Our commitment to gender equality
Our Commitment to Gender Equality at Hays
Introduction From Matthew Dickason
At Hays, we believe a diverse workforce and inclusive working environment is not only the right thing to do, but also a commercial imperative that will enable higher performance, allow us to deliver more effective and innovative services to our clients, and position us to attract and retain the very best talent. We also believe that all employees, regardless of gender, race, disability status, sexual orientation or any other characteristic should have equitable opportunities to advance their careers and be rewarded and remunerated fairly and equally.
We know the gender pay gap is an important metric through which we can understand gender equality within our own organisation, and in addition to ensuring legal compliance and minimising risks, pay equality leads to benefits such as:
- access to a greater talent pool
- increased talent retention and reduced costs associated with hiring and training new employees
- higher organisational performance, morale and engagement
- brand reputation as an employer of choice
Over the past few years, we have taken a multifaceted approach to progress gender equality at Hays.
This has included the setting and achievement of gender targets for senior leadership roles, strengthening our approach to ensuring fairness in our talent management processes to maintain gender balance in leadership positions, enhancing our paid parental leave benefits and launching our Employee Resource Groups, employee-led networks that play a key role in building a culture of inclusion at Hays.
While we’re proud of the progress we've made so far, we acknowledge that there is still more to be done to achieve a gender equality at Hays, something that we are deeply committed to achieving. We look forward to sharing our progress with you.
Matthew Dickason
CEO Hays APAC
Executive Sponsor of WE Lead ERG
(Women’s Empowerment and Leadership Employee Resource Group)
What is the Gender Pay Gap?
The gender pay gap and equal pay are terms that are often used interchangeably however they are not the same. The gender pay gap refers to the difference in average earnings between women and men in the workforce, where equal pay relates to women and men being paid the same for the same, or comparable, job.
There are several causes or factors that influence the gender pay gap. These include:
- men and women working in different jobs or industries where female-dominated industries and roles typically receive lower pay
- a disproportionate number of women assuming caring and domestic responsibilities
- lack of workplace flexibility to accommodate caring responsibilities, especially in senior leadership positions
- more women accessing longer periods of parental leave which can impact career progression
- higher rates of women working part time
- discrimination and bias within hiring, promotion and pay decisions.
Gender pay gaps can be like for like, which is men and women being remunerated differently for the same job, by level which is men and women being remunerated differently at different levels within an organisation or at an organisational level which is the average remuneration of men and women across the organisation regardless of role type or level.
Actions Toward Gender Equality
In 2021, we committed to Gender Targets to achieve 45% women in senior leadership positions by 2025 and 50% by 2030 and we are pleased to share that in 2024 we achieved our 2030 targets and 51.1% of women and 48.9% of men occupy senior leadership positions across Hays ANZ.
"N levels" refer to the number of tiers or layers within an organisational structure. Each level represents distinct positions, with higher levels typically having more authority and responsibility.
Some of the actions we have taken that have supported this achievement include ongoing adherence to our Senior Appointments Policy, a process which provides enhanced transparency in the recruitment and selection of appointments in senior positions and has had a significant impact on achieving balanced short lists for key management roles.
Additionally, to ensure equal opportunities for career advancement at Hays we have reviewed and strengthened our performance review and promotion processes within our specialist business to provide transparent and clear criteria for promotion with further guidelines for leaders to mitigate bias.
We are also continuously refining our succession planning approach to maintain a strong talent pipeline and have recently developed new guidelines to foster a diverse and high performing workforce. These guidelines will ensure that we use data-informed approach to evaluate successors for key roles and management positions and consider metrics such as fees, employee engagement, and turnover rates. This will minimise bias in our succession planning processes and support us to achieve a gender balanced pipeline of talent.
In 2024 we launched two new Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): WE Lead (Women’s Empowerment and Leadership) and our Parent’s ERG. Employee Resource Groups are employee led groups that focus on a particular area of our DE&I agenda and help us drive greater inclusion, awareness and allyship. Our ERGs are key for us to attract, retain and develop diverse talent, build support networks for our colleagues, increase our knowledge about our colleagues' and friends' lived experiences, and make Hays a great place to work.
