Why do corporates find Gender or Ethnicity pay gaps so hard to talk about?
Michelle Gyimah
Helping HR Directors create a sustainable pay gap strategy for their organisation without overwhelm in 90 days | Workshops | Pay Gap Audit| Speaker | Recognised by LinkedIn, L'Oreal, BBC & The Guardian.
For me, this is quite a juicy topic!
I use the phrase corporate vulnerability because, for me, I find that a huge aspect as to why corporates find it difficult to talk about pay gaps is that it just feels so vulnerable. It's exposing for them and showcases so many issues that either they don't want to discuss but know that they should be working on or highlights issues that they've had numerous conversations about but have taken no action on.
?So where did it all begin?
The history of gender pay gap reporting here in the UK is a bit of a chequered one, in the sense that it's part of the Equality Act, Section 78. The government decided they wanted to introduce something to tackle the issue of the gender pay gap within organisations and initially, it was going to be voluntary rather than be mandated with legislation. The idea was for organisations to get on board with it being the right thing to do but it didn’t quite go to plan and less than 1000 organisations in the UK submitted their data. As there wasn’t sufficient take-up, it became legislation and why now, every organisation with 250 employees or more must publicly report on their gender pay gap. Not only that but the data is held on a government website, where anybody can go and download that information and look at the previous three years’ data. When this was first being discussed, I was working at the Equality and Human Rights Commission and there was some real resistance from businesses to do this. There was the usual kind of objections from it being too time-consuming, too onerous, and too complicated - the usual suspects or excuses as I like to call them!
The one thing that stood out for me the most was this fear.
It was the fear of having a single digit, whatever your gender pay gap measurement was going to be attached to your organisation. There was a fear that people would see that figure and make judgments and assumptions about that organisation. There was a fear of being put into a league table and being judged where you placed each year against your competitors. Organisations didn't want to be put in that position where they had to defend themselves. They didn't want to be put in a situation where people could make up their minds about the company, without ever having had any conversations or interactions with them.
And to a certain extent, that is totally understandable. As you know, trying to explain a problem with one figure comes with its own challenges. However, for me, the real purpose of pay gap reporting is yes, to be disruptive, but to shine a light on the problems within your organisation. Because that pay gap figure hasn’t come from nowhere. It’s telling you a story that you need to delve into further and ask yourself questions about:
What happened in the first year?
When the reports were out, there were so many headlines - a lot of them were really negative. There was a collective surprise at what the data showed, and no one had seen it coming. Every single sector had gender pay gaps. Now, for somebody like me, who worked within equalities, it wasn't surprising. But I think to the general public, it was very, very surprising and even to some organisations themselves. There was a bit of realisation that they hadn't been doing as well as they thought they had.
领英推荐
What about ethnicity pay gaps?
In the UK, ethnicity pay gap reporting is not mandatory but there is a lot of public pressure to make it so. The thing about ethnicity pay gap reporting compared to gender is it's not just about data collection, because if it was as easy as that, we'd be able to have pay gap reporting now and no organisations would have any problems. But there are issues that need to be addressed around trust as well. Issues around communication, like how do you discuss this in the workplace? Ethnicity can be very emotive. How do you instil trust in your employees around the purpose of this, why you're doing this and also what you're going to do with that information and data? These are the really important things.
There are several organisations already doing this as they understand the real risk to them of doing nothing. If you’re an organisation that is fearful around holding conversations in the workplace about pay gaps, whether it's gender or ethnicity and if you're fearful about making changes you will get left behind. While you're busy doing nothing, your competitors are busy getting their houses in order.
What should you be considering?
?You should be asking yourself these questions:
Even though it feels difficult, it feels hard, it feels uncomfortable, it doesn't mean that it's not possible. And it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be doing this work.
Whether it’s gender or ethnicity pay gaps, organisations find it really difficult to talk about, because of the vulnerability and because of the fear. It’s both exposing and disruptive but it’s an opportunity to address those issues. Not only because it's good for business, but because your employees want it, your current employees want it, and your future employees want it. And if you don't do this work, they will seek that value elsewhere, they will seek out those organisations who are putting things in place, they will seek them out.
So, the work is difficult, but it is necessary.
If it all seems like too much to tackle and you need some expert advice, book a call with me here.
Diversity and Inclusion Specialist
2 年This is so insightful Michelle Gyimah, loved the bit about ethnicity being emotive and the barriers this puts in place towards reporting - something I see a lot both personally and with the organisations I work with.