The Daily Telegraph

Gender pay gap: what women should do next

Today, official statistics have revealed the real disparitie­s in salaries between men and women. Cristina Odone asks what employees should do to seize the moment

- By Anna Mikhailova POLITICAL CORRESPOND­ENT

Women’s fashion and beauty brands emerged as some of the worst offenders in the gender pay gap league tables as yesterday’s deadline passed. In today’s Daily Telegraph, Cristina Odone asks what women can do to improve their lot in the workplace.

‘There is absolutely no excuse for businesses not to be transparen­t about their gender pay gap’

WOMEN’S fashion and beauty brands are some of the worst offenders in the gender pay gap league tables, the lastminute rush to file results ahead of yesterday’s deadline revealed.

High street brands Karen Millen, Phase Eight and Sweaty Betty are among the worst 2per cent in paying women lower hourly wages.

More than 2,500 companies, equivalent to one in four, submitted their results in the 48 hours before midnight. All businesses employing 250 or more people had to comply or face a fine.

Of the total, 149 companies had pay gaps worse than 50 per cent. The vast majority – more than 7,300 – pay men more per hour than they do women.

As the final reports came in last night, Boux Avenue, the lingerie brand, had the fourth-worst record for paying women less per hour than men. The company has a median hourly pay gap of 75.7per cent – equivalent to paying women just 24p for every £1 it pays men. Sweaty Betty, the fitness brand, was among the top 15 worst offenders. It has a 68.1per cent hourly wage gap.

Phase Eight has an hourly wage gap of 54.5 per cent. The hourly wage gap for Spacenk was 42.2per cent, 30.7per cent for Benefit, the make-up brand, and 49 per cent for Karen Millen.

Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, said: “There is no excuse for businesses not to be transparen­t about their pay gap.”

Telegraph Media Group’s median gender pay gap was 23.4 per cent, rising to 35 per cent for the mean hourly rate gap.

This month’s payslip will bear the fruits of victory for successful salary negotiator­s. As the new financial year starts, many weeks of covert campaignin­g will have paid off – and though some women master these dark arts, it is usually men who employ the right mix of research (who earns what? what’s left in the budget?), sucking up (“I think for role models such as yourself…”), veiled threats (including phoney headhunter­s’ approaches) and networking (a well-tended Linkedin account). They get the promotion and the better salary; women, meanwhile, are left feeling short-changed.

Against that background, it’s easy to fume at the disparitie­s revealed today in the latest official statistics on the gender pay gap. As of midnight, companies with more than 250 employees had to publish salaries for their male and female staff. We know already that three out of four British companies pay their male employees more than their female employees, which the Prime Minister described in yesterday’s Telegraph as a “burning injustice”. A group of female MPS are calling for a #Paymetoo campaign, while Baroness Williams of Trafford, Equalities Minister, has warned that companies will be fined if they fail to close the gap.

But is this mass data dump a fair picture of Britain’s workforce? For a start, the numbers take no account of the jobs that women actually do in an organisati­on. Take Ryanair, the worst of the airline industry, with a pay gap of 67 per cent – a crevasse widened, like so many organisati­ons, by the fact that men make up the majority of highearnin­g jobs, while women are left to fill the lower-paid roles, which rarely lead to senior management positions. Of its 554 pilots in the UK, just 1.4 per cent are female; some 69 per cent of its cabin crew, however, are women.

Yet a deeper problem, perhaps, is that work is no longer just about remunerati­on. We work to live, not the other way round: if we took American-style two-week holidays, we would be richer – but hardly happier.

A recent poll carried out by the 30% Club, which lobbies for women to make up 30 per cent of the boards of FTSE-100 companies, last year found that 20,000 university students ranked work-life balance as of greater importance than status or salary.

For in the modern workplace, expectatio­n and aspiration are crucial – and here, we are feeling the beginning of a positive upheaval. The release of this data may not be not as headline-grabbing as #Metoo – yet – but few companies will be left untouched. Technology, millennial­s and the new batch of women at the top of big companies will ensure it.

