In April 2017, the Government introduced new regulations relating to the gender pay gap (GPG) with the aim of encouraging UK businesses to take action to close any gap that exists. This year, around 9,000 employers in the UK across both private and public sectors will publish their GPG data.
In this report, we provide GPG information for ACNielsen which is our largest employing entity in the UK and, as a UK employer with over 250 employees, is subject to these regulations. Our GPG disclosure compares the average hourly pay for women to the average hourly pay for men across ACNIelsen.
Our results show that the median hourly rate for women is 6.2% less than the median hourly rate for men. The mean hourly rate for women is 12.4% less than the mean hourly rate for men. On bonus pay, the gap between both the mean and median bonus paid to women compared to men is 34%.
The primary driver of our GPG is that more of our senior roles are held by men. This is an imbalance we are aware of, are not satisfied with, and have been actively working to rectify with a number of ongoing initiatives. Since 2016, we have reduced our median and mean GPG by 3 percentage points and our goal is to continue to improve.
We are proud of our commitment to diversity and inclusion, which has been recognised with our appointment to this year’s list of the UK’s Top 50 Inclusive Employers, ranking 25th. We are also an active member of the UK National Diversity Awards as a sponsor and working alongside a strong network of companies who share the same passion and commitment to diversity within the workplace.
We promote an inclusive culture to attract and retain the best talent. Our compensation philosophy is based on paying fairly and consistently based on size of role and individual performance – it is gender neutral.
Here are some of the key actions we have taken:
We regularly assess overall pay, and decisions made about pay, for men and women in like roles to ensure that we are living up to our standards of fairness and consistency.
- Parity in recruiting: Our UK employee population is made up of 50% women and 50% men. We have introduced recruitment interview training and unconscious bias training and will continue to monitor gender intake on a quarterly basis across the business.
- Attracting and retaining more women into senior roles: We work closely with Women In Nielsen (WIN), an employee resource group dedicated to supporting, connecting and empowering women to build successful and fulfilling careers within Nielsen, who advise on our policies, procedures and progression plans to ensure equality. We have implemented a mentoring programme to connect high performing men and women across the business. We have also made major changes to our maternity policy to better support parents.
- Returning to work: We have introduced a return to work bonus to encourage women back to work after maternity. Since 2016, we have seen a 5 percentage points improvement in the gender balance within senior roles in Nielsen UK.
- Creating a positive environment: Both women and men have expressed a desire for flexibility and agility in the way that they work so that they can balance home/work commitments and we have launched a new flexible working policy, and are actively promoting agile working. Today, 49% of UK employees enjoy flexibility within their working practices.
We are continuing to improve and through the work we’ve been doing over the last two years, we have a better understanding of what needs to be addressed and how we will achieve that. We are confident in our ability to make the necessary improvements.
Cathy Earle, HR Director UK & Ireland
We confirm the data reported is accurate. In accordance with the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017, AC Nielsen Limited is required to carry out Gender Pay Gap Reporting.