Our WE Lead ERG focuses on building a community and network of women and allies, aims to support the professional development of women, and promotes gender equality through education and development activities. Last year, our WE Lead Employee Resource Group hosted an impactful webinar series over the year that included networking with confidence, managing negative self-talk to achieve career ambitions and menopause awareness training for employees and leaders. These webinars were highly regarded by all attendees.
Our Parent’s ERG is open to employees on all stages of their parenting journey, and is inclusive of all genders, single parents, LGBTQIA+ parents, adoptive parents and parents-to-be. Last year, our Parents ERG hosted in person and virtual Coffee & Connect sessions that aim to build support networks for our colleagues and champion a family-friendly culture across Hays.
Finally, aligned with our commitment made in 2023, we have completed a pay gap analysis following last year’s WGEA reporting.
Our Gender Pay Gap Data
The data required to report to WGEA includes both our permanent (1,098 employees) and temporary workforce that work at client sites (11,102) for the 2023/2024 reporting period. Due to this, it was important to us to conduct a more detailed analysis of our remuneration data and separate our permanent employee data from the temporary workforce data. This has enabled a greater understanding of our pay gap drivers, our target areas and deeper insights into how remuneration-related decisions are made. Our analysis included:
- Overall organisational pay gap calculations, exclusive of temporary workforce data
- Pay gap calculations of each of the WGEA manager and standardised occupational categories, exclusive of temporary workforce data
- A like-for-like pay gap analysis within our sales (specialist) business
We also completed a high-level gender pay gap calculation exclusive of our temporary workforce for the 2022/2023 reporting period to enable us to benchmark our data.
At Hays, our average base salary pay gap is 12.48% and our average total remuneration gender pay gap is 17.70%. The median base salary is 6%, down 4% from the 2022/2023 reporting period and the total median remuneration is 12%.
The Average (mean) Pay Gap can be influenced by very high or very low salaries, giving a sense of overall earnings disparity. The Median Pay Gap provides a clearer picture of the typical earnings difference, as it is less affected by extreme values.
Our organisational pay gap can largely be attributed to our workforce composition. We have a disproportionately high concentration of women in clerical and entry level roles which are lower-paid positions comparative to men in our organisation who typically occupy higher-paying positions. This disproportionate concentration of men in the upper quartiles and/or of women in the lower quartiles can drive a positive gender pay gap.
We also acknowledge and understand that while we have achieved gender balance in our senior leadership team, there is still a greater number of men in senior leadership positions in our sales business that has greater earning potential, and this is something that we will continue to address.
Hays utilises structured role-dependant remuneration models to mitigate unequal pay in our organisation and a like-for-like pay gap analysis of our specialist and enterprise business confirms broad adherence to these guidelines. The gender pay gap on base salaries is low, ranging from -2% to 2.1%. Where anomalies were identified during our gender pay gap analysis, these were explored to understand the underlying drivers, and if required, remediate any instances of unequal pay. These exceptions were almost exclusively due to levelling within pay bands, based on performance, and the date chosen for data analysis. There was more variance with total remuneration, which was due to individual performance as individuals who achieve higher sales earn more commission.
Future Actions
While we are proud of our progress and actions to date, achieving gender pay equality will require further time and deliberate action and as such we intend to establish targets and strategies that reflect our strong commitment to reducing our gender pay gap.
As identified from our data analysis, a significant factor contributing to our organisational pay gap is occupational segregation and workforce leadership composition. To address this, we must continue our efforts to achieve gender-balanced representation in leadership positions by adhering to our Senior Appointments Process and Gender Target tracking. Additionally, we will focus on inclusive recruitment practices across all role types, especially in areas with disproportionate representation, such as entry-level, administrative, and support roles.
While it was pleasing to see broad adherence to our remuneration frameworks, we have identified an opportunity to apply similar rigour to any bonus and discretionary pay to avoid possible unconscious bias from occurring. As such, we will establish clear processes and guidelines for managers to determine discretionary pay.
And finally, we commit to an annual pay gap data analysis aligned with our WGEA reporting period. This will provide us an opportunity to measure and communicate our progress transparently with our colleagues, and position us to proactively address any pay disparities and identify any additional actions we need to take to create a fair and equitable workplace for all employees.
For more information, please contact
Bernadette Hanly
Senior Manager Diversity Equity and Inclusion, ANZ
