Gender pay gap reporting has featured heavily in the news during the last couple of years, with the deadline for large private and voluntary sector employers to publish the next round of gender pay gap figures on 4th April 2019.
But what are the Gender Pay Gap Reporting requirements and do the next round of results show any progress has been made?
Gender Pay Gap Reporting Requirements
The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 came into force on 6 April 2017. They apply to large private and voluntary sector employers (defined as those with 250 more employees on 5th April each year).
Under the Regulations, affected employers must publish:
- Overall gender pay gap figures for employees, were calculated using both mean and median average hourly pay.
- The proportion of men and women in each of the four pay bands (quartiles), is based on the employer’s overall pay range. This is supposed to show how the gender pay gap differs across an organisation, at different levels of seniority.
- Information on the employer’s gender bonus gap (that is, the difference between men’s and women’s mean and median bonus pay over a 12-month period).
- The proportion of male and female employees who received a bonus in the same 12-month period.
Employers have the option to include a narrative explaining any pay gaps or other disparities and setting out what action if any, they plan to take to address them. The provision of a narrative is strongly encouraged but is not mandatory.
Results so far
So far, almost 600 businesses have published their reports ahead of the April 2019 deadline. These reports have provided some surprising and unfavourable comparisons from 2017. For example:
- HSBC Bank – the mean hourly pay gap between men and women increased by 2% (59% in 2017 and 61% in 2018), and the median hourly pay grew from 29% to 30%.
- Virgin Atlantic – median hourly pay amounts increased from 28.4% to 31%.
According to Personnel Today, for 201 companies out of 561 businesses that have published their pay gap results so far for the April 2019 deadline, the median gender pay gap has increased from 9.8% (2017) to 13.8% (2018) in favour of male workers’ pay.
However, despite the above findings, the overall (across all 561 businesses) signs are quite positive with the median pay gap reduced by 0.6%.
For almost half of the businesses, the figures show the median pay gap has reduced by 4% (16% for 2017 and 12% for 2018). For the remaining 14.6% of businesses who have published their results, they report no change in their gender pay gap.
Comment
Whilst the overall gap for these employers have reduced, there is still plenty of work to be done to get the gender pay gap reduced further. Previously, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has called for employers to tackle their gender pay gap by reviewing their flexible working practices, tackling conscious and unconscious bias, and addressing pregnancy and maternity pay discrimination, and reviewing these practices is still encouraged.
How Can Nelsons Help?
Laura Kearsley
is a specialist Employment Law Partner at Nelsons.
For further information or to comment on this article, please contact our employment law specialists on 0800 0241 976 or contact us via the online form.