Professor Michaela Rankin,
Deputy Dean (International)

As a mother of a young woman just commencing her career, addressing bias in the workplace is something that is front of mind for me. Completing her studies during the pandemic has certainly played a part in my daughter’s access to career opportunities. Gone were the opportunities for internships, study abroad and networking with potential employers.

Over the past two years, without a doubt, the pandemic has had significantly greater negative impacts on the careers of women, who were more likely to leave the workforce, or move to part time work to juggle work, caring and home-schooling responsibilities.

It is a critical time for companies, including our own, in combating the bias women face at work, to take explicit action to promote, hire and retain women. This is even more acute for women with disabilities, LGBTIQA+ women and women from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

At Monash Business School, in the first instance we shine a light on our performance in recruitment, development and leadership opportunities available to women.

We can’t improve our performance if we don’t explicitly measure and evaluate our performance in this regard. Along with the University, we have developed a range of development, mentoring and shadowing opportunities for women to enable our female staff to develop their careers.

We also contribute to the career development of women in their own fields, in particular through our MBA and Global Executive MBA programs through ensuring diversity in both our student cohort. We are proud to be the only business school in Australia to enrol 50 per cent women in our MBA programs.

This enables these women to develop strong, supportive networks and identify and take opportunities for career development. It also ensures our male students understand the strength to be gained from diverse decision-making teams, which will pay dividends in the leadership teams and boardrooms of corporations down the track.