WGEA Reporting and APRA AMCOS Gender Pay Equity

Company Statement 29 February 2024

2023 Gender Pay Gap Report

As an organisation with more than 100 employees, APRA AMCOS lodged its annual public report with the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) on 25 May 2023. The public report is on our website.

What is the difference between the Gender Pay Gap and Equal Pay?

It is important to note that the Gender Pay Gap is not the same as Equal Pay. Equal Pay is a legal requirement for like-for-like roles. APRA AMCOS’ annual salary review ensures that we are compliant with Equal Pay requirements, regardless of gender.

The Gender Pay Gap is a measure of the difference in earnings between men and women in the workforce. (Note: WGEA has not included non-binary data in its assessment as it is in the process of establishing a baseline level for this information).

Sadly, every industry in Australia has a gender pay gap in favour of men. If a company has a larger proportion of men in high-paying roles and a larger proportion of women in low-paying roles, then the overall pay gap between men and women will be higher, even if they are equally qualified and perform equally well in their roles.

Our Equity Aspirations

APRA AMCOS aspires to be a best practice employer and an advocate for representation, equity and inclusion in the music industry. As a leader in our industry, an employer of over 400 staff across Australia and New Zealand, and the representative of over 119,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members, we have invested in and built pathways towards balanced representation, equity and inclusion within our workforce and leadership.  Some of the ways that we have enabled this include:   

• monitoring and measuring the composition of our workforce and governing bodies: we are seeing the results of these efforts - women represented 89% of management promotions over the last 12 months
• annual gender pay parity reviews which have enabled significant reductions in GPG for the large majority (84%) of non-manager roles in the business (clerical and administration roles 52%; and Professionals 32%)
• flexible working: we have implemented improved flexible work guidelines and hybrid working is available for all roles across APRA AMCOS
• generous parental leave benefits that are carer-status neutral
• active listening and learning sessions to increase staff confidence in voicing the challenges they may face arising out of gender, cultural or ability differences, which enables us to be aware of how we can best support them
• an inclusive workplace: APRA AMCOS takes its Positive Duty to provide a safe, inclusive workplace seriously, providing robust policies and frequent mandatory workplace behaviour training for staff, senior leadership and for Boards. This training is provided by expert external advisors.
• monitoring and measuring inclusion through our twice-yearly Staff Engagement Survey: staff have reported year on year positive scores of above 8 out of 10.

Understanding the APRA AMCOS Gender Pay Gap Results

For the WGEA report, APRA AMCOS’ industry comparison group is “Information Media and Telecommunications,” and the sub-category is Motion Picture and Sound Recording Activities.

APRA AMCOS reported a median total remuneration gender pay gap of 13.8% for 2023. This is lower than the national median total remuneration pay gap of 21.7%, and notably lower than the Industry median total remuneration pay gap of 24.5%, We note that the best practice pay gap benchmark is less than 5%. We have achieved this, or are close to achieving it, within the largest occupational categories in the business:

• Clerical and Administrative employees (our pay gap is -1.9% compared with 11% for the Industry Group)
• Professionals (our pay gap is 5.7% compared with 17.7% for the Industry Group)

APRA AMCOS outperforms the Industry Comparison Group on representation of women in:

• our workforce overall (52% compared with 43% in the Industry Group); and
• in management (54% compared with 39% in the Industry Group).

Participation by women in our workforce is enabled by generous flexible work arrangements and carer-status neutral parental leave benefits that are higher than those offered by the Industry Comparison Group:

• We offer 18 weeks of paid parental leave compared with the Industry Average of 13.7 weeks.
• We pay superannuation contributions over periods of parental leave (a benefit introduced by APRA AMCOS in 2019).
• We offer coaching to staff returning to work following a period of parental leave and support this return with a one-off Childcare Support Allowance of $2,000.

We’re celebrating that, for the first time, almost equal numbers of men (6) and women (7) accessed APRA AMCOS' paid parental leave benefit. The number of men accessing paid parental leave increased almost 50% in the last 12 months. Shared caring arrangements between the genders enables more equitable workforce participation by women. We welcome the change that APRA staff are making possible by drawing on these benefits in this way.

Ultimately, our aim is to work in a way that enables equitable outcomes for everyone and supports our entire workforce.