EQUAL PAY REVIEWS
Almost one in five employers have now completed equal pay reviews
The Commission for Equality and Human Rights has published a survey looking at the number of public and private sector employers that are conducting voluntary pay reviews to help ensure they are paying people fairly.
The survey of 866 public and private sector businesses across the UK was conducted for the Commission by IFF Research.
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Key survey findings
The proportion of employers who completed equal pay reviews rose by five percentage points from 2005 to 17% in 2008.
Those with equal pay reviews in progress rose by two percentage points between 2005 and 2008 to 5%, and the number of employers who said they planned to conduct a review rose by eight percentage points to 17%.
Equal pay reviews are more common in the public sector, where 43% of employers either have completed one, have one in progress, or are planning one, compared with 23% of private sector organisations.
Larger organisations (those with 500 or more employees) are more than twice as likely as smaller employers (those with 25-99 employees) to have completed a review.
The vast majority of employers surveyed, who have either completed, are doing, or planning a review (87%) said equal pay reviews made good business sense.
A final word
“I'm encouraged to see more businesses have decided to conduct equal pay reviews to determine the scale of the gap in their organisation. Employers who actively seek to identify gaps not only put themselves in a far better position to take effective action, they win over the confidence and loyalty of staff who can be confident they are being treated fairly. Pay reviews of this type can also be a protection against subsequent discrimination cases.” - Nicola Brewer, Chief Executive, Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Want to know more?
Title: Equal Pay Reviews Survey 2008, by Lorna Adams, Peter Hall and Stefan Schäfer (at IFF research), published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Availability: A full copy of the report is available for download free of charge on the Commission's web site.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission is a statutory body established under the Equality Act 2006, which took over the responsibilities of Commission for Racial Equality, Disability Rights Commission and Equal Opportunities Commission. More details are available at www.equalityhumanrights.com.