Vera Walsh· Total Rewards Manager, Copperfield Mining
Posted in Pay Equity & Transparency ·
UK retailer, roughly 14,000 employees, most of them hourly in stores. Last spring we took our first proper pay gap paper to the board, beyond the statutory figures. It went badly, and I think the reasons are transferable.
We led with the adjusted gap of 1.3% because we were proud of it. The chair's first question was why the median gap we publish is 17% if the real number is 1.3%. We then spent forty minutes on definitions and never reached the recommendations.
This year I am opening with the published figure, showing in one chart how it breaks down into who holds which jobs and what is left over, and putting the asks on page two. Interested in how others structure this for non-specialists.
11 helpful · 2 insightful · 1 agree · 4 replies · 301 views · 4 following
Dana WhitfieldCRP, GRS
Director, Global Compensation, Meridian Health Systems
Same experience at a building society. What fixed it for us was a single waterfall: published mean gap of 22%, then how much disappears when you account for grade, then function, then hours, leaving 1.8%. Directors understood immediately that the big number is about representation and the small one is about pay decisions, and that both need a plan.
Sales Compensation Manager, Aurora Hospitality
I would add: send a two-page primer a week ahead and offer the committee chair a half-hour call. Our remuneration committee chair read it, asked her questions privately, and then did half the explaining for us in the meeting. Board members do not like learning vocabulary in front of each other.
Ugo HaddadCEP
Director of Benefits, Tidewater Utilities
Slight disagreement on putting the asks on page two. Our board wants the decision required on the cover page, always. Ours read: approve 0.4% of paybill for corrections, note the representation plan, agree annual reporting to this committee. The analysis followed as support. Nobody got lost in definitions because they knew what they were being asked to decide.
Farrah GrantGRS, CSI
Director, Total Rewards, Copperfield Mining
The other thing I learned the hard way is to bring the number of people, not just percentages. Saying 212 employees sit more than 5% below where the model expects them, 141 of them women, landed far harder than any coefficient.
