23 September 2026

In this episode of Teach, Marina Elliot, the department’s Executive Director People and Culture, talks about gender equity, leadership and supporting women at work. Explore why women are underrepresented in some leadership roles despite making up much of the school and preschool workforce. The episode also looks at perimenopause, how it can affect people at work, and why understanding it matters. Discover simple ways leaders can support staff through open conversations, flexibility and practical adjustments, so people feel respected, supported and able to thrive at work.

Show Notes

How to connect with People and Culture – staff login required

Employee wellbeing – staff login required

myWellbeing for leaders – staff login required

Transcript

Dale Atkinson: Hello, and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name's Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education. Today, we're slightly changing gears a little bit. We talk about equity a lot in a school context in terms of how we support our students, and today we're going to talk about equity with our workforce, with our Executive Director of People and Culture, Marina Elliot. Welcome.

Marina Elliot: Thanks for having me, Dale.

Dale Atkinson: So gender equity is becoming a focus…well it's always been a focus within the Department for Education, but is having a renewed commitment. Can you talk a little bit about why we're prioritising increasing leaders' awareness of gender equity and what we need to do?

Marina Elliot: So women make up approximately 75% of the school/teaching workforce, but approximately 65% of principal positions in our schools. And in our preschools 87% of our preschool teaching workforce are female. But we've got really high representation at about 98% for preschool directors. So in terms of gender equity, it's really important that our leadership in the organisation reflects the workforce more broadly, and we're starting to see a gap, or we've had a gap for some time, in fact, so we really want to focus on what would it take to make sure that the leadership of the organisation represents the broader workforce.

Dale Atkinson: And what are some of the barriers that have been identified in the recent work that you've done?

Marina Elliot: Look, I think the barriers will be familiar to listeners. I think women across the board, across all industries, tend to take up the major responsibilities for things like child-rearing. So we know that between certain ages, mid-20s to early 40s, that women take up more of those responsibilities at home, caring for children and looking after children as they go through their early years of education. So that certainly is a consideration, and people make choices about what they do in relation to that. But we see a higher proportion of our workforce being women, taking that responsibility in their family lives, so that's certainly one aspect. And when we talk to groups, they reflect that, and they want to be able to make choices that suit themselves and their families. But stepping into a position of leadership when you've got those additional responsibilities at home can be really daunting, and that's certainly a barrier that we hear quite frequently from our female workforce.

Dale Atkinson: So one of the things you and the team have been up to this year is sitting down with some of our site-based educators and having conversations with them about some of the inhibitors and opportunities that they see within this space. What are you hearing from them?

Marina Elliot: So what we're seeing in the data, and we went then and talked to people about that, is that we're seeing that females are keen to move into leadership positions. But again, some of the choices and the family situations that they might be in prevent them from doing that, or they feel like that would prevent them from doing that. So we do know that they are underrepresented in leadership positions compared to their male counterparts. But what we really interestingly saw is that when we looked deeper into the data, we saw that women's representation in leadership is consistent with their application rates. So that was something that was, that really challenged us because we hadn't been able to see that previously or hadn't looked that deeply before. So what that means is, that women when they apply for leadership roles, are getting those leadership roles. So there's a real barrier there, I think that we're learning about, is that there's a real confidence thing for our women in taking up and choosing to apply for those leadership roles. When they do, they win them, and they do a wonderful job. So there's some barriers there about confidence. There's some barriers there about helping them understand what does the role of a leader look like and how can they balance that with other responsibilities that they might have. So I think that perception of what a leader does, the amount of time that it takes to do the work of a leader in our schools and preschools is a pretty significant barrier that we want to talk with people about so that we have great people putting their hands up to do, a really amazing job in our schools and preschools.

Dale Atkinson: What are you sensing in terms of the pivot the department needs to make in order to be perhaps more invitational for female employees to come forward and put their hand up for these leadership opportunities?

