What’s happening with Gender Pay Gap reporting? To date, only 2.7% of organisations have reported their pay gap. Why is that? Today I’m delighted to welcome Innes Miller, Commercial Director at StaffMetrix to share highlights from their Gender Pay Gap Pulse Report and to what’s happening on the gender pay gap reporting. The company offers a powerful and intuitive data visualisation platform which brings transparency and accountability to the workplace.
The highlights from the second edition of the StaffMetrix Gender Pay Gap Pulse report:
- the overall gender pay gap on a mean adjusted hourly rate of pay basis is 12.4% (11.8% on a median basis)
- financial services and insurance has the biggest mean pay gap at 28.7% (31.0% on a median basis)
To date, 250 organisations have reported their gender pay gap – representing just 2.7% of the total number expected to do so. Based on market feedback there are a number of reasons. Organisations continue to have issues collating and analysing their data. Once they have it, they are taking more time to consider what impact it will have internally and externally through consultation with key stakeholders and employment lawyers.
There is also a view emerging from the market that organisations in certain sectors with the highest gender pay gap, such as financial services are deliberately not publishing due to fear of negative publicity and equal pay concerns. Between 10 October and 21 November we saw no additional gender pay gap reports from financial services companies. Market feedback suggests many companies within the sector plan to submit their reports close to the reporting deadline.
Our view is that if organisations demonstrate credible and meaningful steps towards change, a less positive back story can be turned into a positive future one. However, planning for change takes time and careful consideration. As it will be possible to track the diversity performance of organisations from one year to the next using publically available data, it will be important for organisations to ensure they get it right and deliver on their targets.
The last five weeks has seen a number of organisations report including Sodexo and Weetabix who had 14.9% and 5.4% respective mean gender pay gaps based on the adjusted hourly rate of pay. EY reported a mean gender pay gap of 19.7%. EY also included voluntary disclosures such as their ethnicity pay gap. We expect to see more companies follow.
We also saw a government backed review urging FTSE 350 companies to renew their commitment to diversity by extending a target to them filling one third of senior management leadership positions below board level with women. The review found the best performer to be Next (47 per cent) and Marks and Spencer (43.2 per cent).
Lastly, thinktank New Financial published research titled ‘Diversity from an investor’s perspective’. The report highlighted the fact that increasing numbers of asset owners such as pension funds, investment consultants and sovereign wealth funds are paying much greater attention to the levels of diversity within the asset managers where they choose to invest. Their main reasons for tacking diversity are to improve decision making, and to attract and retain the best talent.
Want more detail? Subscribe to our Gender Pay Gap Pulse Reports <<HERE>>.
Innes Miller
Commercial Director at StaffMetrix
Do you know if your organisation has published its gender pay gap data? If not, we’d love your thoughts on the gender pay gap reporting and why firms are delaying publication.
Leave a Reply