Gender pay gap: everything pub companies need to know

11-Jan-2018 - Last updated on 11-Jan-2018 at 10:52 GMT

Equal pay: pub companies with more than 250 employers have until April to publish their figures

As more than 500 companies have now published their gender pay gap figures, The Morning Advertiser looks at what pub companies with more than 250 employers need to publish before the April deadline.

From 2017, any organisation that has 250 or more employees must publish and report specific figures about their gender pay gap.

The gender pay gap is the difference between the average earnings of men and women, expressed relative to men’s earnings.

Some of the first companies to do so, including Ladbrokes, Easyjet and Virgin Money, have revealed gender pay gaps of more than 15% in favour of men for mean hourly pay.

In November it was reported that female chef salaries are still lagging behind those of men in the sector, with men earning £3,598 more per year.

Any organisation which has fewer than 250 employees, can publish and report voluntarily but is not obliged to do so.

As part of the new regulations, by April 2018 employers will be required to:

Publish their median gender pay gap figures

When you’ve calculated your gender pay gap figures, they must be published with a written statement on your organisation’s website.

By identifying the wage of the middle earner, the median is the best representation of the ‘typical’ gender difference.

Publish their mean gender pay gap figures

By taking into account the full earnings distribution, the mean takes into account the low and high earners in an organisation – this is particularly useful as women are often over-represented at the low earning extreme and men are over-represented at the high earning extreme.

Publish the proportion of men & women in each quartile of the pay structure

This data will show the spread of male and female earners across an organisation, helping to show employers where women’s progress might be stalling so they can take action to support their career development.

Publish the gender pay gaps for any bonuses paid out during the year

As there is a significant issue around bonus payments in some sectors, employers will also have to publish the proportion of male and proportion of female employees that received a bonus during the year.

Employers will also be encouraged to publish an action plan alongside the figures on their own website, demonstrating the steps they will take to close the gender pay gap within their organisation.

Part-time workers and job-sharing

You must count each part-time worker as one employee for gender pay gap reporting purposes.

If you use job-share arrangements, every employee within a job-share counts as one employee. So, if 2 people job-share, they count as 2 employees for gender pay gap reporting purposes.

When employees have more than one job within your organisation, you can either choose to count them according to how many employment contracts they have or as one employee. Your organisation can choose the most appropriate approach - but it will help the accuracy of your figures if you consistently apply what you decide.