Having a diverse mix of talented people in our business is fundamental to our success. We are committed to LiveWest being a great place to work for everybody, and achieving a diverse and balanced employee team is a key part of this.
As part of our commitment to transparency LiveWest are publishing our latest pay gap figures for 2020/21, despite there being no legal requirement to do so this year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Since the publication of initial figures in 2017, LiveWest have made steady progress on reducing the gap, and continue to work to eliminate it. We are pleased that our figures for this year show a further reduction.
Gender Pay Gap reporting is about the difference between the average pay of men and women working here. It isn’t the same as equal pay; we make absolutely sure that men and women doing the same or similar jobs are paid the same.
The distribution of women and men in our workforce
Overall, at LiveWest the distribution of the women and men we employ varies across the types and seniority of roles. When we divide our employee team into four quarters (or ‘quartiles’) according to how much they earn, the proportion of men and women within each quartile is:
|
|
19/20 |
20/21 |
|
Quartile 1 (lowest salary) |
31m/69f |
31m/69f |
|
Quartile 2 |
45m/55f |
55m/45f |
|
Quartile 3 |
53m/47f |
50m/50f |
|
Quartile 4 (highest salary) |
54m/46f |
52m/48f |
As in many organisations and society as a whole, we have a higher number of women in lower paid roles, and a higher proportion of men in higher paid roles. Some of this is because we have a higher proportion of women in part-time roles, which tend to be lower paid.
Gender pay gaps - comparing the average pay of women and men
The gender pay gap is the difference between the average hourly earnings for men in an organisation and the average hourly earnings for women. For example, a 10% gender pay gap shows that women earn 10% less per hour, on average, than men. A negative -10% gender pay gap shows that women earn 10% more, on average than men.
The average is calculated as both mean and median. Mean earnings are calculated by adding up all hourly earnings and dividing them by the number of employees. Median earnings come from ranking all earnings from lowest to highest and identifying the number in the middle.
The median is preferred to the mean (simple average) as it gives a better measure of pay of the typical employee.
|
|
19/20 |
20/21 |
|
Mean gender pay gap (based on hourly rate)% |
15.92 |
12.32 |
|
Median gender pay gap (based on hourly rate)% |
10.44 |
9.28 |
How we pay bonuses
At LiveWest we pay a discretionary annual bonus to all eligible employees, calculated the same way for all employees, based on achieving stretching targets for customer satisfaction, development of new homes, financial performance, and business transformation.
The government asks us to calculate the mean and median gender bonus gap:
|
Mean bonus gap |
Median bonus gap |
Men receiving a bonus |
Women receiving a bonus |
|
19.63% |
24.98% |
531 |
612 |
In the same way pay is affected, having a higher number of women in lower paid or part-time roles in our business also impacts the gender bonus gap at LiveWest too, however we are pleased to have reduced the gap again this year.
Using this information to improve how we work
LiveWest are committed to reducing our current gender pay gap. We recognise that this will take time and focus but we want to ensure that there are no potential barriers to the successful development and progression of women at LiveWest.
As part of our commitment to ensure we support all members of staff to reach their full potential, we have recently launched a diversity network at LiveWest. Comprising of three groups: Race and Ethnicity Equality Network (REEN); Sexuality and Gender Equality (SAGE) group; and, the Disability Network; projects and events to support and promote equality and diversity in the workplace will be undertaken, and the groups will have a direct link to our managerial-level Equality, Diversity and Inclusion group.
LiveWest’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion group is empowered to look across the business at ways we can reduce the gender pay gap, and support, develop and promote colleagues from other protected characteristics. We continue to pay particular attention to the intersections between gender and race and gender and disability.
LiveWest continue to report on our pay gap internally every quarter to enable our Board to track our progress on a regular basis and act as necessary.