Top UK businesses are still registering an unfair pay gap against women, according to a new report published by software solutions company Xactly.
The report suggests that gender prejudice is still a contributing factor to why women receive a lower pay than men.
According to Xactly, 85 per cent of CEOs admit that the main cause of a continued pay gap is down to gender prejudice.
Some 70 per cent admit to witnessing discrimination against women due to their gender and 62 per cent say they have personally experienced gender-based pay discrimination at work.
More than four fifths (85 per cent) of C-level executives believe there is a gender pay gap in UK businesses. However, a similar number (82 per cent) believe that more should be done to make pay for men and women equal.
Tom Castley, VP EMEA of Xactly believes the gender gap is not only unjust – it’s terrible news for our economy.
He says, ‘Until we get the most out of every person and reward them fairly, we cannot hope to tackle our country’s productivity gap. Women aren’t only being held back by straightforward discrimination. In our recent study, 62 per cent of UK executives said that the main cause of the gender pay gap is that women take time out to have children and struggle to catch up to men.
‘To tackle this, the way we pay employees must fundamentally evolve with the digital age.’
In a bid to tackle this ongoing issue, the UK government set a requirement that from April 2017 all large employers will have to start calculating their gender pay gap in time for the results to be published in April 2018.
While the majority (74 per cent) of business leaders are aware of this, that still leaves more than a quarter who have no idea this major new policy exists.
Castley says that, as a country, we must move away from the old-fashioned salary economy.
He adds, ‘Rather than paying people based on their position and tenure, employees must be rewarded for their output. Empirically linking pay and performance, using data, will ensure that both women and men are being rewarded fairly for what they do. That way we can finally move past the gender gap that has no place in the modern world.’
Further reading on gender discrimination
