Our Progress Towards Gender Equality

At H&H Group, we are committed to championing a workplace culture of gender diversity, equality, and inclusivity. Our mission is to spread health and happiness to millions of people across the world – and we believe this mission starts with our own people. A truly equal culture empowers us to drive growth, strengthen our workplace, and spark innovation. Therefore, my vision for H&H Group is one where team members of all genders, female, male and non-binary, can reach their full potential and contribute to our shared success.

We recognise that achieving gender equality is an ongoing journey for us, but one that we are fully committed to. We have made it a strategic priority to close our gender pay gap and address its systemic drivers through focused actions that will help us build an equitable and inclusive workplace.

Nick Mann - CEO, Asia & ANZ

OUR ROADMAP TO ADVANCE GENDER EQUALITY

Advancing gender equality at H&H Group is a key priority for our organisation. Everyone benefits from equality within the workplace, whether that’s employees, businesses, or society as a whole. More than that, it is simply the right thing to do.

While we have always championed an inclusive work environment, we affirmed our commitment in 2023 with the development of a comprehensive five-year gender equality roadmap (2023-2027). Built upon extensive internal analysis and aligned with the Workplace Gender Equality Agency's (WGEA) best-practice guidance, this roadmap provides a clear, strategic framework to drive gender equality across our organisation. Critically, it sets out the clear steps we need to take to close our gender pay gap.

We have already made great progress in several key areas, and we are acutely focused on achieving the remaining goals it sets out. Importantly, we acknowledge that this is an ongoing process that takes time to meaningfully implement - one that we are very passionate about.

 

THE CURRENT LANDSCAPE AT H&H GROUP

The first action from our roadmap was to establish an unfiltered, objective view of our own organisation. Therefore, we conducted a thorough analysis of our workforce and established areas where gender imbalances exist, particularly in areas where gender-segregation is common.

This analysis enabled us to identify the systemic factors influencing our own gender pay gap, including occupational segregation areas, including Clerical, Administrative and Sales roles, along with a concentration of men in the upper earning quartiles and more women in the lower earning quartiles. We also have a higher proportion of women in part-time roles, and discretionary pay in certain roles, like performance-based incentives. With this clear picture, we are able to address these challenges through initiatives like targeted workforce planning and pay equity reviews.

 

OUR GOALS FOR GENDER EQUALITY

Based on our analysis, we set clear goals to improve gender balance, such as more women in leadership roles and increased opportunities for part-time leadership positions for both genders. When establishing our goals, we have followed WGEA’s recommendation to work towards a gender-balanced organisation.

Our overarching goal is to reduce our median total remuneration gender pay gap of 14.8% by 5.1pp, and our average gender pay gap of 25.3% by 11.3pp, by 2027, which we intend to achieve through strategic workforce planning, pay equity reviews, and expanded career pathways for women.

 

KEY INITIATIVES AND OUR ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR

Achieving gender equity isn’t just about setting goals, it’s also about truly changing beliefs, systems, and biases at a very foundational level. To this end, we are implementing a number of actions and initiatives:

 

EDUCATION AND AWARENESS

Education sits at the core of addressing inequity and bias. We have made significant investments in education for all team members, particularly our leaders, covering topics such as the barriers to career progression for women, identifying and reducing bias, menopause awareness and support, sexual harassment prevention and understanding the causes of the gender pay gap. Through this, we are empowering our team to live in a more inclusive culture, to recognise bias and inequality – no matter how subtle - and to know how to take action.

 

WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP PROGRAM

We now have more women than men in almost all levels of leadership positions, with women making up 57% of Key Management Personnel and 58% of All Managers. To support a strong pipeline of female talent, we partnered with gender equality experts to implement a Women in Leadership program to help remove barriers to women advancing into leadership roles.

 

PAY EQUITY AND BENEFITS REVIEW

We are committed to regularly conducting pay equity audits to identify and address gender pay gaps, particularly the like-for-like pay gap. We also review our discretionary pay and benefits packages bi-annually, to ensure they are free of bias and align with our commitment to fairness and equity.

 

CEO COACHING AND LEADERSHIP ACCOUNTABILITY

To ensure our commitment to gender equality is embedded at the highest levels, we have invested in one-on-one coaching for our CEO. This coaching integrates gender considerations into executive decision-making, ensuring that our leadership practices consistently reflect our values.

 

GOVERNANCE AND LEADERSHIP ACCOUNTABILITY

We established an internal DE&I Governance Council made up of passionate leaders who represent the key internal and external stakeholders of the organisation, and an employee-consultative committee, H&H Champions Network, to ensure our team’s voices are heard throughout this process. We track our progress on gender equity through a scorecard, which we share with our Council to monitor key gender equality indicators, identify challenges, and ensure we are making progress towards our roadmap’s goals.

 

GENDER EQUALITY POLICY

We created a Gender Equality Policy, which serves as a practical framework containing the guidelines, actions and commitments to achieving our objectives. We will also be updating a Flexible Working Policy to support mainstreaming flexible work, including removing barriers to working part time in leadership roles.

 

PARENTAL LEAVE SUPPORT

We have revised our Leave Policy to offer equal length paid parental leave for all genders, to encourage shared caregiving and support part-time work. We have also partnered with an external provider to introduce personalised coaching for team members before, during, and after parental leave, addressing potential barriers and empowering team members through this transition. Additionally, we’ve introduced a "One-Big-Parent" Network to keep in touch with those on parental leave. Through enhancing the parental leave experience, we aim to support our team in balancing their careers and caregiving responsibilities.

 

OTHER LEAVE SUPPORT

We recently introduced paid leave to support team members navigating perimenopause and menopause. We also engaged external experts to deliver education to all team members, to help break down the barriers and remove the stigma around menopause.

 

OUR ONGOING COMMITMENT TO SYSTEMIC CHANGE

As we move into the third year of our five-year roadmap, we are continuing to implement actions that increase gender balance, enhance support for all genders, and continually challenge and change practices that may unintentionally perpetuate inequality.

In practical terms, this means we will:

• Further enhance pathways for women into higher-paying roles.
• Support team members of all genders who take parental leave and work part-time, and address career barriers for those who do so.
• Continue conducting regular pay equity audits to ensure there are no like-for-like pay gaps.
• Enhance and refine recruitment and promotion practices to ensure they are equitable, inclusive, and transparent.
• Deliver ongoing education to our team to embed respect, fairness, and inclusion in our culture.
• Set targets to reduce the gender pay gap.

We are committed to advancing gender equality within our organisation and creating an environment where all team members can achieve their full potential, regardless of gender. We are proud of the progress we’ve made so far, but we recognise that there is still work to be done.

Together, we will continue to build a workplace that reflects the values of respect, equity, and inclusion for all.