When gender pay gap reporting regulations come into effect from April 2017, HR and reward professionals in organisations with more than 250 employees will find themselves tasked with compiling data on gender pay and bonus inequalities in their business. As the people who are often responsible for taking measures to reduce such inequality, I wonder how many will be shocked to discover that gender pay gaps also exist within their own roles.
This year’s Salary survey found that the average gender pay gap between reward and benefits professionals is currently £24,100. While this, in part, may be due to a lack of male respondents in benefits or reward analyst or administrator roles, there is no getting away from the fact that this remains a significant gap.
This could go one of two ways. Identifying such gaps may either spur reward and benefits professionals on to push for change within their organisation or it could demotivate them against taking action.
For the first time, this year’s Salary survey asked respondents specifically about the mental wellbeing support provided by their employer. Around three-quarters (74%) said that they receive such support through the workplace, which is encouraging given the rise in profile mental health and resilience has undergone in the past few years.
However, this still leaves 26% who do not receive support in this area from their employer. According to The Health and Social Care Information Centre’s Adult psychiatric morbidity in England survey, published in 2009, one in four adults is likely to experience a mental health issue in any given year. This means a number of organisations could be missing out by not providing mental health support for their workforce.
Gender pay inequality and mental wellbeing are two of the biggest issues currently being debated in the benefits arena. So should 2017 be the year that organisations raise these further up the corporate agenda?
Debbie Lovewell-TuckEditor
