Gender Pay Gap Report UK – April 2023
Introduction
Here at Audley, we appreciate that by working together to create an inclusive culture where our employees feel valued, recognised and treated fairly for the work that they do, gives our business the best possible chance to succeed in the future.
Under the UK gender pay gap reporting legislation, which was introduced in 2017, as an employer with over 250 employees we are required to report information about our gender pay each year. The figures within the report help us pinpoint where to focus our efforts to close the gap, which is a key element of our inclusion strategy.
We now have our sixth Gender Pay Gap Report. We acknowledge we’ve not been able to reduce the gap compared to last year, and the results still show that men are paid, on average, more than women.
There are many aspects that we have had to consider when looking at this data and having reviewed and analysed the data, we have an understanding of what has contributed to this, details of which can be found in this report.
Without similar representation of women and men across all levels it will be almost impossible to achieve true gender equality. However, we are aware of the steps that are required to instil active change in the long term. Our commitment to reducing the gap remains unchanged and we are continuing to work on our plan to address this.
Changing the gender balance across our workforce is a long-term process and will remain a key focus in our strategic plan. With our continuing commitment to fairness, equity and inclusion, we are confident we can make meaningful change for the better.
Nick Longman
Chief Executive Officer
Definitions
Gender pay is the difference between the average pay of men and women in an organisation. This is different to equal pay which means paying the same to men and women doing comparable work.
Mean pay gap is calculated by adding up the wages of all relevant employees and dividing the figure by the number of employees. The mean gender pay gap is calculated based on the difference between mean male pay and mean female pay.
Median pay gap is the figure that falls in the middle of a range when the wages of all relevant employees are lined up from smallest to largest. The median gap is calculated based on the difference between the employee in the middle of the range of male wages and the middle employee in the range of female wages.
Our results
Audley’s gender pay gap metrics are calculated using employee data from 5 April 2023. This date is used as a ‘snapshot’ of our employee population, consisting of 636 employees of whom 69% were female, 31% were male. The gender pay gap looks at ordinary pay (which includes basic salary, city weighting and any regular allowances e.g. monthly commission/bonus), and the bonus pay gap looks at bonus and commission payments for the 12-month period from 6th April 2022 to 5th April 2023.
Our mean gender pay gap is 25.9%, compared to 17.3% in 2022.
Our median gender pay gap is 34.8%, compared to 6.5% in 2022.
Our workforce is divided into 4 equal sized groups based on their hourly rate to show the % of men and women in each band, with A including the lowest paid 25% of employees (the lower quartile) and D covering the highest paid 25% of employees (the upper quartile).
In order for there to be little or no gender pay gap, there would need to be the same ratio of men to women in each quartile band. For example, an organisation with a high ratio of men to women in Band D is likely to have a gender pay gap, as is an organisation with a high ratio of women to men in Band A.
Within Audley, in April 2023, although it is reassuring to see we have an equal ratio of women and men in the upper pay quartile (D), we have a predominance of women in all other pay quartiles, as shown in the following chart:
Our mean bonus pay gap is 33%, compared to 22.5% in 2022.
Our median bonus pay gap is 46.4%, compared to 11.6% in 2022.
In 2022/2023, 58% of women received a bonus compared to 73% of men.
What do we think were the main factors contributing to our overall results?
Our predominant focus for 2022/23 was to scale up our sales and support functions to serve the pent-up demand from our clients who wanted to experience worldwide travel again after the pandemic. This resulted in a huge recruitment drive to increase our Country Specialists (Travel Sales Specialists) and Global Travel Team (GTT), together with our Sales Operations Team to provide excellent client service.
Whilst we are acutely aware our gap has increased since last year, from our analysis, we understand the following factors have contributed to a larger gap:
- We have a higher population of women at Audley (as at April 2023, 69% female/31% male).
- Our headcount has increased by 39% year on year (between 5 April 2022 and 5 April 2023) which was made up of 74% female and 26% male new hires.
- Of the new hires, over 70% were for support roles in our lower quartile, which were filled by 76% females/24% males.
