Tech Nation 
2 min read
Understanding pay inequalities and creating tangible actions to address them is one of the most important steps you can take towards creating an equal, diverse and inclusive workplace. Gender and ethnicity pay gap data provides the basis for action to be taken, and for transparency to be achieved on pay equity.
If your organisation has over 250 employees, it is a governmental requirement to report on your gender pay gap. There is not yet a government mandate on ethnicity pay gap reporting, but a consultation is currently underway which is expected to come into effect in the near future. A number of organisations are undertaking this exercise regardless.
For scaleup organisations with less than 250 employees, it is recommended that you follow the Government guidelines and formulas to calculate your organisation’s gender pay gap. That way, you are able to compare your pay gaps with other organisations who have disclosed. Whilst the official gender pay gap reporting uses a binary male/female measure, these guidelines still provide a useful format to follow for the purpose of understanding pay equity. Close Your Pay Gap and Dezeen provide further guidance.
To create an ethnicity pay gap report, you will need to undertake an additional step to understand the composition of your workforce. If you haven’t captured ethnicity data already, this is best captured in a survey. However, please note that this type of information request cannot be mandatory (and you need to be aware of your obligations under GDPR and any privacy policy that you may have in place or later introduce). In terms of categories, the recommendation is to use those defined by the Office of National Statistics as a recognised standard.
Many companies enlist experts such as the EW Group to help gather and analyse gender and ethnicity pay gaps. Official Government guidance outlines four steps:
Ethnicity pay gap reporting is not yet mandated. Therefore, there is currently no official government advice.
