PHARMACEUTICAL giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), has been identified as the best-performing FTSE 100 company in terms of gender equality, according to a new index.
Using official data on average salaries, bonuses, and pay at every level, Lead 5050, a cross-industry accreditation, created the Equity Index 2022/23 to provide a distinctive, in-depth perspective on more than 10,000 businesses and organisations.
GSK is ranked first among FTSE100 employers. The firm has a relatively tiny median and mean overall pay difference, with pay distributed evenly across all organisational levels.
IAG Cargo, a division of IAG, the company that owns British Airways, came in second, and ITV is represented twice in the top 10, with ITV Breakfast Limited in third place, and ITV Studios Limited in sixth.
Leanne Linacre, CEO of Lead5050, said: “Whilst the UK is a world leader in ensuring employers provide transparent data on gender-related pay, after years of progress, the gender pay gap for full-time workers has increased.
“At the same time, the number of job vacancies rose to a record level last year while the cost-of-living crisis continues to bite adversely affecting women who are having to reduce their hours of work because of the cost of childcare.
“Closing the gender pay gap would strengthen the economy as higher wages would encourage more women to either enter the labour market or extend their working hours.”
The top 10 employers also include National Grid UK (fifth place), Royal Mail Group (seventh place), Pearson Education (eighth place), Rentokil Initial (ninth place), and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners UK (tenth place).
Although GSK may have come in first on the FTSE100 list, it is not the employer with the best overall score. When smaller and public-sector businesses are considered, Wykeham Staff Services, a Spalding-based employment agency, and Registers of Scotland, the Scottish equivalent of the Land Registry, tie for the top rank in the UK.
The rankings also show considerable variations in gender-pay performance across industries. On average, employers that specialise in public administration perform far better than those who operate in industries like construction, banking and insurance, IT, and electronics.
Social work, hiring, retail, and advertising are further industries with high equity index scores.
Every UK company, public or private, with more than 250 employees is included in the index, along with a number of smaller businesses that have decided to contribute information on gender-based pay.
The data team for the Index analysed the open submissions from these employers to determine the median gender pay gap, mean gender pay gap, salary in various quartiles, and bonus payments. This is then transformed into an overall score that illustrates how near each employer is to the “ideal” state of full gender pay parity using a weighted methodology.
This goes well beyond the conventional rankings of the gender pay gap, which only takes into account the median pay for both men and women overall inside a business.
Subscribe for our weekly news letter here!
You can unsubscribe us at any time