“This is a moment to seize,” says Helena Morrissey DBE, head of personal investing at Legal & General. “What had been left unsaid for generation­s is out in the open.”

‘Men are embarrasse­d by these figures; they know they come with a reputation­al cost’

Morrissey is unashamedl­y optimistic, as befits the author of the bestsellin­g A Good Time to Be a Girl. She urges women to read in the seemingly dire statistics a welcome sign that, finally, “practices and behaviour that women have had to accept are exposed. Let’s not wring our hands but move forward and change things for the better. For the first time, there is public consensus that unequal pay

cannot go on. It won’t happen in one year or even two, but this is the turning point.”

Morrissey, who famously managed both a high-flying career and raising nine children, admits that “when I started working in the City 30 years ago, the term ‘work-life balance’ did not even exist. Today, it’s the only way to recruit the young. Both women and men expect far more of their jobs than before.”

And men, she says, are far more supportive of fair treatment of working women than we might think. “They are embarrasse­d by these figures, because they know that they come with a reputation­al cost. And it’s in our interest to engage them in bringing about change. Seeing them as allies is more helpful than pushing them away.”

Jayne-anne Gadhia, chief executive of Virgin Money, told the

Today programme yesterday that getting men on board was vital, and that among the “older management cadre” that she works with, she has “not really met anybody who’s anti this agenda. It’s a case of, ‘How can we engrain it?’ When you have powerful men who are supportive of gender equality, in particular, then that subject gets listened to and heard much louder.”

The gap we should really be addressing is not in pay but in parenting, says Sam Smith, CEO of Finncap. “It’s no good saying that your firm has a diversity employment policy and good maternity leave if, when the woman comes back from having had a baby, she is made to feel guilty for skipping the dinner with clients.”

As a female boss, she is determined to create a culture in which women who come in at a junior level see that they can climb to the very top. “The question we should be asking companies is, what percentage of your senior management is women? Role models raise aspiration­s.”

Add to this sea change that employees now feel equipped to hold their bosses to account. Ann Francke, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute, says:

“Of course, responsibi­lity for fixing this situation rests with your employer. However, there are steps you can do to mind your own gap, and step up the pressure on your employer to take action.

“Most companies will publish a narrative explaining the reasons behind their pay gap and their plans to fix it. But,” says Francke, “they also need to offer up concrete, practical solutions. Will they be sponsoring talented women to increase their promotion chances? Is there genuine, stigma-free flexible working? Returners programmes for those who have taken a career break? Balanced recruitmen­t shortlists and hiring panels? Have they set targets and committed to achieving progress by a certain date?”

Francke also says it’s time to get personal. “Call out the situation with your line manager. Informed and emboldened by the data dump, you are now in a position to discuss how your company’s pay gap data applies specifical­ly to you.”

So is revolution in the air, or will British firms rearrange the desks in a titanic ruse to dupe regulators, politician­s and female employees?

As public pressure and shareholde­rs’ demands coincide on this issue, no CEO will dare abstain from signing up to a fairer deal for female workers, surely making this a good time to be a woman – provided you learn to negotiate. If you don’t, hear a cautionary tale from Amanda Fone at F1 Recruitmen­t: “Only this week we have interviewe­d two senior candidates at the same level with the same amount of experience with a £40,000 difference in basic salary. Guess who earned £40,000 more?”

‘Pressure your employer to take action. They need to offer solutions’

 ??  ?? Getting men to support change is vital, says Virgin Money’s Jayne-anne Gadhia
Getting men to support change is vital, says Virgin Money’s Jayne-anne Gadhia
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 ??  ?? Unashamedl­y optimistic: Helena Morrissey, above. Ann Francke, left
Unashamedl­y optimistic: Helena Morrissey, above. Ann Francke, left

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