As the gender pay gap is addressed by businesses, women are rewriting the rules for business success, this leadership will change businesses for the better.
Closing or reporting the gender pay gap is a legal requirement. Make no mistake, this is an incredibly important step forward for women globally and will be watched closely by Government and organisations worldwide.
It is important that the gender pay gap is not confused with unequal pay. Unequal pay is the unlawful practice of paying men and women differently for performing the same or similar work.
The gender pay gap is the relative average difference in gross earnings of women and men. Women are generally paid less.
It is hard to believe that in 2018 the gender pay gap is still an issue and many businesses are being forced to address the problem.
The gender pay gap may have many causes such as having fewer women in senior grades and highly technical roles.
All employers with 250 or more employees are now required by law to publish their gender pay gap data each year on their own and the government’s website. www.gov.uk.
Initially, the response has been slow as companies commit to an action plan and how they will achieve the action plan. The action plan must be assigned to the senior leadership team who must choose at least three priority actions.
As the second year of publication approaches in 2019 and the second round of data is required to be published it is expected that the momentum will increase.
If companies are transparent about gender pay and understand the root causes behind any gap, they can find solutions by working together with women.
These solutions should help to build businesses that work for their employees, management and the communities they serve.
Will this make a difference to the gender pay gap?
It is important that companies understand their organisation will be more successful on a global platform with a diverse and inclusive workforce.
Why…?
Women bring sound decision-making and higher staff retention amongst many other benefits to the workplace. McKinsey estimates that closing the gender pay gaps in work the workplace could add £150 billion to the UK GDP by 2025.
A diverse organisation will benefit from an increased talent pool from which an organisation can recruit. A narrow recruitment focus may result in an organisation missing out on some of the best talent available.
All organisations want to have value added to their organisation, addressing the gender pay gap will add value as gender balance enables businesses to improve their performance.
International research has shown an organisation, which is gender-balanced, will outperform those that are not across a number of key performance measures.
There are many ways in which an organisation can address the gender pay gap, by salary reviews, career development and progression, addressing unconscious bias etc.
Some organisations may be perplexed by the need to address this issue at all.
It is time to wake up and smell the ‘Chanel No5,’ I am afraid. Publishing this data is a legal requirement.
Be sure of this. There are many very capable women available for the top jobs. It is not a case of having a token woman as part of the senior management team – no self-respecting capable woman wants that. Women want to have an equal chance of a role, not to make up the numbers and help with data balance.
They want to be included because they are capable, excellent at what they do, will add value and support the prosperity of a company. They will demonstrate this to an organisation this given an equal role and recompense.
Gilly
I look forward to your thoughts and comments on this article.
At nStratagem we are not only providing insight into an organisations gender pay gap data analytics but also providing innovative initiatives to tackle this gap. We would be happy to discuss how we can help your organisation with this transformation. Get in touch. You can email us at: contact@nStratagem.com
** The views, information, words, concepts or opinions expressed in our blogs, articles and blog articles are solely the opinions of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent those of nStratagem, its employees or its affiliated companies.
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