Jobs For Women 'limited'

The Sunday Age

Sunday August 12, 2007

Samantha Lane

AN AFL survey has found that, on the basis of gender, sections of its own female staff felt limited in its ability to win the positions of power in the league.

In an organisation that has few women in its highest management ranks, the AFL's female staff felt they would need more opportunities and better support to crack what the AFL's sole female commissioner Sam Mostyn has described as the typically "sacred areas".

In 2005, Mostyn became the first woman to join the AFL Commission - filling a new seat created specifically for women.

Although women make up 44 per cent of the AFL's staff list, Jane Hollman - the league's human resources manager appointed at the beginning of last year - is the only female in the AFL to hold a general manager's position.

In the next tier down there are six women "line managers" - ground operations manager Jill Lindsay, an events manager, payroll manager, membership shared services manager, a brand manager and a national ticketing manager. There are no women on the AFL executive.

Mostyn, 41, believes a woman could be chief executive of the AFL in her lifetime.

"What I'd personally like to see, and I'd love to get more information on it and spend more time with the women of the industry, is building career paths for women already in the industry so that, arguably, a woman could be the CEO of the AFL one day and we wouldn't think that was odd," Mostyn told The Sunday Age this week.

"If there are sacred areas let's understand why and whether encouraging women to apply and be part of those areas wouldn't be a good thing for the industry.

"It will take some work, it won't happen by itself. It will mean some interventions around . . . what skills do they need to get and what jobs should be opened up more broadly, and what are the traditional areas where we've assumed that only men would want to apply - is it in football departments?

"What's coming out is that women do want to have a bigger role in football administration and probably do feel a bit limited in their careers. I think, as an industry, if you've got almost half the population base interested in you for a career, you ignore women at your peril. It's a talent base we should be actively working with."

Mostyn referred to the "pink ghetto" that women in big business were prone to finding themselves in. She mentioned human resources, public relations and communications as examples.

Earlier this year, AFL employees were asked to record their general satisfaction levels and career goals, the league particularly interested in responses from female employees. Some clubs have signalled interest in doing a similar survey.

League data this year shows that a record 50,000 females are now playing the game in organised competition, women make up 36 per cent of the league's AFL and club membership body and half of the game's volunteer base.

Mostyn would also like to see more women on the commission, on club boards and as club presidents. "But that takes attitudinal change across the industry itself . . ."

© 2007 The Sunday Age

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