The majority of UK employers are in the dark about how to handle gender pay reporting, according to a new survey.
The research, conducted by XpertHR, found that only 6.2 per cent of employers had any formal mechanism in place to monitor their gender pay gap before the legislation was announced.
The new gender pay reporting regulations are due to come into force in April 2017, and will require all employers with 250 or more employees to measure and report their gender pay gaps for the first time.
Despite organisations having to publish their first gender pay gap metrics by April 2018 at the latest, one in four businesses intend to delay this as long as possible, publishing as close as they can to the deadline.
Although proposals to introduce mandatory reporting were announced in October 2015, over half of organisations had no monitoring in place before this time.
Just over one-third claimed to have carried out ‘informal’ monitoring in the past, while 7.1 per cent did not know whether or not they had done so before the regulations were announced.
The survey also found that there is a disparity amongst employers about who would be responsible for data collection and reporting. A third of organisations plan to give this task to their chief executive, while 30.4 per cent said it would fall to their HR director.
However, 9.4 per cent intended the finance director to do this, while 23.2 per cent didn’t yet know who will take on responsibility.
Speaking about the findings, Mark Crail, XpertHR’s Content Director, said, “This survey shines a light on the challenges involved in gender pay gap reporting.”
“It highlights that most organisations aren’t yet ready to tackle the practical implications of the reporting and the requirements of the regulations.”
“Most don’t yet know how or when they will publish their metrics and around a quarter plan to delay the publication for as long as possible.”
