Over the last few months we’ve been seeing increasing interest from clients on the potential requirements of gender pay reporting. While we don’t know the exact format that will be required for reporting yet (i.e. just the organisation headline figure or something else), we know whatever the headline turns out to be, it will be just that - a headline. So, you churn out the figure which shows as an organisation, you have a gender pay gap of 17% in favour of males. But then what?
The focus of attention so far has been on this figure and producing it. But the reason why the all-important number is required seems to be missing off people’s radar. The point is to highlight the gender pay gap in your organisation. Then you should be describing what you are doing to eradicate it. This narrative is the really important part that no-one has focused on yet. You’ll need to consider these questions:
- How do you describe what has caused the gender pay gap?
- Do you really understand it yourself?
- What will prospective employees as well as current employees make of it?
- What impact will that have on your organisation?
- Will you start to receive more equal pay claims?
- Will your reputation be damaged?
- What impact will it have on your employer brand?
To conduct any meaningful gender pay audit you need a robust levelling framework in place. Otherwise it’s very tricky to defensibly compare roles doing equivalent or like work. Assuming you can level your roles, you can start to dig beneath the headline figure to understand whether your gender pay gap exists universally across the organisation, or just at certain levels. Likewise at each level, whether the gap is consistent across departments.
You’ll probably find the higher up the organisation you go, the more likely it is that you have a gender pay gap. It’s no secret that in many organisations there are simply fewer women at the top. The critical part of your narrative here, is what are you doing about it?
Existing and prospective employees may accept that you have a gender pay gap, but the real impact on your reputation and brand, will depend on how you show you are working to resolve it. Are there specific reasons why females aren’t in senior roles in your organisation? What do your working practices look like? Do you have any specific initiatives in place to address gender gaps? Are promotion opportunities really offered equally?
Without wishing to start scaremongering, if you don’t have a handle on what is causing the gender pay gap in your organisation, it will be pretty difficult to explain let alone defend. I urge you to make a start on identifying your gender pay gap today and developing your narrative for why it exists - get in touch with Innecto on 020 3457 0894 for help.
Find out more about Evaluate™, Innecto’s simple, powerful, cloud-based job evaluation tool - a solution to understanding pay in your organisation.