Marina Elliot: I think there are a couple of really easy things. I think we hear consistently that people who are challenged or encouraged to take up a leadership role helps them think differently about actually doing that. So I think sometimes we might sit back and wait for people to put their hands up rather than actually going out there and actively encouraging someone for whom you see leadership as a potential and talk to them about, the wonderful opportunities that leadership provides but also the characteristics and the capabilities that you observe in them that would see them be really successful as a leader. I think there's another really important thing that we can do as an organisation, and that is to really think differently about how we support people to move into those roles. We've got some really wonderful examples across the state where we've got part-time leaders job sharing. Now, that's not an easy thing to do necessarily. It's really important that you can partner with someone and work well with someone. But the examples that we have where we've got two leaders in a site working collaboratively, both part-time have been really successful. So there are things like that we can do, and we can think creatively about how we can support people to move into those roles.

Dale Atkinson: That's exciting as a new developing area for the department. I think perhaps one of the under-recognised or under-spoken about aspects that are influencing the ability of women to come forward into leadership roles and take some of these things on is perimenopause. It's obviously something that people are starting to talk about a little bit more, but it's not settled as an open conversation point yet. Can you explain to me as a 46-year-old man what perimenopause is?

Marina Elliot: There are a number of symptoms caused by changes to hormone levels, and it's worth noting that women don't have any choice about their hormones fluctuating. It's a natural biological process, and it can be a very challenging one for people. The one most people are aware of is hot flushes. They can be jokingly referred to as power surges, hormonal heat waves, and sudden saunas. But they're not funny. They're uncomfortable, distracting, and can arrive without warning. But some of the other symptoms women can experience include brain fog, fatigue, mood changes, including depression, anxiety, and rage, difficulty concentrating, tiredness, disturbed sleep, and there are plenty more. There can be over 100 different symptoms that women can experience.

Dale Atkinson: I think one of the interesting things about the overlay of the symptoms is so much of, so many of them are direct crossovers with what you experience in life through stress or having a busy job, load, like high degree of load in the family space as well. So it's, quite often it's difficult to unravel what might be down to perimenopause, as I understand it, and what might be just a consequence of being an extremely busy professional woman.

Marina Elliot: You're right, and I think sometimes those things hit all at the same time. So you might still have children that you're supporting and all of the stresses that go with that. You've got a busy, stressful job. You might be entering perimenopause. So it can be a really difficult time with lots of different pressures. And in fact, the Office for Women across the South Australian public sector tells us that 80% of women are impacted by the symptoms of menopause, and 40% of women going through perimenopause or menopause experience symptoms that impact on their daily functioning. So it's a really big proportion of people across South Australia who are experiencing those symptoms in a debilitating way and really need some support to help them get through that phase of life.

Dale Atkinson: So what are the meaningful accommodations and exemptions we can make as an employer to address some of these?

Marina Elliot: So I think what's really important is being clear and asking your people, your staff, what they might need and what might make a difference for them. So I guess don't make assumptions be explicit and get them to talk to you about what might make a difference. So for example, it might be some really small things like access to air conditioning or fans. It might be that you can encourage them to look after themselves in line with the department's wellbeing procedures. It's about making some reasonable adjustments that enable people to be at their best in the workplace. And of course, that fits for a range of different things, not only perimenopause but it's about what can we do for our workforce that enables them to be at their best and to thrive? And that's going to look different for every person and every woman who might be experiencing symptoms of perimenopause.

Dale Atkinson: It's a good little pivot there, I think, or a pivot opportunity there to career progression, recruitment, and retention. So obviously this is one of the things that impacts somebody's decision as to whether they go for that leadership role or whether they come back into the workforce full time or any of those other impacts. How are we helping to overcome some of those barriers for women who are in that bracket between 40 and 55?

Marina Elliot: Yeah, so I think we've got flexible working arrangements, and I know that looks a bit different in our corporate offices than it might do in our schools and preschools. And certainly in corporate offices we do have flexibility, and so again it's about supporting our workforce to be able to access those arrangements. In our schools and preschools, part-time work might suit some people, and so it's talking about that with people and seeing… it has to obviously work for the site because we need to make sure that we've got people teaching our students and children. But there are definitely ways that we can support people through this period, and I think, again, individual people need individual circumstances, so having that conversation with your line manager, with your principal or preschool director is really important to be able to understand what might help that person at this point in time. And they don't have to be long-standing things. They might be short-term measures that just help someone get through a period of time and retains them in the workforce, which is the goal that we have.

