In April 2017, the Government introduced new gender pay gap (GPG) transparency regulations, which are designed to encourage large companies to take informed action to close their GPG where one exists.
The Wolseley Hospitality Group welcomed the step that for the first time, all UK companies employing 250 people or more have had to publish their gender pay gap information, covering both pay & bonuses and are required to do so on an annual basis.
Ultimately, we are keen that our businesses closely represent the communities that they serve. This means an equal balance of male and female employees is imperative to us and makes for both a happier and more balanced workforce.
However, hospitality as an industry suffers the stigma of long, un-family friendly hours and so historically we have noticed a fall out of female employees, particularly at senior levels. In response to this, we have spent the last few years working extremely hard to give all our employees a better work-life balance and to help them find a way of making hospitality more closely suit the needs of family life.
Whilst we are pleased with the progress that has been made since we introduced our positive changes, we still have work to do as the gender diversity in our businesses is still swayed in favour of male employees (67% male, 33% female).
It is sad that in this day and age, companies are being mandated to have to report on the gender pay gap and that one still exists, however we are proud of our results and are committed to doing more to improve them across the portfolio of our businesses.
Our 2021 report can be found here.