New Gender Pay Gap Toolkit - What You Need to Know

The toolkit pulls together guidance on gender pay gap reporting produced by ACAS/the GEO and CIPD. It contains a four point to-do list for reporting gender pay gap information and following up on that report. It also contains an action list of recommendations designed to address any gender pay gap.  

8 Things to Consider

Amongst other things the toolkit suggests that employers seeking to close their gender pay gap should consider: 

• using gender-neutral language in job adverts

• advertising roles as flexible as default

• broadening recruitment channels

• removing barriers to flexible working

• enhancing pay for shared parental leave and paternity leave

• encouraging uptake of shared parental leave

• recruiting returners

• introducing an annual equal pay audit

In addition, the guidance published by ACAS/the GEO has been updated to include specific advice on carrying out calculations for term time only staff. Whilst the wording of the Regulations is fairly restrictive and does not account for term time only working, the updated guidance sanctions a more creative interpretation in order to avoid term time only staff appearing to be paid at an artificially low hourly rate. This could be particularly helpful to employers in education contexts in reducing overall gender pay gaps.

What Next?

All government departments and large private and voluntary sector companies with 250 or more employees are due to publish their gender pay gap data by April 2018. Qualifying employers should therefore be taking steps to prepare for the publication of their data.

We recommend considering a supporting narrative to accompany the data explaining the figures and drawing out any particular positives. Where a pay gap is identified, it may be helpful to consider any initiatives that could be put in place to close the gap over time and developing an equality action plan.

We are working with a number of organisations, providing advice on all aspects of the obligation to report gender pay gap information.

If you would like to discuss your organisation's obligations then please do not hesitate to contact Nick Murrell, in our Employment Law team, on 0117 314 5627.

For further information on the Gender Pay Gap Regulations please see our FAQs.