Gender pay position in 2020

Wesleyan is a mutual society that places the interests of customers, communities and employees at the heart of everything it does.

This is the fourth year where we have reported our gender pay gap. This gap measures the difference between the earnings of men and women across an organisation.

At Wesleyan we do have a gender pay gap that we have been working hard to close. One of the main reasons for the gap is because there is currently a higher proportion of men employed in senior positions compared with women.

However, we have been putting a number of initiatives in place to address this imbalance and we have increased our representation at senior leadership to 32.3% by the end of 2020, which is an increase of 17.4% since 2018.  This has meant that we have met our first milestone of achieving 40% female representation in our senior leadership population by 2025 a year earlier than originally planned.

The gender pay gap has remained similar to the figures reported for 2019 but we are confident that we are continuing to assess what we have been doing and looking at what else we can do to close the gap.

Wesleyan gender pay gap results

As of April 2020, Wesleyan's average mean gender pay gap was 30.13% (2019: 30.17%) and the median gender pay gap was 35% (2019: 33.74%)

This is a Group position that includes all our subsidiary companies.

Wesleyan bonus pay gap results

As of April 2020, the mean bonus gap was 47.58% (2019: 51.34%) and the median was 45.54% (2019: 45.10%).

The bonus pay gap is larger than the gender pay gap, because we have a significantly higher percentage of women employed on a part-time basis compared with men.

Some bonus payments at Wesleyan are calculated as a percentage of total annual salary. Therefore, even though the basis for awarding a bonus is identical, because we have more women working part-time than men the bonus pay gap is larger.

How we are reducing the gender pay gap

During 2020 a number of gender initiatives took place which we expect to have a positive impact on the gender pay gap. 

We have created a Gender Delivery plan to accelerate progress and one of the key highlights has been the strengthening of our inclusive recruitment practices, along with quarterly reporting of gender diversity data to our Group Executive.

We have launched an Inspiring Female Leaders programme which has been delivered through three virtual events with six motivational speakers.  Participants reported learning or gaining the following from the events: inspiration, tools and ideas to improve resilience and mind-set change, confidence and self-belief.

In addition, we have supported the refreshed 30% Club application process, to improve access to this high-profile mentoring scheme for talented women from a range of backgrounds.   In February 2020, we hosted a weekend leadership event for 55 schoolgirls from underprivileged BAME backgrounds.

Our plans for 2021

We recognise that whilst we have introduced a number of new initiatives at Wesleyan there continues to be more to be done to continue to close the gap.  This work will continue in 2021 and our plans include:

• We are introducing inclusive recruitment practices to increase gender representation, including people from Black, Asian, Minority and Ethnic and underrepresented groups
• Flexible and Agile working - we are introducing a new Flexible and Agile Work Policy that supports our people better, along with support and guidance for managers to ensure this is applied inclusively
• Performance Ratings - We are introducing a 'diversity lens' over the criteria that impacts bonus payments so that it is a fair and inclusive process that does not exclude any underrepresented groups
• Our 4 diversity networks - Gen, BeMe, OMG! and NEW are focusing on making our People Policies more inclusive and reflective of the needs of our people.

Progress so far

During the past few year we have introduced a number of new initiatives which are improving our female representation at senior roles and enable more women to progress their career with Wesleyan, as we are determined to further close our gender pay gap.

Wesleyan is a great place to work, with opportunities and careers for talented people. Our efforts in reducing the gender pay gap are a crucial part of this, and we are committed to making this happen.

Lisa Perkins, Head of HR