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The difference in payment for men and women in the United Kingdom has been gradually reduced since companies began registering it in 2017. But the way in which statistics are compiled also tells a story about gender business balance.
This year, the Gender Gap in WHO reports the data of the gender wage gap closed for the first time. After years that most men are responsible for data, women now have the same probability of signing in official presentations on the subject.
The movement towards a uniform gender balance is promoted by more human resources workers, who are more likely to be women, taking charge of the data that was previously signed by a higher staff, according to an FT analysis.
But this does not reflect a decrease in the importance of salary equality in business, according to workforce analysts. They say that change reflects the increasingly important role that human resources professionals are assuming in strategic business areas, such as salary planning and workforce.
In 2017, the first year of compulsory gender wage gap reports, the typical person who appears as responsible for approveing the figures of the wage gap was a senior leader, such as CEO, a member of the Board or other director.
But by 2024, human resources staff were the most common employees who supervised the function. More than two fifths of employers commissioned the human resources staff given by the approval seal to pay gap figures, compared to a third in 2017.
The FT analysis found that 70 percent of this human resources group had a female name, compared to 20 percent of CEOs. To a large extent, as a result, women now represent almost exactly half of all “responsible people” in salary gap presentations.
Marks and Spencer, Nando’s and Astrazeneca are among the great organizations that have changed their person responsible for the CEO to a figure of human resources. M&S says that he is “focused on offering a great place to work” and half of his meeting and upper leadership are women. Nando and Astrazeneca declined to comment.
“The calculations of the wage gap require a deep understanding of the regulations and data of high quality people,” says Andrew Curcio, partner of the PWC rewards and benefits team. “This work naturally adjusts to the teams closest to these: the functions of people and rewards of an organization.”
It is also a sign that the wage gap reports have been established. Initially, employers may have included the names of high -level leaders to demonstrate that it was taking seriously, says Tom Heys, paying report leader in the Lewis Silkin law firm. “But as time passed, they just stop leaving who is the real person who can provide answers to any questions that people can have.”
The change follows a broader trend so that the function of human resources traditionally dominated by women plays a more fundamental role in companies, working closely with risk, analysis and technology, Daniel Imbeault, senior director of Mercer consulting. Organizations are increasingly “HR in the C-Suite, not in a layer below,” he adds. “It’s a good time to be at HR.”
This has meant an impulse for women in some companies. In 2023, almost two thirds of human resources workers in the United Kingdom and Ireland were women, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
The companies where HR supervised the data of the payment gap reported slightly smaller disparities: women in the employers of this group won 92p for each man of £ 1 manufactured, 2p more than where the CEO or the Board had the last word. However, the gap was reduced by a similar amount in both groups.
The FT analyzed the names and work titles presented for the person responsible in more than 68,000 presentations at the Government’s Salary Gap Service between 2017 and 2024. Human resources roles included keywords related to people, reward, talent and DEI.
The genre was classified according to the names of the former.