Dale Atkinson: I assume your team's happy to advise and support in having some of those conversations.

Marina Elliot: Of course. We would be delighted to step that through for a leader or for individual employees, and they can contact either their business partner if they're in a school and preschool or certainly make contact with our leader advisory service or even our workforce relations team. There are plenty of people that you can reach out to in the first instance, and we'll certainly make sure we get you in contact with the right people to help you through.

Dale Atkinson: What's the message to male leaders out there who perhaps aren't tuned into this as something that they need to be aware of and conscious of in their conversations, perhaps with some of their team or just attuned to in, in the space of their work?

Marina Elliot: Look, I think the first thing that our male leaders, but also our female leaders, can do is to learn more yourself. I think, to be able to go out there and understand what this stage of life looks like and feels like for people is the critical first step. So I think educating yourself about what perimenopause is and the range of symptoms that people can have when they're going through perimenopause is really, really important. Our senior executive team recently undertook a workshop to understand more about perimenopause, and that was a really important thing for us to do as a leadership team, as leaders in the organisation particularly given the profile of our workforce and just to educate ourselves and become more comfortable talking about that between ourselves, but also giving ourselves permission to talk with colleagues in our teams about what we're learning and encourage them to do the same. I think sometimes people feel concerned that they might say the wrong thing or they might upset people, but, trying to build a culture where we can talk about these things openly and respectfully, of course so that others in our teams can feel confident to come and speak with their leaders if they are experiencing challenges in the workplace.

Dale Atkinson: What's some practical things that, you can do out in schools and in corporate office to make that comfortable space for some of these conversations to take place?

Marina Elliot: Look, I think I can speak on behalf of my team. We've got a, a team of female leaders, and we're all about the same age. And I think it's been really helpful for us just to talk with each other, and it takes sometimes only one person to step into that space and talk about something they might be experiencing, and you'll be surprised at how that opens the opportunity for other people to speak up and either support you or talk about their own symptoms. So I think it's about feeling comfortable having the connection with people to be able to be open as you feel comfortable, to talk about those things that you might be experiencing. One of the symptoms I think that's common for people is that notion of brain fog, and I know that I've certainly been in a meeting before where I can't bring a certain person's name to the forefront, and I know that person very well. And so even little things like we've got some people who will step in and support you in that moment rather than making you feel silly or that you have to suffer through not remembering someone's name even though you know their name every other day of the week. So I think it's about being open, talking with trusted colleagues and supporting each other through that process.

Dale Atkinson: So it's a broad and incredibly multifaceted, complex issue to deal with. What's the department going to do next?

Marina Elliot: We would love to continue to provide sessions for people to understand more about perimenopause. So those, look out for those sessions where you can book into and understand what that looks like, and we can certainly provide some opportunities through online learning for people to understand more about what this looks like and how they might be able to have those conversations with people in their teams that might be experiencing symptoms of perimenopause. So that's one of the things that's really important. If we can build awareness, if we can help people feel comfortable having these conversations, we're gonna get some much better outcomes for our people. So that's one of the great things that we can do. And in terms of the conversation we were having earlier about the broader gender equity, we'll continue to do some work with our employees to understand what are some of those barriers that might be preventing people from moving into leadership positions, and we'll continue to do the work to understand what else do we need to do as an organisation to make it easier for people to step into leadership positions so that we've got a leadership team across the department that is representative of our broader workforce. And of course, today we're talking about gender equity, but of course, we're thinking about equity in its broadest sense as well, to think about what do we need to do to make sure that our leadership in the department represents the broader equity considerations across our workforce. People talk about you can't be what you can't see, and so it's really important to us that we do have a representative leadership team, and that people feel confident that they can step into leadership being their authentic selves because we're going to get a better outcome with a greater representative leadership team.

Dale Atkinson: Fantastic conversation, Marina. Thank you very much for your time.

Marina Elliot: Thanks for having me.

Dale Atkinson: And of course, we'll have plenty of notes in the show notes with more information about all of these topics and where you can go for more information and support if you require it.