Deloitte celebrates International Women's Day 2020

New Zealand – 6 March 2020  – Deloitte continues its commitment to celebrate and enable women leaders on International Women’s Day 2020.

Sonia Breeze, Deloitte New Zealand Human Capital partner said, “It’s important to me that Deloitte makes an impact that matters for women. On International Women’s Day 2020, I’m pleased to share the progress we at Deloitte New Zealand have made in improving the working life of our women and enabling the success of our women leaders.”

Putting this commitment into practice involves multi-faceted ongoing leadership, courage and commitment.   

Last year, Deloitte launched a Lifestyle Leave policy which offers all of their people another way to achieve work-life balance. The policy includes the option to purchase additional annual leave so that everyone can spend more time on the things important to them outside of work. The policy also helps balance out the financial impact of taking additional leave related to parenting and can be equally accessed by all employees – giving all parents more support to care for their families.

“It isn’t good enough to accept that women face barriers in the workplace. We all have a part to play in enabling the success of women,” said Breeze.

Deloitte have also refreshed its Parental leave policy, which recognises the importance of shared care (mums and dads) in providing positive benefits for business and the wider community and improving opportunities and outcomes for women. The firm now proudly provides eight weeks paid partner leave which is giving dads the opportunity to get more involved.

These actions and the firmwide commitment to inclusive mind-sets and a diverse workforce has led to real change in the firm’s workforce. Deloitte has almost doubled the number of female partners in the last five years from 14 to 27 and Board representation has increased from 14% to 36% in the same time. The implementation of Deloitte’s Women in Leadership programme and focussed recruitment efforts has ensured a balanced gender scorecard at each stage of the recruitment process. As a result, hiring of senior women has increased from 37% to 60% in the current financial year. 

“I’m committed to creating meaningful change in the wider business community with our diversity and inclusion work. As a firm, Deloitte has demonstrated this commitment through participation in the first two years of diversity reporting and I’m pleased to see this commitment continue with the publication of our sustainability snapshot.

“Creating an environment that fosters inclusion and accelerates diversity in business is critical. Enabling and empowering women leaders is not only the right thing to do, but essential to our success as a business and as a leader in New Zealand,” said Breeze. 

Download the full report here.