Pay Gap Strategies for HR Leaders

Today, host Michelle Gyimah interviews Sarah Clark, the Decarbonisation Delivery Manager for Europe, Middle East & Africa and co-chair of the AXIS Network, a gender equity group supporting the energy transition in the UK.

Throughout her career, Sarah has held a variety of process engineering and project management positions in the UK and Poland, which includes design, offshore and site-based roles, as well as corporate consulting positions within O&G and military sectors. Sarah is passionate about the promotion of women in business and women in engineering and volunteers her time leading Wood's gender equality group and co-leads AXIS Network promoting gender parity. Sarah completed her Executive MBA in April 2022 and following an 18-month role working directly for the CEO and the executive team of a FTSE 250, Sarah recently joined the Decarbonisation team as the Decarbonisation Delivery Manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Sarah lives outside of London with her husband and their two cats.

In this conversation we explore the challenges in attracting young talent to the energy sector and potential impact of ethnicity pay gap reporting and the importance of creating an environment where people feel safe to disclose their data.

The episode concludes with a discussion on the immediate challenges for organisations in addressing pay gaps and the need for systemic change. Sarah encourages listeners to join the AXIS Network and participate in its initiatives to drive gender equity in the energy sector.

For more information and to sign up for the AXIS Network, visit their website (https://www.axisnetwork.co.uk/) or email [email protected]

Quote Highlight: "Emphasising the importance of senior leadership commitment to achieve impactful change, rather than viewing diversity and inclusion as solely an HR responsibility"

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Today I'm sharing with you the most common mistakes I see organisations make with their pay gap action plans. For those of you in HR who want to avoid these mistakes or find ways to fix these mistakes, this episode is for you.

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Today we are exploring how HR teams can close their pay gaps internally with no help from consultants. Why? Because it is possible, IF you know what to do.

So, if you are an employer looking for steps on how to address your pay gap internally, tune in to this episode to understand the best way to do this.

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Best podcast quote:

"Ultimately, it's great for you to work on your pay gap plan internally, but you do have to be clear on the effort that is required. And the effort comes in the capacity, skills and time."

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Today we are exploring how to measure pay gap impact and maximise its effectiveness.

I will go through how HR can get the most out of your pay gaps plan by focusing on:

• Accountability, responsibility and implementation
• Creating success metrics to track data analysis better
• How to effectively communicate your organisation's pay gap goals, progress, and challenges.

Best podcast quote

"You have to work the pay gap plan, there are going to be some areas that are easier than others for you. But all of these areas that I've mentioned, they all hold value, and all of them will impact the return on investment that you have put into your pay gap work."

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If you know that you need pay gaps help, how do you choose the right consultancy? Well this is what we'll be discussing in today's episode.

I've spoken to countless HR leaders who have waited 6-18 months to work with me because of their fear of the unknown and investment concerns. If this sounds like you, this episode will help you tackle these issues so that you can make the right decision for your organisation.

In this episode I go through five questions you should be asking as well as what answers to look out for so that you pick the right one.

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Best podcast quote:

"Essentially you're doing this because you need reassurance that they know exactly what they're doing. Looking at someone's website and looking at social media on its own is not going to be enough because it is so easy today to put something on the internet and to claim that you are an expert, or really knowledgeable in a particular space."

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It's not an easy decision to hire in a pay gaps consultancy to help you out. When I work with clients, I understand the challenges and concerns that organisations have. I'm also accutely aware that a big fear is that hiring a consultant will be a big mistake.

So in todays episode, I share three key challenges and fears that I see HR leaders grappling with and how to minimise them when deciding if you should hire a pay gaps consultancy.

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Best podcast quote

"There's never any one way to address closing pay gaps. It's going to be different for everybody. What we decide to do together depends on our working relationship, your business model, your sector and ultimately discovering what's going to work for you as an organisation."

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Sign up to our webinar coming up on 21st March: "Own Your Own Pay Gap Narrative": https://equalitypays.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1165273

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Should you get your pay gap data verified? Well the answer all depends on why you want to and what you hope to gain from it. Given that unverified pay gap data could ruin your credibility it may be worth getting it audited.

In this episode I'll share the benfits of getting your data verified and some bonus tips on how to get the most out of your pay gap data audit.

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• Sign up to join us on 12th March here: Equality Pays (vipmembervault.com)

"Using software is going to minimise the likelihood of mistakes... It's all about having that autonomy in terms of the skill set, but also autonomy over your own data, and that helps to increase your confidence in understanding your data."

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• Gender pay gap reporting: What poor statistics means for employers- Episode #1 Beyond the pay gap figure with Michelle Gyimah (pod.link)

• Addressing the gender pay gap, what can leaders do today? - Still Loading podcast, episode 21

• How employers can proactively address the gender pay gap - The Employment law and HR podcast, episode 219

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Today I'm lifting the lid on the top three mistakes I see organisations making in their gender pay gap reports. Knowing these top mistakes will help you not only to write better reports, but also to create better pay gap strategies.

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• Sign up to join us on 12th March here: Equality Pays (vipmembervault.com)

"I read their gender pay gap report and I was underwhelmed. But now I've read this EDI policy and I'm chomping at the bit to work for them. It just didn't make sense. And then I realised that what had happened...quite often people feel very, very restricted around what they can talk about in their pay gap reports and how they can communicate, It's almost like they feel like they've been put in a box."

• Will your gender pay gap get you cancelled?- Episode #1 Gender pay gap reporting: What poor statistics means for employers (pod.link)

• Gender pay gap results: Rethinking how HR measures success - Episode 4 -

• Gender pay gap compliance and reporting tools - Episode 6

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Today we are talking about the gender pay gap bot. When it first appeared on X (then known as Twitter) back in 2021 on International Womens Day it would respond to organisations social media announcement by simply retweeting it's gender pay gap data.

This gained a lot of interest and responses from the public. Many organisations didn't know how to handle being put on the spot with their pay gap data. Some organisations responded defensively or removed their tweets to avoid backlash.

‌I'll be sharing the implications of the gender pay gap bot and how organisations can better handle accountability on public social media platforms.

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Best podcast quote:

"This isn't about being slick and saying the right things. But it's about being competent, in how you're going to respond to criticism. Because there's nothing wrong with somebody critiquing you over your pay gap, it's a piece of information that somebody has an opinion on, and then it's up to you to respond to that."

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What should you do if your pay gap is stagnating or even rising? Many organisations panic and start looking for quick fixes - many of which can make things worse. Today I'm going to share my three top tips of what to do instead to get better results.

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Enjoyed this? Listen to these episodes too:

The pay gap and internal communication

The gender pay gap & equal pay at work

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