- As a result, there are more women (85%) in the lower pay quartile (A) compared to men (15%).
- A higher proportion of men (73%) have received a bonus compared to women (58%).
Our progress so far
With recruitment, engagement and the opportunity to progress in the workplace remaining our key focus areas, we continue to put the right plans, initiatives, and actions in place.
Steps we have taken so far to help address our gender pay gap include the following:
Hiring & Recruitment
Having already established a clear and transparent way of advertising job roles with a reward grading system, salary benchmarking process and salary band visibility for hiring managers to use for each role, there is also one more addition that we have introduced to the job descriptions recently, relating to the ‘decoding’. For example, words that are usually attributed to male orientated traits and characteristics are omitted so that job advertisements are free from gender bias.
We also continue to partner and advertise our roles with Bridge of Hope, an organisation which is truly the home of inclusive recruitment.
We have started to see the results of implementing a recruitment training e-learning course for hiring managers. The course covers a range of content including best practice and inclusive recruitment, to overcome unconscious bias in recruiting, evaluation and promotion decisions and can say that all decisions that are made are done so with fairness. Our hiring ‘kick off’ meetings, which are held with every hiring manager before a vacancy is advertised, provide a high level of governance to ensure clarity and consistency in decision making throughout the process, removing any risk of bias.
Workplace Environment
We continue to focus our efforts on creating an inclusive and supportive culture where employees are listened to, valued and involved in the achieving success. We work as one team, genuinely listening to each other, really hearing to what is being said and then mutually supporting each other and collectively finding the right solutions so we can achieve more together in the best way.
Looking specifically at workplace policies, we gained Real Living Wage accreditation which shows our responsibility and commitment to going further than the government national minimum wage. We also committed to supporting individuals in the workplace with new policies relating to menopause and carer’s leave ahead of government legislation as well as enhancing our existing paternity policy in August 2023 with 4 weeks’ pay (maternity 12 weeks full pay), and paid time off for both Armed Forces Reserves and Fertility Treatment leave.
Our forums and networks go from strength to strength with the Women’s Network taking a lead role every year in informing and educating the rest of the business during International Women’s week.
There’s a new focus on Building Careers initiatives to attract and increase diversity of new talent, whether those from disadvantaged backgrounds, early careers students or industry professionals looking to progress their careers at Audley.
We’ve developed local education partnerships, with schools, colleges, and charities by attending careers fairs and aligning ourselves with ‘Insight’ Initiative which has included London Schools in underrepresented areas. We’ve gone about inspiring individuals to work in travel and progress their careers with Work Experience and Work Placements and YTD we’ve offered 41 work experience, 2 work placements and our first internship has been inducted into the US business. All these opportunities are promoted on our newly rebranded Careers Website which includes suggested career pathways. To date we’ve identified 6 Career Pathways with digitised personal development plans incorporated into the process. Our next phase will be to empower all our employees to design their own career pathways.
Finally, 2023 saw the first graduation of our 14 months Rising Stars programme for aspiring managers and future leaders. To date, this investment has seen 77% of females already graduate or currently working through the programme.
Our ongoing commitment and next steps
Changing the gender balance across our workforce is a long-term process and will remain a key focus in our strategic plan. With our continuing commitment to fairness, equity and inclusion, we are confident we can make meaningful change for the better.
We continue to operate in a business environment which attracts and retains individuals who want to work in an organisation that offers a hybrid way of working with ‘everyday flexibility’ and a choice as to when, where and how they work. For us, this means that for the foreseeable future, by continuing to offer this choice and flexibility to our employees, we will aim to have a greater balance of males and females across all quartiles of the pay bands.
Our focus remains unchanged which is to further develop our recruitment practices and career opportunities including a set of new career pathways. With over 45 females participating in our Rising Stars programme, and clear succession planning defined throughout the business, we believe this will help towards creating more of a balance of men and women across our pay quartiles in the future.
Our 2022 report is available here (published in April 2023).
Our 2021 report is available here (published in April 2022).