As an introduction to the Gender Pay Equality , I thought of starting with Millicent Fawcett a woman activist in politic back in 1847 - 1929.
She was a suffragist and was considered to have been an instrumental force in getting the women’s vote and ultimately paving the way for female politicians and female Prime Ministers. She believed showing that women were intelligent, law-abiding citizens they would be seen as responsible enough to participate fully in politics and her quote was "Courage calls to courage everywhere".
Today the Fawcett Society continues to fight for gender equality and the bronze statue of Millicent Fawcett was unveiled in Parliament Square last week Tuesday and joined 11-statues of the great activists of our time Sir Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi amongst others.
The Gender Equality Act
For you all employers it is important to know this information The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) regulation 2017 state that any organisation that has 250 or more employees must publish and report specific figures about their gender pay. It is mandatory and must be publish within a year of the "snapshot date". The snapshot date refer to the 5th April in the year to which the information required by regulation relates.
However, If your organisation has fewer than 250 employees, it can publish and report voluntarily but is not obliged to do so.
What is the Gender Pay Gap
The gender pay gap is the difference between the average earning of men and women, expressed relative to men's earnings. ie: - 'women earn 15% less than men per hour.' and employers must publish their gender pay gap data and a written statement on their public-facing website as well as reporting their data to government online using the the gender pay gap reporting service.
Composing your written statement
There is no rule on how to do this however, it is to compose your narrative by putting Gender Pay Gap into context and writing a supporting statement as to why there is a gap. Bear in mind that a gender pay gap does not necessarily means that your company's has acted inappropriately or discriminatorily but adding a narrative helps anyone reading your statement understand your company viewpoint as to why a gender pay gap is present and your intention to narrow it down and eventually close it.
Publishing your witten statement
You must publish your data and written statement within a year of your company's 'Snapshot date'. Hence businesses and charities must publish by 5th April each year and public sector organisation by 31th March each year.
In a nutshell it does make sense to publish both reports your data and written statement in the same time, as you calculate your data and you produce your figure accurately why not compose afterward your narrative and submit both by your 'snapshot date' or earlier signed by an appropriate person. However, there is no rule about which to do so in the first instance and no requirement for an employer to publish at the same time each year.
Relevant Employer
Your company will be a 'relevant employer' and must publish and report if it has 250 or more employees who are based in the UK. The legal entity that is the 'relevant employer' ie: - private limited company or public sector organisation. You must register with and report to the Gender pay gap reporting service.
A point to take in consideration if your company is a 'relevant employer' and runs multiple payrolls for example payrolls for different departments or business functions, you must merge relevant data from all your payrolls and report one set of figure for your company.
Who count as employees
The definition for 'employee' in gender pay gap reporting include:
People who have a contract of employment with your organisation
Workers and agency workers (those with a contract to do work or provide services)
Some self-employed people (where they must personally perform the work)
In saying that there is a lot of information on the government website about the Gender pay gap and the data you must report, in reading the law to produce this article a piece of information interested us and it is about the self-employed.
As to when to count agency workers and self-employed people in your organisation. If your organisation uses agency workers or service companies ie: - 'Girlfridayz' , they count as part of the headcount of the agency or service company that provides them - not your organisation. You must include self-employed in your organisation's calculations if they must personally perform work for you and you have the data available, for example where a project initiation exists or a schedule of fees is in place.
Data you must publish and report
You must publish on your organisation's public-facing website if you have one and report to government your organisation's these data:
mean gender pay gap in hourly pay
median gender pay gap in hourly pay
mean bonus gender pay gap
median bonus gender pay gap
proportion of males and females receiving bonus payment
proportion of males and females in each pay quartile
In order to do so you will need to gather specific information from your payroll and use this information to make your calculations and publish a written statement on your organisation's website which confirm the accuracy of your calculations. You must publish and report your organisation's figures if you're a 'relevant employer'. The Equality and Human Right Commission can enforce any failure to comply with the Regulation.
Calculating your data formula used in the regulation
We have detailed below the formula for you do it right they were taken from The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017.
The difference in mean hourly rate of pay is done using this formula (A-B)/A *100 and it the same formula for the difference in median hourly rate of pay. These calculations are done over a period of 12 weeks.
The difference between the mean hourly rate of pay of male full-pay relevant employees and that of female full-pay relevant employees must be expressed as a percentage of the mean hourly rate of pay of male full pay relevant employees. the sames goes for the median where A is male and B female.
Difference in mean bonus pay
The difference between the mean bonus pay paid to male relevant employees and that paid to female relevant employees must be expressed as a percentage of the mean bonus pay paid to male relevant employees and is to be determined as follows—
A is the mean bonus pay paid during the relevant period to male relevant employees who were paid bonus pay during that period; and B is the mean bonus pay paid during the relevant period to female relevant employees who were paid bonus pay during that period.
In this regulation “the relevant period” means the period of 12 months ending with the snapshot date. The same apply for the difference in median bonus pay. The difference between the median bonus pay paid to male relevant employees and that paid to female relevant employees must be expressed as a percentage of the median bonus pay paid to male relevant employees and is to be determined as above. The formula is
(A-B)/A*100
Proportion of male and female employees according to quartile pay bands
The proportions of male and female full-pay relevant employees in the lower, lower middle, upper middle and upper quartile pay bands is to be determined as follows. The formula for the quartile is A/B*100
Step 1
Determine the hourly rate of pay for each male and female full-pay relevant employee and then rank those employees in order from lowest paid to highest paid.
Step 2
Divide the employees, as ranked under Step 1, into four sections, each comprising (so far as possible) an equal number of employees, to determine the lower, lower middle, upper middle and upper quartile pay bands.
Step 3
The proportion of male full-pay relevant employees within each quartile pay band must be expressed as a percentage of the full-pay relevant employees within that band as follows—A is the number of male full-pay relevant employees in a quartile pay band; and B is the number of full-pay relevant employees in that quartile pay band.
Step 4
The proportion of female full-pay relevant employees within each quartile pay band must be expressed as a percentage of the full-pay relevant employees within that band as follows—A is the number of female full-pay relevant employees in a quartile pay band and B is the number of full-pay relevant employees in that quartile pay band.
Where employees receiving the same hourly rate of pay fall within more than one quartile pay band, the employer must (so far as possible) ensure that, when ranking the employees under Step 1, the relative proportion of male and female employees receiving that rate of pay is the same in each of those pay bands.
In Conclusion
There is still a gap in pay between men and women at work and employers should address this gap or narrow it down and eventually pay equal pay for both women and men doing the same job.
If you find this article interesting by all means share it with your peer, colleagues or friends, it might be useful to someone or the person in charge of the reporting.