Gender Pay Gap Report 2019 V2 / 19 March 2019 / BMK-EN GENDER PAY GAP REPORT 2019

Transcription

1 Gender Pay Gap Report 2019 V2 / 19 March 2019 / BMK-EN GENDER PAY GAP REPORT 2019

2 FOREWORD I truly believe an equal world is a fairer, safer, more productive and happier world. Inclusiveness and equality are at the core of Benchmark s philosophy and we are committed to continue to foster this through initiatives like our voluntary reporting on gender pay gap, our participation in Women in Aquaculture and the industry mentoring programme. Malcolm Pye Chief Executive Officer 02 Benchmark Gender Pay Gap Report April 2019

3 INTRODUCTION Benchmark s mission is to drive sustainability in food production. Our aim is to be aquaculture s leading provider of solutions in genetics, health and specialist nutrition. The work we do is based on knowledge and technical innovation, and our people are our most important asset. Anna Winton Head of People A key focus area to support the delivery of our strategy is our people and we continue to invest in developing a team with specialist skills and experience. While this report refers to the gender pay gap, Benchmark is committed to increasing diversity across the business. Building a company that is truly reflective of the societies and communities in which we work means we are able to access a greater pool of talent and gain essential insight into the needs and motivations of our clients and partners around the world. We know that there is a positive correlation between diverse teams and innovation, so not only is it the right thing to do, it makes good business sense too. This is Benchmark s second gender pay gap report. As the business has fewer than 250 employees in any one entity within the UK we are not required to report our gender pay gap figures (in the calculation period, Benchmark employed a total of 261 employees in the UK across 10 companies in a number of sectors). We welcome the conversations and momentum this regulation has brought and this year we have widened our reach and reported figures globally. I am pleased to report that in comparison to the previous year we have reduced the mean gender pay gap by 10% and median by 5% in the UK. We recognise that we still have work to do. We know that across the business we proportionally have fewer women in leadership roles, that on average, attract higher pay rates and we are committed to creating a more evenly balanced gender workforce going forward. Following publication of our first Gender Pay Gap report last year we held a series of focus groups across the business to open up the diversity conversation and gauge employee views. We will continue to run these over the coming year to enable senior women in the business to share their experience, encourage all of our teams to put themselves forward for more senior roles and gauge employee views on how we are doing. This year, through our Knowledge Services division, we launched the Women in Aquaculture programme and have introduced a pilot mentoring scheme for employees and the industry and we will extend this platform to introduce the mentoring programme across the Benchmark group. We work to ensure everyone within the Benchmark team feels valued and fulfilled within their roles while understanding the important part they play in helping the business to achieve its mission. We want everyone to reach their full potential and this will continue to be a priority for Benchmark. 03 Benchmark Gender Pay Gap Report April 2019

4 WHAT IS THE GENDER PAY GAP AND HOW IS IT CALCULATED? The gender pay gap is an equality measure that shows the difference in average earnings between women and men. The gender pay gap is not the same as equal pay. Equal pay means that men and women in the same employment performing equal work must receive equal pay, as set out in the Equality Act The gender pay gap is a measure of the difference between the average earnings of men and women across an employer, organisation or the labour market. What s the difference between the mean and the median figures? When talking about the gender pay gap people tend to talk about the median figure rather than the mean. The mean is calculated by adding up all of the wages of male and female employees in a company and dividing that figure by the number of employees in each gender category. This means the final figure can be skewed by a small number of highly paid individuals. The median is the number that falls in the middle of a range when everyone s wages are lined up from smallest to largest and is more representative when there is a lot of variation in pay. See diagrams below: calculation NUMBER OF MALE EMPLOYEES THE DIFFERENCE NUMBER OF FEMALE EMPLOYEES MEAN MALE AVERAGE PAY MEAN HOURLY PAY GAP MEAN FEMALE AVERAGE PAY Median calculation LOWEST PAID THE MEDIAN HIGHEST PAID Female 04 Benchmark Gender Pay Gap Report April 2019

