A West Yorkshire HR and employment law specialist is urging businesses across Yorkshire to be prepared to publish a new report detailing the gender pay gap among their male and female workforce by April 2018.
Howarths People and Safety Management has issued the advice with six months to go until the Government’s Gender Pay Gap Report deadline on 4 April next year.
The deadline will require all private and voluntary sector employers with a headcount of 250 or more employees on 5 April 2017 to have published details of differences in the average pay between all men and women in their workforce.
As part of the report, companies will need to calculate and publish their mean and median gender pay gaps in hourly pay, as well as their mean and median gender pay gaps in bonus payments and the proportion of male and female workers receiving a bonus payment.
Andrea Staley, employment law advisor at Howarths, explained:
“Gender Pay Gap reporting is not the same issue as equal pay. Whereas equal pay deals with pay differences between males and females who carry out the same jobs, a company’s gender pay gap highlights the difference in average pay between all males and females in their workforce.
“If there is a particularly high gender pay gap, this can indicate there may be a number of issues to deal with. Completing the individual calculations required as part of the report can help companies to identify what those issues are and address them.
She continued:
“We are encouraging employers across Yorkshire who haven’t already done so to make a start on their Gender Pay Gap Report so they are ready in time for the deadline.
“There are a number of quite complex stages to building the report, including gathering the correct recorded data in relation to relevant employees, pay and bonus pay before you can carry out your calculations, so this isn’t something that should be left until the last minute.
And, despite there being no requirement for businesses with less than 250 employees to produce a Gender Pay Gap Report, Howarths is encouraging such companies to consider doing so.
Andrea added:
“A simple reason is that the position may change in the future, making it mandatory for all businesses to comply irrespective of the size of their workforce, so the earlier they get on board with the process the better.
“More importantly, however, is the fact that any business could have a gender pay gap, and the only way to determine that is by completing the calculations.
“Gender Pay Gap reporting isn’t about catching businesses out, but giving them the opportunity to create a more reputable and honest organisation by proactively seeking to ensure a fair workforce exists within their company.”
