With the second deadline for gender pay gap reports a month away, more guidance has been published (in addition to that covered here). The Government Equalities Office has published two sets of guidance, Eight ways to understand your gender pay gap and Four steps to developing a gender pay gap action plan, to help employers close their gender pay gaps. The first proposes a set of questions focussing on potential gender imbalance in recruitment, promotion or retention, starting salaries/other particular aspects of pay, or performance rating. It also suggests that employers ask whether there is sufficient support for part-time employees to progress, and whether both men and women with caring responsibilities are supported, stating that employers may wish to enhance pay for shared parental leave to encourage men to take it and to advertise all jobs as flexible by default. The second guide highlights the need for buy-in from senior people and the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders in developing an action plan, and emphasises the need for specific, time-bound targets and a named individual to drive the plan forward.
The Women and Work All Party Parliamentary Group has also launched How to recruit women for the 21st Century, a new toolkit to support female progression in the workplace. Suggestions include the introduction of name-blind and context-blind applications, avoiding asking applicants about their current salary, and adopting a flexible working culture to improve the pipeline. It also calls on the government to commission or publish new guidance for employers on positive action.
The Labour Party has pointed to more flexible work as essential to close the gender pay gap, to facilitate working women and also encourage caring responsibilities to be spread more equally across the genders. Dawn Butler has stated that Labour would give employees the right to work flexibly from day one of a job (currently the right to request flexible work is available after 26 weeks) and create a presumption that work can be done flexibly which it would be for employers to rebut.
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