Mind the gender pay gap

By Nanette Brimble, senior HR consultant at RSM

New legislation on gender pay gap reporting came into force on 6 April. It aims to address the imbalance in pay between men and women in the workplace.

In broad terms, the legislation will require employers with 250 or more employees to publish online the gender pay gaps for men and women; the gender bonus pay gaps for men and women; the proportions of men and women receiving bonuses; and the quartiles metrics for all employees within their organisation.

Currently throughout the Yorkshire and the Humber region there are around 880 companies that meet the criteria and will be required to publish their data from a snapshot date, which is 5 April for private and voluntary sectors and 31 March for public sector employers.

Employers need to publish their gender pay gap results within one year of this date and failure to do so will be unlawful so employers need to take steps now in order to become compliant.

There are some key questions that employers need to ask themselves before they start running their calculations. Firstly they need to ask themselves how many reports they need to run especially if their company group structures are complex.

Once employers have decided on the number of reports they need to run they need to make sure they include all the right people in the report. This is not as straight forward as it sounds as the regulations ask employers to use the Equality Act’s extended definition of an employee. There is also specific guidance on how to treat part time workers, partners and overseas workers that employers will need to follow.

Finally, employers will need to make sure they treat all the pay elements correctly. Some pay items are classified as “ordinary pay” for the purposes of the regulations and others are not. For example basic pay and allowances are ordinary pay, but overtime and redundancy payments are not.

Employers should also consider seriously the option to add the voluntary narrative to their figures as this will add context to the raw figures, aid communication and messaging internally and externally.

For more advice and guidance on how to correctly run your gender pay gap reports, please contact rsmuk.com.

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