More Than 10% Of Your Staff Are Looking For New Jobs Because Of Gender Pay Inequality

We're moving on up & moving on out. Latest Tech London Advocates Women in Tech data shows that over 14% of us are now actively looking for a new role directly as a consequence of the Gender Pay Gap Reporting & 86% would move to pay gap friendly employer

For the full article in Forbes please click here

In April 2018, all UK companies with more than 250 employees were obliged to formally report their gender pay gap statistics and the results were universally ugly. Now the initial dust has settled, what do these stats really mean and what action is needed to drive the obvious changes necessary?

Industry leaders attended the Tech London Advocates Women in Tech group workshop – Mind the Gap to discuss the gender pay gap issue further. The event, hosted at the Microsoft Reactor with support of Warwick Hill MD of Microsoft Start Ups, provided an open forum to hear advice from a panel of experts on how both organisations and individuals can pursue the change so badly needed within UK workplaces.

Despite 75% of respondents saying they thought the pay gap reporting was a worthwhile exercise, 25% believe that no changes would come. A sobering thought that was demonstrated through a palpable feeling of frustration from the audience and panellists. Russ Shaw, Founder of Global Tech Advocates & Tech London Advocates commented “I feel angered by the pay gap reporting information coming out that shows such a differential in UK salaries and the tech sector is being hurt by this. We have an interesting journey ahead and men have an equal, if not greater role to play in addressing the issue, by being supportive and mentoring. It’s a problem we all have to solve and we need specific actions that we as individuals can take to address the issue.”

During the discussions, it was highlighted that from the age of 30, the gender pay gap starts to really escalate and doubles every decade, peaking by the time a woman reaches 50. For women who are over 50 and have worked for 20 years or more at the same company, the issue is most problematic. For some, the financial value of their gender pay gap could be as much as ￡250,000 - ￡500,000.  Ghislaine Boddington of WomenShiftDigital agreed “When I was a younger woman starting out in my career, I wasn’t aware that there was a gender pay gap and I didn’t know I would be paid less. Now I wonder how many women have been held back and disadvantaged in their lives when it came to buying a home, educating themselves, having the ability to travel and experience the world, or being stuck living in a home and with a life they don’t want, because of the gender pay gap.”

Audience members and panellists were in agreement that organisational pay policy needs to be accompanied by a desire for cultural change, with support for parity being driven from the top of the organisation. Women also need to develop greater confidence in their skills and abilities, and to understand how develop their voices, in order to have the potentially difficult discussions ahead. Rob Johnson MD of Global Resourcing, an international technology recruitment firm, encouraged women to begin discussions with recruiters to help discover the opportunities available to them and urged companies to re-evaluate their hiring processes and procedures "We’re actively educating our clients to insist on having a diverse candidate shortlist when they’re recruiting and even more importantly, to have a diverse decision making panel that reflects the organisational diversity you desire, not the diversity you currently have.” 

Ultimately however it was agreed that it is up to women and organisational leaders to take action now that the issue has been raised. This sentiment was evident among audience members too, with 86% saying they would move to another job, with an employer that had more favourable gender pay gap results and 14% saying they had actively started looking. 68% of the audience agreed that ‘companies who do not take action to ensure pay parity risk their losing some of their best female talent’. A stark warning...for us all to consider and not better enforced than by Gemma Woodhouse, Partner in Employment Law at Pennington Manches

"Transparency is vital and if you have something to hide, it’s better to address it openly now, because companies cannot conceal their figures. Already the government’s reporting website is fast becoming something like a league table for employers. People will be using it to poach staff because it indicates how much a company values its female staff vs competitors - women are looking at the figures and questioning whether they are getting a fair deal.”

So, with this in mind, what actions are you taking? We'd love to hear your thoughts. To take part in the survey please follow: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6QHW837

Founded by Sarah Luxford and Nikki Waktins, Tech London Advocates Women in Tech is the largest working group of Tech London Advocates actively educating, inspiring and driving action for gender equality in the global tech industry. Join us. Engage. Act www.tlawomenintech.org or contact us at [email protected]

#WomeninBusiness #DiversityinTech #pay