The Equal Pay Act was introduced 45 years ago in an attempt to make sure women (and men) doing the same jobs were paid the same amount.
But more than four decades on, figures from the ONS show that the pay gap between men and women in full-time employment stands at 9.4%. It may be the lowest level since 1997, but experts estimate it will take at least 47 years to even out at current rates of progress. The United Nations reckons it could take even longer worldwide – a whopping 70 years.
The UK government is making another push to close the gender pay gap, and from 1 October regulations will come into force that require any business that employs 250 or more people to report on and reveal their gender pay gaps.
Gender pay gap reporting is not new. It was introduced in the Equality Act 2010, but the coalition government chose not to activate the power, launching a voluntary initiative instead. Some 300 employers signed up, and five disclosed details of their gender pay gap – Tesco, PwC, AstraZeneca, Friends Life and one real estate firm, Genesis Housing.
This time around, the reporting will be mandatory and although data collection does not need to start until 1 May 2017 and business league tables are unlikely to be made public until 2018, firms are being encouraged to start working on the process now.
So what exactly should companies be doing now and at key points in the run up to the first publication of the gender pay gap league tables?
2016
Check that your company collects the data needed to conduct gender gap reporting.
Under the new legislation, employers will be required to publish the difference in mean and median pay between male and female employees for cash payments and short- and long-term incentives, the difference in mean bonus pay between male and female employees, and the proportion of male and female employees who receive bonuses. There will also be a requirement to identify the quartiles of the overall pay range (based on gross hourly rates) and report on the number of men and women in each of those quartiles.
This information needs to be collected on all employees who work in Great Britain and any whose contracts are governed by UK law.
Companies should be taking action now to make sure they have the resources to collect and analyse this data and that senior leadership is aware of the personal responsibility they have in signing off a pay gap report.
2017
The key date next year is 30 April, as the amount that employees are being paid on this date – and every annual anniversary of it – must form the basis of the information published by employers.
2018
From 30 April 2018, all employers must publish the results of their gender pay gap analysis on their company website and it must be accessible to both employees and the public. It will need to be searchable, in English and remain in place for at least three years. The information is also required to be uploaded to the government’s reporting website and has
to be signed off by company leadership.
While commentary on the analysis is not mandatory, it is recommended to help people understand the results and can also be used as a recruitment tool. Companies should also consider creating an action plan to address any issues revealed by the analysis.
While gender pay gap reporting may well provide women with the evidence they need to have serious pay discussions, the issue is more complex than a simple league table.
Men are typically more confident than women when it comes to negotiating larger starter salaries (click here to read the EG masterclass on negotiation), and working environments in many firms still need to be more female-friendly – think less rugby, more flexibility.
Despite that, the legislation is a step in the right direction as it will force the hand of business to act and find solutions to the problem. After all, what is visible will be reacted to.
The pay gap issue
In Estates Gazette’s most recent salary survey, 50% of respondents said gender was the ground on which they felt most sidelined at work. And while in the wider world the gender pay gap has been closing, in real estate the opposite has been true. In 2012 it was 18%. By last year this had widened to 23% with the average female salary in the industry coming in at £42,481, compared with the average male salary of £55,256.
Nationally, for every £1 a man earns, a woman typically earns 80p. And the gap is widest for professional women aged 40-plus. They can earn as much as 35% less than men in comparable, full-time positions.
Upcoming debate: take part
Statistics suggest that it will be 81 years before women have the same chance as men of becoming a chief executive.
And while real estate is not best known for having women in positions of power, there is one FTSE 250 company that is breaking the mould.
Grainger is the only FTSE 250 company to have three women in its top three roles – chairman, chief executive and finance director.
EG’s women’s network, REWIRE, has all three – Baroness Margaret Ford, Helen Gordon and Vanessa Simms – taking part in a lively debate on 29 June. If you are not already part of REWIRE and are keen to join and come along to the debate, e-mail samantha.mcclary@egi.co.uk
• To send feedback, email samantha.mcclary@egi.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @estatesgazette
