Publishing your Pay Gap

The Department for Education (DfE) has published its gender pay gap figures, and these compare favourably to the UK’s national average gender pay gap, which is 18.1%. How does your pay gap compare? And what actions have you taken to reduce the gap?

The Department for Education (DfE) is the first governmental department to publish its gender pay gap figures. These compare favourably to the national average gender pay gap of 18.1%, released by the Office for National Statistics.

The lower gender pay gap experienced by the DfE is due in part that half of its employees are female and a higher proportion of women than men are in its top pay quartile. However, there are also more women than men in the lowest pay quartile, and this contributes to the gap.

The DfE outlined a number of initiatives it has undertaken to reduce the difference in average pay between men and women, including:

• better support for women returning to work, such as shared parental leave, job sharing or part-time opportunities;
• supporting women’s career progress through talent management schemes such as its Positive Action Pathway;
• networks and upskilling events;
• monitoring pay more closely; and
• anonymising the application process to reduce unconscious bias and training interviewers to recognise and address unconscious bias.

Have you trained all staff involved in the recruitment and selection process to recognise and address unconscious bias? If this is something you are interested in, take a look at my training publicity which you can access here

In my Feb 2017 news, I published an update on the new reporting requirements, where I covered:

• what you need to publish
• how you need to publish
• the difference between gender pay gap and equal pay
• the link with the gender pay gap reporting requirement and legal requirements under the Public Sector Equality Duty
• the causes of the gender pay gap in Britain
• actions to consider to actively reduce your gender pay gap
• consequences if you fail to publish

If you missed this update, you can access it here

In my May 2017 news, I adapted a guide published by personneltoday, which complements the information given in my February update and provides you with a series of steps to consider when drafting your gender pay gap report.

If you missed this update, you can access it here