The majority of workers within the finance sector are positive that gender pay reports will close the pay gap. A recent survey asked 600 senior finance professionals what their thoughts about gender pay reports were. 58% of them said that they believed the reporting was the best way to bring about better equality in the workplace. Moreover, 51% also said that they are confident that generation Z (those who are born between 1990s to mid-2000s) will close the gender pay gap. This is a really positive and promising revelation. Furthermore, it shows that people are keen to drive best practice for the future.
What is gender pay gap reporting?
Changes to the Equality Act, which came into force on 6 April 2017, made it compulsory for companies in Great Britain (but not Northern Ireland) with more than 250 employees to report their gender pay gap figures at the end of every financial year. Organisations are also required to publish the breakdown of men and women in different pay quartiles and details of the proportion of men and women in the company who receive bonuses.
Gender parity on the board.
Of those who were surveyed, 55% said they have a woman on their board. This does demonstrate progress and will hopefully show the next generation that leadership is possible regardless of gender. Furthermore, if generation Z can continue to make strides towards gender pay equality, as those surveyed hope, we will undoubtedly see a better, brighter future for women in the sector.
Gender pay reporting – the banking sector.
According to a report by PwC, both the pay and bonus gaps in banking are, in general, considerably higher than the pay gap across industries. The median mean pay gap for all UK companies is around 14% compared to around 35% in banking and 30% across Financial Services. This large pay gap is primarily driven by the relatively low number of women in senior roles in banks in the UK. Financial firms have on average reduced pay disparities by just over half a percentage point in the last year, the analysis of 89 of the biggest companies showed, highlighting the lack of progress in the sector with the worst average pay gap in Britain.
Breaking the glass ceiling to gender equality in the workplace.
Almost 50 years after the introduction of the Equal Pay Act, and a century after the first British women were granted the right to vote, the UK’s gender pay chasm appears to remain gaping. Since the government introduced the new legislation, many have argued that the reports – which collectively show that more than three-quarters of all UK companies pay their male staff more than their female staff on average – had shock value, but that the data was a weak weapon in our mission to smash through the metaphorical glass ceiling. This suggests that more needs to be done to break the glass ceiling to gender equality in the workplace.
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