Gender equality is a central focus of our talent attraction and retention strategy. Creating a supportive and equitable workplace that is fair for all helps us to recruit and retain the world’s best business talent and produces better results for our clients
We support the Australian Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s work to introduce greater transparency around gender pay gaps in Australia. It is an important step in elevating the focus from like-for-like pay to aggregate pay disparity between genders at an organisation, sector, and national level.
Bain Australia has been an Employer of Choice for Gender Equality since 2019. Our efforts to continuously improve our work environment to support gender equality have also been recognised in global workplace awards.
Whilst we have made some inroads towards greater gender diversity in our business, we recognise that Bain Australia currently has unsatisfactory gender pay gaps, which are primarily driven by having fewer women in senior roles.
It is important to note that gender pay gaps are not a measure of equal pay for like-for-like roles within our organisation. We have equitable pay for men and women working at comparable levels at Bain Australia, safeguarded by regular review of our global compensation model. Our challenge is to ensure we retain women and accelerate their journey to leadership, and attract more senior females to consider a career in strategy consulting with Bain.
To drive change in this regard, we are implementing an acceleration strategy and action plan in our Australian practice that has been shaped by our teams and is fully supported by our senior leadership. Our approach focuses on five key areas: Sponsorship, Flexibility, Connection, Recruitment, and Accountability, which are described in further detail below.
This page provides information on organisational context influencing Bain Australia’s gender pay gaps, our commitment to gender equality and the actions we are taking to ensure that we are providing a gender-equal employee experience.
Understanding the data
Understanding the data
What is the gender pay gap?
As defined by the Australian Workplace Gender Equality Agency, the gender pay gap is a measure of financial equality that highlights the difference in average earnings between women and men in the workforce. It is not to be confused with women and men being paid the same for the same, or comparable, job.
Bain & Company’s compensation model is based on meritocracy – equality of opportunities and rewards for all our team members. Our compensation model is reviewed regularly on a global basis to ensure pay equity at each tenure or level by function group.
We have equitable pay for men and women working at comparable levels at Bain Australia. However, we have higher representation of men in senior leadership roles (upper pay quartile), and higher representation of women in our lower pay quartile, resulting in a gender pay gap.
We recognise that our current gender pay gap remains unsatisfactory and we are committed to accelerating change. Improving gender balance, particularly at the Partner level, will effectively reduce our gender pay gap.
For the reporting period of 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024:
- Median Gender Pay Gap (base salary): 24.5%
- Median Gender Pay Gap (total remuneration): 30.7%
- Average Gender Pay Gap (base salary): 34.8%
- Average Gender Pay Gap (total remuneration): 44%
Bain Australia’s gender pay gap calculations include all full time and part time employees at every level of our organisation, including Partners.
For the reporting period of 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023:
- Median Gender Pay Gap (total remuneration): 30.6%
- Median Gender Pay Gap (base salary): 29.7%
Bain Australia’s gender pay gap calculations include all full time and part time employees at every level of our organisation, including Partners.
Within our Australian practice, our goal is to achieve gender balance across our leadership team within the next five years, and our Partner team by 2033.
In working towards our goal, we are implementing an acceleration strategy and action plan focused on five key areas: Sponsorship, Flexibility, Connection, Recruitment, and Accountability.
Taking Action
Taking Action
Our business is an apprenticeship model and active sponsorship is at the heart of talent development. We continue to drive best-in-class mentorship programs, both formal and informal, that focus on supporting all Bain employees to thrive in their careers.
We have refreshed our sponsorship program to formally match each female and non-binary employee (Manager level and up) in our client-facing cohort with a Bain Partner as an active and accountable sponsor. This ensures that women at key inflection points in their career have a sponsor supporting them in reaching their full potential, including a formal progression plan. The effectiveness of the sponsorship program will be regularly reviewed, with a bi-annual steering committee to assess sponsorship outcomes and identify additional opportunities to enable our future female leaders.
We support the individual needs of all Bain employees through flexible working options, such as part-time work, job sharing etc., and work accommodations (for example, by limiting the amount of travel required on case work). In 2022 we increased paid parental leave for all parents and caregivers from 16 weeks to 26 weeks.
Recognising that female employees may be more likely to have significant commitments outside of work (eg as the primary caregiver for children), we will pilot focused flexibility arrangements that are tailored to career stages, life circumstances and personal preferences. We will also work to ensure our people taking these options progress commensurately.
We have had a strong Women at Bain community focused on supporting, connecting, and increasing the visibility of our female team members for many years. We have similar initiatives in place for other diverse groups as well - such as Pride at Bain, our LGBTQ network, Asians at Bain, Diverse Abilities at Bain etc. – and ally communities to allow others to demonstrate their support.
We continue investing in the Women at Bain community to foster meaningful relationships, for example through creating Women at Bain ‘family units’, encouraging female leaders to more transparently role model lifestyle boundaries and trade-offs, and hosting more events to connect both internally and with the broader business community.
We take an equitable approach to recruitment, including attracting and recruiting female and non-binary people for a range of roles.
Shifting the gender balance across Bain’s workforce is a long-term process, and we are working to ensure we deliver this consistently across all levels. The majority of consulting staff are recruited as classes at Associate Consultant, Senior Associate Consultant, Consultant and Manager levels. We continue to maintain equal gender representation in recruiting at these levels, supported by initiatives such as Bain’s True North scholarship for women and MBA Be Bold scholarship. Recruiting and retaining a greater proportion of women in these cohorts is an important step in building a pipeline of future senior leaders.
To balance the candidate pool, we invest in outreach to raise awareness among diverse female candidates of the benefits and options available to them at Bain.
The success of the action plan must be underpinned by strong accountability from Bain’s senior leadership. Bain Partners and leadership teams are committed to driving change at individual and organizational levels through embedding and implementing practical initiatives, undergoing training in diversity and unconscious bias, tracking outcomes, and holding ourselves accountable to progress. For example, we have established a Women at Bain Steering Committee and regularly solicit feedback from female cohorts, including through our annual employee engagement survey.
In striving for gender parity at all levels of our organisation, we recognise we have more work to do. That is why we are continuously reviewing our action plan, building on our learnings, and looking for innovative ways to deliver meaningful results.