One quarter of senior personnel in UK businesses do not see the gender pay gap as an issue despite discrepancies in the UK standing at 13.9%, according to the Fawcett society.
Research by NGA Human Resources found that the majority of respondents said the gender pay gap was partly due to women’s personal career decisions; citing factors such as women being more likely to take career breaks (49%) or work part-time (42%).
The report also found that of the problems businesses are concerned about, 40% said bad publicity, brand damage (34%) and recruitment issues (33%) were significant problems. This was followed by retaining staff (26%) and pay rise demands (20%). Other reasons respondents gave for the pay gap included the lack of representation of women in the overall workforce (20%) and fewer females in senior management positions (27%).
Despite firms being required to report on pay gaps from 06 April 2017, 20% of organisations say they will not be ready to disclose their data on time, nor review remuneration packages. Only 17% of the businesses surveyed believe that Government initiatives, such as regulations on gender splits will reduce the pay gap.
However, this could cause havoc for businesses, as research by Glassdoor found that 65% of women would not apply for a job at a firm that did not pay men and women equally. Separate research by the review site found that more than half (58%) of women in the UK believe that Government should force employers to reveal employee salaries.
“The gender pay gap is set to be a major issue in the UK this year, not least because employers are grappling with the challenge of how to analyse their own data and there is a relatively low level of understanding amongst the workforce about what causes the gap,” comments Andrew Chamberlain, Glassdoor’s Chief Economist – City AM reports. The top remedies respondents gave to close the gap, in the NGA Human Resources survey, included pay levelling (57%), support for back-to-work schemes (49%) and positive recruitment programmes (47%).
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Link to the full article on this issue provided by HR Grapevine: https://www.hrgrapevine.com/content/article/news-2017-03-23-bad-publicity-bigger-issue-than-gender-pay-gap-say-uk-firms