A shake up of working practices and culture has been recommended by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to reduce pay gaps.
The Commission has set out its comprehensive strategy for tackling gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps in its report, Fair opportunities for all: A strategy to reduce pay gaps in Britain, which outlines six key actions needed to be taken by government, society and employers.
Caroline Waters, Deputy Chair of the EHRC, said: ‘We need to overhaul our culture and make flexible working the norm; looking beyond women as the primary caregivers and having tough conversations about the biases that are rife in our workforce and society.’
The six recommendations were:
Encourage flexible working in all jobs at all levels. Address differences in subject and career choices, educational attainment and access to apprenticeships. Invest in sector-specific training and regional enterprise to improve work opportunities. Encourage men and women to share childcare responsibilities by making paternity leave a more effective incentive and improving access to childcare. Encourage employers to tackle bias in recruitment, promotion and pay, and introducing a new national target for senior and executive management positions. Pay gap reporting should be extended to include ethnicity and disability.The recommendations are backed-up by comprehensive analysis of pay gap data and the complex causes of pay gaps. Current figures calculate the gender pay gap at 18.1%, the ethnic minority pay gap at 5.7% and the disability pay gap at 13.6%.
If you would like our weekly payroll newsletter direct to you inbox every week, sign up here to receive the latest payroll news.
