What’s the legal development?
The first snapshot date for gender pay gap reporting is 5 April 2017.
Employers with more than 250 employees must capture information about their gender pay gap at this date, and publish the results within 12 months.
What could this mean for all employers?
Large employers caught by the regulations should by now be ready to capture the information and many will also be working on their narrative to explain what the statistics reveal for their organisation.
But perhaps the impact of these regulations is far wider, affecting even small employers? For example:
– will applicants for employment start asking about the gender pay gap, whether or not there is an obligation to disclose the information?
– will gender pay gap information become standard requirement in a tendering process?
– will existing employees challenge a values driven organisation to voluntarily disclose its gender pay gap?
– will discerning customers start asking for details of the gender pay gap as a way of seeking reassurance about how staff are treated?
– will gender pay gap statistics be taken into account in ethical rankings (e.g. the Good Shopping Guide amongst others) and employer brand websites such as Glassdoor?
Are you prepared to deal with these queries as they arise and any consequent misunderstandings?
The gender pay gap information produces fairly blunt statistics which may surprise some organisations. Have you checked your gender pay gap and are you really ready to deal with the implications?
Our comment
We know of organisations which were confident they had no gender pay gap, but were then surprised by what the statutory statistics produce. Every business (regardless of size) would be well advised to check its gender pay gap now and think about how it might to deal with having to disclose it. It may be good or it may be bad, but all employers (and particularly values driven organisations) may wish to think carefully about the accompanying narrative.