Today we publish the difference between how much we pay men and women. It is important to us to better understand areas where we might be falling behind on diversity and inequalities, and take steps to address these where we can.
We also hope that voluntarily publishing our data will encourage others in the social investment market to do the same and be open about what we can do individually and together to get better.
Our data shows that the average hourly pay for women is 20% lower than for men. Reassuringly, we’ve looked at what we pay people within roles, and we’re confident we pay men and women equally for doing the same job. However, having a broader 20% gender pay gap is not where we’d like to be and we can and should do what we can to address this. For context, our pay gap reflects a higher number of men in senior management roles at Big Society Capital and more women in administrative support roles - our CEO and CFO are both men. This broadly reflects what we saw in the data from the Gathering where as a sector, fewer women are transitioning to senior leadership roles. This is top of our minds as we focus on staff development and making sure everyone can progress, learn and develop.
Looking at our pay data has reinforced how important it is for us to keep building a diverse team and a culture where people are valued, listened to and able to achieve their goals. We’ve started a few exciting things that we hope will help us get there quicker – for example, trailing a new recruitment process that reduces bias. We are also really excited to be part of the Diversity Forum, where we’re learning from and supporting each other to address the issues we’re facing and celebrate and showcase successes to encourage others.