• Continuing to develop people leader’s capability as described at:

Appendix 1 – Papa Pounamu priorities and progress

Ongoing activity

• Educate hiring managers on bias in recruitment processes. This will be a focus in 2024.
• Enabling MBIE action plan. This is in development to progress recommendations from the Px project.

Build capability and strengthen Māori Crown relations for all our people

• Significant improvements to track and report on Whāinga Amorangi progress. This includes reporting dashboards. A new landing page in MBIE’s Learning Management System, Learn@MBIE. Allows people to record any additional learning not provided through Learn@MBIE.
• MBIE-wide Whāinga Amorangi survey delivered in September 2023. This captures the current capability and confidence of staff. It identifies potential areas of focus as an organisation. Insights from the survey will feed into the review of Whāinga Amorangi plan and measures.

Strengthening leadership capability

• We need to further define leadership at MBIE and expectations of our leaders. Work has started and will be shaped by the new People and Culture operating model and desired outcomes. This will be a primary focus for the year ahead.
• Deliver targeted leadership programmes aimed at building a stronger and more diverse leadership pipeline.
• Delivery of Mana Whakatōpū. A unique six-month wāhine Māori programme to support self-growth and courageous leadership.
• Delivery of Tū Mau Mana Moana for the public sector. To support the acceleration of talent and leadership development of Pacific people.
• Continued delivery of Tupu Tai internship programme, which promotes better outcomes for Pacific people through government policy.

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