Organisers of the third Recalibrate Gender Equity Awards have put the call out for nominations following the 2024 launch event in Melbourne last week.
Founded and presented by Geelong-based organisation Business in Heels, the national awards event recognises and celebrates work done by businesses and individuals to address issues such as gender bias, stereotyping and pay gaps.
The awards also foster and encourage such practices by facilitating connection and the sharing of best practice knowledge between businesses.
Business in Heels chief executive Lisa Sweeney said she was delighted by the awards’ steadily growing momentum.
“When we talk to a lot of the winners, the ones that are doing really innovative things are being inundated by other people wanting to do it, and they’re helping them implement the same sort of things,” Ms Sweeney said.
“(Two-time Recalibrate winner) Coulter Legal are finding that people are going out of their way to try to become their graduates or interns or whatever because of the attractiveness of being employed by them.
“And so you know our goal of speeding up the market and getting good things amplified is really working, which is great.”
The 2024 awards will also include two new awards, the First Nations Business and Intersectional Business categories.
Ms Sweeney said the new awards would help “put a spotlight” on the good work of businesses that “perhaps have not been looked at”.
“Particularly with First Nations, there’s so much great work there and quite often the leadership within First Nations is very community minded, so I think we’ll get some great learnings out of that,” she said.
“Intersectionality is the next frontier. We heard from a lot of our individual winners, many women of different ethnic backgrounds who have had to work so hard to get where they are.
“There are so many different roadblocks, whether it’s ethnicity, whether it’s around disability or neurodiversity or even sexuality. And some companies are really good at handling one but not the other.
“So we’re really excited about trying to understand how organisations can put the right resources there to create equality for all these people who are being adversely affected.”
Visit genderequityawards.com.au for more information or to nominate a business or individual. Nominations are open until July 31.
