On average, about 75 per cent of big UK companies pay men more than women, says the government. Companies employing more than 250 must publish a comparison of male and female pay. The average gap works out at 9.8 per cent.
About 10,000 companies met their legal obligation to provide the stats. Over 1,500 missed yesterday’s deadline. The “gap” is not about unequal pay as such … ie men being paid more than women to do the same job.
It’s to do with there being more highly paid men in a company, say, or the hit women can take to their salaries after maternity leave. Or if the women in a company are, on balance, considered less experienced than the men. However, the data still tell us a lot about the unequal nature of work in the UK.
Unequal pay distribution
The finance and accounting industry, alongside the construction sector, have some of the most unequal pay distributions in the country. For instance, the 20 largest UK accountants have a combined gender pay gap of nearly 17 per cent. The biggest gaps are to be found at Begbies Traynor (30.3 per cent), Grant Thornton (about 30 per cent across the group) and KPMG (22.3 per cent).
The gaps reported by Kingston Smith and PKF Cooper Parry were down at around 7 per cent.
So there are a few of the stats. But what about the words? Grant Thornton UK LLP, for example, in it’s gender pay gap report, has the headline: “Grant Thornton outlines
2020 pledge to help further create culture of inclusion.”
Root causes of gender pay gap
Stephanie Hasenbos-Case, leader of people and client experience, says: “Grant Thornton pledges to tackle the root causes of our gender pay gap. We recognise that this
imbalance is caused by systemic cultural barriers to progression. To achieve sustainable change we are embracing different ideas and approaches to the way we work, and challenging ourselves to step up and create an inclusive culture…”
Over at KPMG, managing partner Philip Davidson says: “Our current pay gap is not acceptable. We have worked hard to increase the female and ethnic minority representation within our organisation at senior levels, including the introduction of GROW and Beliefs, Biases and Behaviours programmes, however it is clear we still have much progress to make.
“We have to get real about inclusion and diversity and we cannot achieve this without introspection and transparent data. It is critical KPMG becomes a magnet for talent – and that is talent in the broadest sense – different perspectives, different ideas, different thoughts and backgrounds. Diversity of thought is a commercial imperative.”
Have a great weekend! Daily Insight will be back on Tuesday next week.
