A less than auspicious start to gender pay gap reporting, introduced in 2017, has prompted experts to warn that employers face a “big learning curve” when reporting is extended to include ethnicity and disability.
Plans to extend pay gap reporting and redouble efforts to close the gender pay gap were outlined in Labour’s mini manifesto ‘Plan to make work pay: delivering a new deal for working people’.
With the party now in government, the Benefits Unboxed podcast, unpacked what the ambitious pledges will mean for employers in practical terms.
Speaking on the latest episode, industry experts said that a failure to make the most of gender pay gap reporting so far did not bode well.
Opening up pay
Extending pay gap reporting would help to open up this area of pay policy, according to Steve Herbert, industry veteran, reward and benefits consultant and Benefits Unboxed co-host.
“It’s a big, big topic, and not one that’s been dealt with very well thus far,” he said.
Herbert said it was positive that the UK has equal pay and a good thing that gender pay gap reporting is now “part of the landscape for larger employers”.
However, he said: “While the UK has this gender pay gap reporting, it hasn’t gone anywhere.
“It came in in 2017, it got paused during the pandemic, and most companies haven’t really used the report to any good effect.”
Behind the curve
He warned: “If employers haven’t yet grasped gender pay gaps, they’re certainly not on top of ethnicity and disability, and they’re probably not even looking at those subjects as yet.
“So there’s a big learning curve for employers. There’s a big learning curve for employees, and I think it’s going to be a very interesting few months and years ahead.”
Pauses in gender pay reporting during the pandemic were followed by figures earlier this year showing that with just weeks to go to the data reporting deadline, 17 percent of large employers (with 250 plus employees) said they hadn’t carried out gender pay gap reporting yet.
Official figures for the UK gender pay gap show that it is 7.7 percent for full time employees only, and 14.3 percent for all employees.
- For more on what a ‘genuine national living wage’ will mean in practical terms, the difference between equal pay and gender pay gap reporting, and national mandated pay bargaining, you can listen to the full podcast here.
- You can read our article on a potential ‘explosion’ in employment tribunal claims here.
- For the second episode of Benefits Unboxed, co-hosts Claire Churchard, editor of Benefits Expert, Carole Goldsmith, HR director at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), and Steve Herbert, rewards and benefits consultant, were joined by special guest Matt Jenkin, partner, employment, at law firm Herrington Carmichael.
