COMPLIANCE
You shouldn’t include agency workers as they will be included in any reporting carried out by their agency. There are other considerations, such as if you have a global workforce, but ensure to refer to the guidance for further information. Your published written statement must include the following figures: l percentage of men and women in each hourly pay quarter l mean (average) gender pay gap for hourly pay l median gender pay gap for hourly pay l percentage of men and women receiving bonus pay l mean (average) gender pay gap for bonus pay l median gender pay gap for bonus pay. Advice on what to report can be found here: https://ow.ly/f58450PY1oP. Now we have summarised the technical aspects, what can you do with this data? Most companies will provide a narrative to explain the numbers, especially if they operate in a sensitive industry or the numbers aren’t looking favourable. It should be noted that there will be reasons for numbers not being equal and this is exactly what we need to delve into. Often people will confuse gender pay gap information with equal pay and that isn’t what this piece of legislation is about. It’s centred around how we can level the playing field for men and women. Another way of putting it could be, how do we attract men into roles mainly performed by women? And vice versa. Payroll is a classic example, as it’s reported to be dominated by female employees. However, many of the management / leadership roles tend to be men. So, how can we attract men at entry level, so they embark on a full career in payroll, while also providing opportunities for women in the higher managerial roles? To be clear, nothing is cut and dry, and the various datasets can and will show different trends across industries, along with geographic anomalies. For example,
according to the Office of National Statistics 2022 data analysis, 20 years ago, London had the lowest gender pay gap, but in 2017, it had the highest. See here for further information: https://ow.ly/uEnE50Q0AXw "Payroll is a classic example, as it’s reported to be dominated by female employees. However, many of the management / leadership roles tend to be men" When considering the data gathered, if, for example, you’re struggling to recruit or retain employees, this data can provide some answers. If we look at retention, and you view your dataset by the median pay figures alongside length of service, this may provide you with an indicator of why you’re struggling to retain or conversely, why you’re so good at retaining. If quite a large pay gap exists between men and women who have a low length of service, this may indicate that some work is required to understand how best to retain workers of a particular gender. Another common issue companies face is when their female workforce is mainly part-time, perhaps due to family commitments which traditionally, women tend to take up. So, could businesses attract more women into full-time roles if greater flexibility was offered? For example, in payroll, could split shifts be offered to accommodate school drop off and collection, with the option to work a little into the evening if that’s what the employee needs? A frequent problem arises where the senior leaders in a workforce are mainly made up of males. Question why this is. Is it because women aren’t attracted to these roles because of X, Y and Z? Based on your data, is it a specific age group who
aren’t in senior roles, like the over-50s, in which historically, women didn’t enter management roles? I remember being told as a child I couldn’t have a trainset as I was a girl, so I ended up with a Girl’s World, and I assume my parents thought I would enter a hairdressing career or be a secretary. There is, of course, nothing wrong with either of these roles but it’s predominantly women who continue to fill them. Or is it an age group which consists of those working with young families, and the dedication to management isn’t perceived as possible within the organisation? Does your company state you can only be a manager if you’re full-time, and is this the barrier? Using the datasets will provide you real insight, but it’s then that the hard work begins. Consider what you can do to buck the trends and reduce those gaps wherever possible. If there are working pattern barriers, your employer has the power to potentially overcome them with some effective thinking. Is the data accessible? Having discussed data and how it can be used, it’s also important to ensure you have access to that data. Payroll will hold the components of pay which are required, but you may also need to link in with your human resource (HR) system, so how will you do this? Do you have a facility to integrate both sets of data to work together? Can you provide this facility to your clients? Does your payroll software contain everything needed to pull off the reports, to breakdown and analyse? Even if you need data from HR or other data systems, payroll could take the lead here and support the business by being present at the meetings which look to facilitate strategic changes. You need to decide which components should be used and which should be excluded; this is probably the hardest part when configuring the report. But remember this data can also be used for other equality reporting such as ethnicity reporting, which isn’t currently mandatory, but maybe something your company is interested in looking at as part of its wider diversity strategy. This will require forward thinking, and if the data isn’t included in payroll software, is it, or can it be, included in other software so it can be pulled into the dataset? n
"Even if you need data from human resources or other data systems, payroll could take the lead here and support the business by being present at the meetings which look to facilitate strategic changes"
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 95 | November 2023
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