Gender equality experts and campaigners in the UK have called for more accuracy and accountability to improve gender equality in the workplace, as the extended Gender Pay Gap reporting deadline fast approaches.
“Gender Pay Gap reporting is in place to bring about better gender equality in the workplace, which we can only achieve with timely, accurate and consistent data,” stated Fiona Hathorn, CEO of Women on Boards UK and Advisory Board Member at Spktral. “Companies must analyse their entire workforce – furloughed or otherwise – to gain a true picture of where they stand; and to drive accountability, action and improvement.”
Late filers – organisations with 250 or more employees that fail to comply by the 5 October 2021 – will face enforcement action from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. So far, some 5,600 organisations have submitted their reports. However, the percentages in many of these reports cannot be taken at face value, as this year’s gender pay gap percentages have been skewed due to an abnormally high number of employees on reduced pay leave.
MISLEADING PROGRESS
As of April 2021, there were still between three and four million employees on furlough. “This means that the 2021 statistics may still be anomalous for many organisations; and present a misleading picture of progress towards gender equality,” warned Hathorn. “In order to achieve accuracy, organisations need to consider the impact of the Furlough Scheme.”
Earlier this year, the Government Equality Office (GEO) confirmed that furlough is a form of leave. So unless employers are topping furloughed staff’s pay back up to 100%, they do not meet the legislation’s criteria for full pay. That means they should excluded from the Gender Pay Gap section of the report; but included in the Gender Bonus Gap section.
Considering the obvious impact that Covid-19 has had on the workforce, “it would have been viable for the GEO to add another metric to the 2020 and 2021 reports; the percentage of employees excluded from report due to furlough”, noted the campaigners. “Yet, because the GEO did not add this metric, many of the reports submitted will have figures that stray from the real story”. As a result, their Gender Pay Gap reports will contain data that is not entirely accurate, which defeats the purpose of reporting.
“There has been some positive progress toward gender equality in recent years, and gender pay gap reporting has been the driver for this progress in organisations. But we risk undoing the gains as a result of the global pandemic’s impact on women, who are more likely to have lost their job or have been furloughed,” highlighted Daisy Hooper, Head of Policy at the Chartered Management Institute.
PRIORITISING ACTION TO CLOSE THE GAP
Going forward, “it is essential for leaders to prioritise implementing action plans to remedy issues identified by the data and through consultation with their employees”, Hooper added. “Training all managers to role-model and implement the practices that support women to thrive benefits all workers; and will ensure that together we build back better and more inclusively.”
Did you know that the gender pay gap is at its widest for those aged 50-plus? Earlier this year, gender equality experts launched a campaign to speed up progress on closing the gender pay gap in the UK. Click here to read more.
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