Closing the gap: How Interflow achieved pay equity

In past years in construction and engineering, gender pay gaps have often been explained away as an unavoidable by-product of workforce composition.

After all, the greater number of field roles tend to be held by men. But at Interflow, leaders decided that explanation simply didn’t work. Over the past few years, Interflow has implemented a series of structural and process changes to ensure people are paid fairly for their specific role, experience and contribution, regardless of gender.

The result? Interflow now has no gender pay gap. For a business operating in the heavily male construction, utilities and water infrastructure sectors, that outcome means a great deal.

Internally, however, it was never considered a headline initiative. It instead came from a broader conscious focus on fairness and organisational culture.

Chief Financial Officer Tracy Black said the company’s approach was really about ensuring everyone was paid appropriately and fairly, as opposed to gender, specifically.

“If I think back to the foundation of all of this, we weren’t trying to get to gender pay equality,” she said.

“It was instead centred around diversity and inclusion, and about doing the right thing and attracting the right people by paying proper market rates.”

Interflow pays superannuation while people are on parental leave, for example.

“So, we took a big-picture view of what fairness really means when it comes to pay,” added Black.

One of the first parts of the process was undertaking market assessments of salary ranges, hand in hand with an independent market analysis body, ensuring current internal roles aligned with benchmarks.

Since those first standards were established, updates continue to be made to ensure salaries always sit within correct salary bands no matter the person’s gender.

And so the outcome – the elimination of the gender pay gap – was a natural result of fair and consistent pay practices across Interflow.

But that’s not the only positive result according to the company.

Embedding fairness in Interflow culture

In any business, positive cultures are only reinforced at an operational level when systems and processes support constantly encourage new ways of doing things, as well as new behaviours.

Once the original work was done around salaries at Interflow, it was embedded into the company’s processes and policies around the setting, reviewing and communication of future salaries.

Most importantly, pay would never be influenced by gender, race, faith or any other personal characteristic. Anne-Marie Vella, Interflow’s People Experience Manager, said a vital part of the process was the establishment of a clear policy and supporting salary framework for every role.

“It’s actually fairly simple in practice,” Vella said. “We’ve got a role and a salary range. And no matter what, the people in that role need to be within that range. None of it has anything to do with gender.”

Each role has a defined salary band that aligns with current market data. People are positioned within the range based on performance, experience, capability and responsibility.

“We also look at things like parental leave,” she added. “When someone re-enters the workplace, we test their salary against current data because the market may have shifted while they were away.”

Importantly, that framework does not then gather dust. Twice a year, or when someone is promoted or returns after a long absence, the ranges are revisited to ensure they are still good and fair.

That’s just the starting point. Of equal importance is how those standards are communicated across Interflow. Around the time of annual salary reviews, leaders host sessions where they explain the framework and the principles that reinforce it.

This is important, as it communicates the fact that the standards are not simply set by HR, but instead are understood and supported by the Executive Leadership Team and senior leaders across the business.

“That was a big thing for me – I didn’t want it to come from HR,” said Vella. “It has to come from the leaders, otherwise it’s not going to be embedded in the way we do business.”

For the Interflow leadership team, the motivation behind the concept of greater equality across the business connects to the organisation’s broader purpose.

“It’s actually all about our purpose,” Black said.

“Our purpose is to improve the lives of the people we work with, the communities we serve and the environment we work in. More simply, it’s just not right to have it any other way.”

While the elimination of the gender pay gap at Interflow was a notable achievement in itself, and in fact earned the WORK180 award for Outstanding Achievements in Pay Equity in 2025, Black said the biggest challenge facing the organisation is stronger gender representation across the industry more broadly.

It’s no secret that construction and infrastructure related sectors have male-dominated workforces.

“I think our real challenge now is around attracting and retaining an equal female representation,” said Black.

“We have a focus on this in recruitment, from leadership appointments all the way through our workforce.”

In fact, leadership representation has leapt forward at Interflow in recent years.

When Black joined Interflow three years ago, she was the second of two women in the executive group. Now, three of eight Interflow executives are female. For Black, those changes matter not just symbolically, but practically.

“When you’re looking at a new role, the last thing that gets you over the line is your sense of how you’re going to fit in,” she said.

“If it’s just a bunch of blokes sitting at the table, there’s no way a woman can feel like she’s going to fit in.”

Greater gender diversity at the highest level within a business naturally, and often dramatically, expands the organisation’s potential talent pool according to Black.

That offers a critical advantage, culturally and commercially, as engineering and infrastructure firms across Australia face skills shortages.

“For us, this is now simply the way we work,” Vella said. “It’s embedded into the way we do things.”

In removing the gender pay gap, Interflow has demonstrated that even in male-dominated sectors, structural fairness is not just a nice-to-have, it’s also a powerful competitive advantage.

For more information, visit interflow.com.au