News
Gender Pay Gap Report 2020
Since 2017 companies employing over 250 people have been required by law to report on their gender pay gap. While we were below the reporting threshold when the legislation came into effect, we embraced the Government’s initiative from the outset by evaluating and reporting our figures within our business.
The gender pay gap reporting legislation requires us to take a snapshot of our pay data in April each year and we must only include employees receiving their full pay at that time. This means that we have to exclude any co-owners from our calculations who were on furlough in April 2020 and were supporting our business response to the global pandemic.
The gender pay figures provided to Government are based on calculations using these figures. However, we recognise that these results do not provide an effective point of comparison with previous years.
Additionally, therefore, we have looked at our results ‘as if’ the snapshot date were March 2020, as this provides a more effective point of comparison.
The mean gender pay gap figure declared on the Government website is 25%. Using the March snapshot date, the mean gap is 36%. This is an improvement of almost 4% on the previous year and down from 45% in 2017.
As an employee-owned business, all co-owners, including senior leadership, are included in our reported figures.
We are pleased to be making steady progress in narrowing our mean gender pay gap while at the same time considering what steps can be taken to accelerate the rate of progress.
Among our non-Director level professional roles, the mean gender pay gap is 3%. Achieving greater gender diversity in senior roles will be key to reducing our pay gap. Our talent pipeline is more gender balanced, with 57% female and 43% male below Director-level. This is a positive indicator for our pay gap in the future.
An approximately equal percentage of men and women received a bonus in 2019/2020. Our mean bonus gap is 60%. This gap is expected to reduce as more women move into senior roles in time.
Over the last few years, we have worked to increase the visibility of the women in our company and have introduced a sponsorship programme to support development and progression into senior roles. We have enhanced parental pay and the support available to new and expectant working parents. We have signed up to and are implementing the Real Estate Balance Commitments through our company activities and initiatives.
Reflecting on our gender pay gap results, Chrysta Poppitt, Senior Director, HR, said:
“Inclusion and Diversity is a strategic priority for us and part of our talent management and succession planning discussions which support our people focus and our long term sustainability.
“As an employee owned business we are taking progressive steps to close our gender pay gap which includes creating an even more inclusive environment to progress more women into leadership positions within the company.”
Chief Executive, Dave Trimingham added:
“We recognise and embrace the business benefits of greater diversity in leadership. Evidenced benefits include a greater variety of thought and wider input into decision making as well as helping businesses recruit and retain the best talent.
“We are pleased to be making progress each year and committed to continuing our path to gender equality. We are taking steps to enable this to happen more quickly.
“I believe that efforts to improve our gender pay gap will not only benefit the diversity and inclusion of our business but also the exceptional service we provide to clients.”