Gender equality shows up at Women in Print breakfast
A warm breakfast on a chilly Melbourne morning was just what was needed as both men and women gathered to attend The Women in Print Breakfast together for the first time at the industry gender equality focused event.
Held on the third day of PacPrint, the event focused on the need for a gender equality policy for all of industry, with CEO Kellie Northwood leading a discussion on the performance of the print industry, and examining ways forward to build a united policy.
The panel included SA Patron and Women in Print deputy president, Sandy Aspinall, director of recruitment company Creative Juices; Mark Moro, national sales manager, Ricoh Graphic Communications; TRMC 2021 Emerging Talent mentorship winner, Charlotte Fountain; and Tony Bertrand, national sales manager, Ball & Doggett.
Women in Print founder Susan Heaney opened the session, giving a special mention of thanks to sponsors and acknowledging the gentleman in the room.
She said, “This is part of our evolution as we move and continue to share our story and be part of our story going forward.”
Honing in on the topic of gender equality, she expressed its importance, saying that it has not only been a topic of conversation around the nation, but that Women in Print has now put the learnings and the statistics together in a policy to roll out to the industry, “to bring you along on that journey and to have people put in and participate”.
Northwood then took to the stage, running through topics on gender diversity that covered how it leads to an increase in profits, and how it plays out in the industry in terms gender breakdown, paygap, carer's leave and leadership. She then went on to re-emphasise the industry framework of attract, recruit, train and develop, retain and evaluate, before moving on to chair the panel discussion.
Opening the panel session by posing the question “what’s wrong with a male dominated industry?” led to some key takeouts during the session, such as:
the need for change towards more diversity to attract people to the industry; the merits of hiring older workers and the knowledge they can share; understanding the culture of youth (our future leaders and workers); introducing intern programs such as the five-year program initiated by Ball & Doggett for graphic designers; and attracting people into the engineering side of the business, to address the challenge of finding workers to carry on from ageing technicians.
There was also a focus on smaller businesses, and the need for leaders to engage more with their staff, and to find ways to retain them, with the panel also expanding on how to integrate a university program for the industry.
