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At the same time as they drive diversity throughout their organisations, HR teams have work to do in addressing gender norms that undermine their own authority, Australian researchers suggest.

The "gendered qualities" of HR remain a blind spot in organisations, according to academics Susan Ainsworth and Andreas Pekarek, from the University of Melbourne Department of Management and Marketing.

After analysing a series of studies on the gendered associations of HR, they suggest that HR's role has been 'gender-coded' as inherently female, and this means much of its work is rendered invisible and without reward because it is "seemingly natural"...