#aurizon

Rail giant Aurizon will pay new dads to stay home for six months, in a “Mr Mum’’ plan to feminise its workforce through Australia’s most generous parental leave scheme.

The ASX 50 company will offer all its workers six months’ leave on half pay, in a groundbreaking “shared care’’ scheme conceived in an overcrowded lift.

Aurizon chief executive Lance Hockridge resolved to break the company’s “blokey’’ culture after eavesdropping on female managers complaining in the lift about condescending colleagues.

He invited them to lunch, where they vented “eye-opening’’ frustrations over a chauvinistic work culture.

“There were examples of women being told to be seen and not heard, that they would just go off to have babies, and worse,’’ Mr Hockridge recalled yesterday.

“The turnover rate for graduate females was around 20 per cent.”

Mr Hockridge invoked a women-first policy for recruitment and promotion, and within 18 months turnover fell to 5 per cent, the same rate as men.

Women now make up 17 per cent of the company’s 6560 workers, compared with 14 per cent in 2014.

Nearly one in three senior managers is female, compared with 21 per cent in 2014, and the proportion of women engineers has jumped from 10 to almost 13 per cent.

Of the 21 apprentices hired this year, 17 are women and four are indigenous men.

Mr Hockridge’s bold target of doubling the quota of women in his workforce to 30 per cent within four years has triggered a backlash from some of the blokes.

“That led to a lot of resentment and comments like, ‘Does this mean I have to wear a skirt to get a start?’,’’ he said.

“Last year the side of a locomotive engine was graffitied with ‘Diversity = less jobs for blokes’ — and guess what, that’s right. But blokes have had the inside run for 150 years in this organisation. This is not about discrimination against men, it’s about discrimination in favour of a ­diverse and inclusive workforce.”

Aurizon account manager Jenny Koskinen will be one of the first employees to benefit from the new parental pay scheme when her baby girl is born in May.

She plans to take six months off on half pay, then return to work on 150 per cent of her salary while husband Nick takes six months’ unpaid leave from his ­finance job at another company.

“I’ll have six months at home and then I can come to work and pursue my career knowing Nick is at home with the little one and she’ll be in good hands,’’ Ms ­Koskinen said yesterday.

The scheme lets a new mother take six months’ leave on half pay, and then pocket 150 per cent of her salary if her partner takes unpaid leave from a different employer for up to six months. If both parents work for Aurizon, each can take six months off in turn.

Mr Hockridge, 61, has two daughters and admits they gave him insight into the social value of gender equality at work.

But he insists diversity will be good for his business, which issued a profit warning in December due to sliding commodity prices.

“When I joined the workforce the key and critical skills were the ‘hard skills’, the technical skills, and there was an assimilation of power through being like your boss,’’ he said.

“Today you still need those hard skills but the distinguishing capabilities in this competitive, global environment are the ‘soft skills’ of leadership and EQ (emotional quotient).

“We are an innovative and commercial company and we need people who can think outside the box and challenge tradition.”

A recent survey of nearly 22,000 publicly traded companies in 91 countries, by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, linked the presence of more women in senior management to increased profitability.

Former Sex Discrimination commissioner Liz Broderick yesterday hailed the scheme for “normalising care for men”.

Workplace Gender Equality Agency director Libby Lyons said Aurizon had “raised the bar’’ on parental leave.