The latest controversy at the BBC around the gender pay gap highlights ongoing issues facing UK employers on gender pay equality.
And with less than three months to go before organisations with 250 or more employees have to report their gender pay and bonus gaps under legislation that sets an April 2018 publication date, XpertHR is urging employers to ensure they are doing all they can to protect their reputation.
Only a small number of employers have so far complied with the gender pay gap reporting regulations. But an XpertHR survey of 288 employers found that many are waiting to see what other companies in their sector do before publishing – or want there to be a large number of reports in the public domain before they release their own figures.
Despite this, more than one in four (26.5 per cent) mid-sized companies (those with 250-999 employees) and more than half (51.5 per cent) of larger companies (with 1,000+ employees) have already calculated their pay gaps but without yet making them public.
XpertHR content director Mark Crail says, ‘The BBC finds itself at the centre of the gender pay inequality debate again this week, but it’s something that many of the UK’s larger companies are going to have to start addressing.
‘Pay inequality and the gender pay gap are not necessarily the same thing. Pay inequality is where individuals doing the same or similar jobs are paid differently; a gender pay gap is more likely to reflect structural issues such as a shortage of women in senior roles, or occupational segregation, in which men and women tend to be concentrated, in particular the types of jobs.’
But employees are unlikely to draw that distinction and their first reaction to seeing gender pay gap data for their organisation will be to ask why it appears to discriminate between men and women.
Crail says, ‘Employers face a huge risk to their reputations as fair and equal employers. Rather than leaving it until the last minute, they should be ensuring that their data is accurate, the calculations are in line with the legislation and that the reporting requirements can be met. HR departments should use the next few weeks wisely to really understand their own organisation’s gender pay gap and to develop a clear message to employees and the outside world about why it exists and what they are going to do about it.’
The survey found that as a result of calculating and reporting their gender pay gaps, organisations were most likely to:
- Conduct further analysis (65.6 per cent);
- Develop an action plan to close the gap (45.8 per cent);
- Review recruitment processes (27.1 per cent);
- Review promotion processes (21.9 per cent); and
- Review pay levels for men and women (17.7 per cent).
Just one in six (16.7 per cent) say that having calculated and reported their gender pay gap, they were likely to take no further action.
Further reading on gender pay gap