5 OUR RESULTS We are a global business employing a talented and diverse workforce of over 1,000 people from 42 different nationalities, spanning a range of languages and cultures in 27 countries. This exercise has been invaluable in providing insight into our employee base (as at 5th April ) and will be used to inform our future strategy for recruitment, training and development across the business. We are pleased to be expanding our analysis to include all of our global employees. As a large multi-faceted company, it is important that we look at our gender pay gap figures at the country, company and even site level and take into account the different salary averages in the sectors in which we work. This ensures we have visibility in all parts of our business in order to identify our gender pay gap disparities and understand the key drivers of them. In this report, we are sharing our gender pay gap at a snapshot date of 5 April for all of our employees globally. UK data Benchmark s gender pay gap continues to be strongly influenced by the gender make-up of the four pay quartiles. In the UK (figure 2) we can see that there are still significantly more males than females in the two upper pay bands, however, there has been an improvement in the mean pay gap for the UK of around 10% and median by 5% on our figures. This is due to increased female representation in senior roles both from external hires and internal promotions. Bonus gap The gap in the bonus pay has reduced significantly on the previous year. The median bonus gap of 0% across all regions can be explained by the fact that a flat rate cash bonus was paid across the business, with additional market value options granted to employees based on performance. The gap in the mean bonus pay of 27.9% (UK) results from the exercise of share options that vested during the bonus calculation period. Incorporation of the value of share options on exercise will continue to significantly impact the bonus calculations going forward. Global data As well as voluntarily reporting on our UK data, we this year decided to widen our reach to cover all employees globally. Our results for Europe and Americas paint a similar picture in terms of significantly more males than females in the two upper pay bands. In contrast, in Asia, where one of our biggest factories is located, there are predominately more men in lower paid roles and more women in senior positions. The calculated gender pay gap shows that our female employees earn more on average than male employees. 05 Benchmark Gender Pay Gap Report April 2019

6 OUR RESULTS Figure 1. Difference in pay between genders in all regions in which we operate UNITED KINGDOM EUROPE (excl. UK) ASIA AMERICAS Gender pay gap: 28.1 % Median 26.5 % : 38% : 32% 32.7 % Median 30.4 % 7.8 % Median -61 % 17.1 % Median 32.3 % Bonus gap: 27.9 % Median 27.3 % Median 10.7 % Median % Median Bonus pay * : 85 % Female 87 % 93.9 % Female 85.5 % 94 % Female % Female 85 % * Percentage of men/women receiving bonus Figure 2. Global pay quartiles Lower Lower middle Upper middle Upper UK Pay quartiles Female 59 % 68 % 41 % 32 % 66 % 34% 63 % 37 % 54 % 46% 46 % 54 % 32 % 68% 25 % 75 % Europe (excl. UK) pay quartiles 63 % 37 % 53 % 47 % 48 % 52 % 25 % 75 % Americas pay quartiles 32 % 68 % 52 % 48 % 17 % 83 % Asia pay quartiles 39 % 61% 25 % 75 % 16 % 68 % 84 % 06 Benchmark Gender Pay Gap Report April % 43 % 63 % 57 % 37 % 49 % 51% 46 % 54 % 43 % 57% 25 % 75 %

7 OUR COMMITMENT TO CLOSING THE GENDER PAY GAP At Benchmark, we believe in transparency and strive to attract a diverse workforce and provide equal opportunities throughout the business. We are committed to understanding the drivers behind the gender pay gap and implementing initiatives that ensure there is equal opportunity for all and encourage that this opportunity is taken up. Our people are our most valuable asset and play a vital role in helping us pursue our strategic goals. When we first reported the figures for our Gender Pay Gap we set out four steps that we planned to take towards closing this gap. Below we have set out our progress on each of our initiatives. INITIATIVE DESCRIPTION PROGRESS 01 Challenging the recruitment process To ensure that recruiters provide us with a diversified shortlist for all senior positions. Benchmark has always requested that recruiters provide a diversified shortlist when recruiting externally and will continue to do so. Where necessary we have pressed our recruitment agencies to aim for a greater balance in diversity of shortlists, in particular for senior roles. During the year we promoted and recruited several women into senior positions. 02 Training To ensure Benchmark s leadership and management team receive training to help them to recognise their actions, both positive and negative in regard to diversity of the workforce as well as the effect of bias on other areas of decision making. A People Strategy Day was organised with the Operations Board in January Areas for discussion and focus included feedback from employee engagement programmes, group-wide career development, talent management, diversity and succession planning. During the year we have been evaluating the impact of unconscious bias training in other organisations. Although some research shows that this has not had a beneficial impact on the Gender Pay Gap per se we have decided that Benchmark s leadership and management team will receive unconscious bias training as we believe this is important for all decision making. 03 Creating a diversity network and mentoring To provide encouragement and support to women throughout Benchmark to put themselves forward for more senior roles. Benchmark is supporting the Women in Aquaculture initiative which highlights the role of female workers in the industry. A pilot project offering professional mentoring to women and men in the industry is currently being rolled-out. 04 Focus groups To hear from all areas of the business and inform our longer-term plan of action. Focus groups were held across a number of sites in the UK and Europe to help us engage with colleagues, raise awareness and open up the conversation on diversity in the work place. 07 Benchmark Gender Pay Gap Report April 2019