Top 10 stories from this week: Employers must walk the talk

International Women’s Day (IWD) saw a flurry of social media posts celebrating women in the workplace, however some employers were quickly called out by the Gender Pay Gap Bot for the hypocrisy of some posts. By simply retweeting organisations’ IWD posts and adding their gender pay gap, it was clear for all to see just how far some businesses have to go in narrowing the gap. 

While some organisations responded by explaining why they have a gender pay gap and what they’re doing to close it, others chose to remove their IWD posts.  

On the same day, the government announced a pilot project which will require employers to list salary information on their job adverts. It is hoped this will help to increase pay transparency and close salary gaps, particularly for women. 

The direction of travel is clear, employers need to walk the talk when it comes to pay equality. Quite rightly, simply paying lip service to diversity, equity and inclusion will no longer cut it.   

For more reward and employee benefits news you might have missed this week, read our top 10 snippets below. 

International Women’s Day: Is the gender pay gap bot the price of transparency? 

Personnel Today: Social media executives collectively held their head in their hands yesterday as their carefully constructed International Women’s Day posts were “hijacked” by a Twitter bot calling out their gender pay gap. Read more 

Government launches initiatives to ‘level up’ opportunities for working women 

People Management: The government has announced a pilot project to increase pay transparency and close salary gaps for female job applicants as part of its ‘Levelling Up’ strategy. 

The scheme, launched by the minister for women, Baroness Stedman-Scott, on International Women’s Day (8 March), will require a number of employers to list salary information on their job adverts. Read more 

Biggest firms fail to provide evidence on skills, D&I and wellbeing 

Personnel Today: FTSE 100 firms do not provide enough information to evidence what they are doing around skills investment, diversity and inclusion or employee wellbeing, analysis has found. 

The CIPD, the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) and investment firm Railpen said employers needed to be more transparent about how they recruit, invest in, and manage their workforce in their annual reports if they wanted employees and potential investors to understand how they are building productive and sustainable organisations. Read more 

Pension schemes still playing 'catch-up' on ESG despite increased awareness 

Pensions Age: Just 10 per cent of pension schemes have a standalone policy on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, research from Mercer has revealed, prompting concerns that pension schemes are playing 'catch-up' on improving ESG outcomes. Read more 

Imminent changes to Statutory Sick Pay: what HR needs to know 

HR Magazine: Imminent changes to Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) will take employers by surprise, and force them to have to decide whether Covid-19 is now just an illness like any other, according to experts. 

But they also warn it will create a situation of employers having to choose between letting people with Covid-19 come to workplaces or whether they pay them for being off – even when they are not, officially speaking, ‘sick’. Read more 

Two-thirds of firms expect to scale back remote working after pandemic, poll finds 

People Management: The majority of business leaders expect remote working, mental health initiatives and other Covid policies to be reduced as the pandemic comes to an end, a poll has found. Read more 

No future for location pay, but employers reluctant to drop it 

HR Magazine: In such a competitive talent market, employers have been reluctant to remove location allowances, for example London weighting, from their reward packages. With more and more employees working remotely, however, experts have said the policy will soon outlive its usefulness. Read more 

Younger workers support AE reform to boost pension savings: PMI 

Corporate Adviser: Eight out of 10 younger workers want to see pension saving starting from an earlier age. 

A total of 82 per cent of workers aged between 18 and 22 think that retirement savings should start before the current default age of 22, according to new research from the Pensions Management Institute (PMI). Read more  

Gender pensions gap increases for older staff 

Employee Benefits: New research has found the gender pension gap between men and women’s contributions is 35% for employees aged between 50 and 54, almost double the gap for 35 to 39 year-olds (18%). Read more 

HR now feeling 'greater responsibility' for staff mental health 

HR Grapevine: New research from GRiD, the industry body for the group risk protection sector, shows that, as a result of COVID, 59% of employers feel a greater responsibility for the mental wellbeing of their staff. Read more