Firms urge Ministers for clarity on gender pay gap reporting

The UK Government is being urged to clarify whether businesses are required to submit their gender pay gap reports this year, after conflicting news over the last few days. 

The confusion started when the latest report from the UK’s Parliament Women and Equalities Committee, which sets out how women have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, issued 20 recommendations for the UK Government to tackle inequality. One of these recommendations was to ‘reinstate’ gender pay gap reporting, despite the Government Equalities Office (GEO) stating that the Gender pay gap reporting was only suspended for one year (2019/20), as reported.

The recommendation for it to be ‘reinstated’, however, has created much confusion this week, which led to the UK national press either reporting that the deadline has been ‘cancelled’, with others saying that it’s ‘under review’.

CONTINUED CONFUSION

The confusion means that many businesses have simply concluded that they don’t need to file a report this year. In fact, gender pay report submissions are already down 50% compared to the same point in previous years, as reported.

At a time when more women are leaving the workplace as a result of the pandemic, experts like Women on Boards UK, Chartered Management Institute and pay gap specialist Spktral urge the Government not to suspend gender pay gap reporting this year again to avoid the deepening inequality for women at work.

Suspending the gender pay gap reports for another year, “sends the wrong message about how critical this is”, pointed out Women on Boards UK. “Extend if you must, but don’t suspend,” they urged.

CREATING FAIRER WORK ENVIRONMENTS

With the gender pay gap reporting deadline fast approaching (4 April 2021), the Government needs to provide clarity regarding gender pay gap reporting requirements for this year. “There are two main issues that need addressing immediately: communication and outcomes,” commented Anthony Horrigan, CEO of Spktral. “Good communication is required from Government to organisations and from organisations to their employees and wider stakeholders. Gender pay gap reports are a very good way for organisations to communicate their culture and intent to make their environments more diverse and fairer as well as showing the progress they’re making. Doing a quick gender pay gap report without uncovering insights and setting action plans to remedy does nothing for an organisation.”  

Horrigan believes the eventual outcome for every organisation should be to create a culture and an environment in which everyone can be their whole self and contribute to the success of the entity without barriers from biased people, systems or processes. “Gender pay gap analysis and action is just one step towards these outcomes and it signals that an organisation is on the right path,” he highlighted. “If any choose not to perform legislated reports then this should be mitigated with other frequent analysis, communication and action. To do nothing at all is a clear signal that the organisation does not care and eventually employees will vote with their feet.  Diversity is not woke, it’s not going away; people demand more – evolve or lose out.”