Telecommunications organisation Sky has reported an 11.5% mean gender pay gap for fixed hourly pay across its five legal entities.
The organisation has reported its gender pay gap data in line with the government’s gender pay gap reporting regulations and ahead of the private sector submission deadline of 4 April 2018. It has published data for five employing entities, including Sky UK, Sky CP, Sky In-Home Services, Sky Retail Stores and Sky Subscriber Services.
The gender pay gap reporting regulations require organisations with 250 or more employees to publish the difference between both the mean and median hourly rate of pay for male and female full-time employees; the difference between both the mean bonus pay and median bonus pay for male and female employees; the proportions of male and female employees who were awarded bonus pay; and the proportions of male and female full-time employees in the lower, lower middle, upper middle and upper quartile pay bands.
Sky’s median gender pay gap for fixed hourly pay is 17.5%.
Its mean gender pay gap for bonuses paid over the duration of the reporting period is 40.1%, and the median gender pay gap for bonus payments is 37.9%. Over this time, 73% of female employees received a bonus payment compared to 72% of male employees.
Less than a third (27%) of employees in the highest pay quartile at Sky are female, compared to 27% in the second quartile, 31% in the third quartile and 47% in the lowest pay quartile.
Sky attributes its gender pay gap to having more men than women employed in higher-paid positions. For example, more male employees occupy senior roles, which attract higher pay, and more men also fulfil higher-paid job types, such as in the organisation’s technology divisions. Sky’s analysis shows that if there were an equal number of male and female employees working across senior positions and all other levels within its technology divisions, then the gender pay gap would be 0%.
To address its gender pay gap, Sky has implemented three key programmes to tackle gender imbalance. This includes its Women in Leadership programme, which has so far helped to increase the number of female employees occupying senior roles from 31% in 2016 to 39% now. Sky is aiming to achieve a 50:50 balance by 2020. To help attain this target, Sky will insist on gender balance shortlists for all senior appointments, run sponsorship and development programmes for women, offer internal networking events through its Women@Sky employee network and facilitate flexible working. The organisation will also look to build its reputation as an employer of choice for women.
Sky’s Women in Technology programme, launched in 2016, aims to increase female representation in its technology divisions, with a target of 30% female representation by 2020. To achieve this, Sky offers free evening and weekend courses to teach women how to code, provides a £25,000 grant in its Sky Tech Scholars initiative which encourages more women to enter the technology industry, runs sponsorship and development programmes and strives to have gender balance in its technology graduate programme. Just under half (47%) of Sky’s last graduate intake are women.
The Women in Home Service programme aims to increase female representation in this division to 20% by 2020. Currently, 2% of Sky’s hone service engineer workforce are female. The organisation aims to achieve this by providing a Trainee Engineer Programme, introduced this year, which will facilitate up to 360 women undertaking a six-month paid training placement. Participants will gain a City and Guilds qualification, training on confidence and resilience in the workplace, on-the-job training and a dedicated mentor.
Stephen van Rooyen, UK chief executive officer at Sky said: “Fairness and equality are values that sit at the very heart of our business and we ensure we pay our men and women equally for doing the same role with the same level of experience. However, as with many big organisations, we have more men than women in senior, digital and technology roles and this is what is driving our current gender pay gap. We know that when we achieve gender balance across these areas our gender pay gap will be eliminated.
“We’ve already initiated a number of programmes aimed at improving gender representation across our many different teams and [while] we’re seeing improvements, we know there is more we can do. We have ambitious targets in place, such as aiming for 50:50 gender balance amongst our most senior roles by 2020, which demonstrates the importance we’re placing on improving gender balance across all levels of our organisation.”
