On-demand
The sessions included in this training course were recorded at a live event in June 2022 following the announcement that the Gender Pay Gap Information Act 2021 (the “Gender Pay Act”) was to commence on 31st May 2022. All provisions of the Gender Pay Act became effective as of that date.
The Gender Pay Act amends the Employment Equality Acts 1998 – 2015 and is to be cited as the Employment Equality Acts 1998 – 2021 (the “Employment Equality Acts”).
The Employment Equality Act 1998 (Section 20A) (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations, 2022 (the “Regulations”) which also came into effect on 31 May 2022 provide employers with direction as to the practical implementation of the legislation.
In 2024, the Irish landscape for gender pay gap (GPG) reporting is evolving. With the threshold for required reporting dropping to organisations with 150 employees, and further to 50 by 2025, it's crucial for your business to stay ahead and stay compliant.
Reporting on your GPG is a mandatory requirement. Taking action to reduce your GPG is also required. Not only is Equality, Diversity and Inclusion seen as essential to most millennials, studies also show that a diverse workforce can boost both innovation and engagement. But, more than that, a balance in pay between male and female employees in your organisation sends a clear message to your employees, potential employees and your competitors – you believe in equality and will strive to be inclusive.
We face a massive skills gap in Ireland and competition for quality candidates is at an all-time high. What message do you think it sends to potential (and existing) employees if the average pay of women is much lower than that of male employees? What message do you think it sends if your GPG is much higher than that of your competitors?
Our speakers cover a range of Gender Pay Gap issues and we have practical lessons from the UK and elsewhere that will help you establish your GPG. We even have a case study from a major Irish employer who has achieved 0% GPG for you to learn from. This event will allow you to get ahead of your competitors by taking any required remedial action now, so that your published GPG report will be more favourable than before.
This on-demand training includes 6 recorded sessions plus detailed notes and recommendations, handy checklists, supplementary guides, Q&As and practical exercises.
Understanding and Correcting Your Organisation’s Gender Pay Gap
If you discover you have an unacceptable gender pay gap you will need to correct it. To do that, you will need to analyse and understand the reasons for your GPG – they will differ from organisation to organisation and (probably) department to department. Fortunately, the UK Government has published lots of practical suggestions that will help organisations in that jurisdiction and most of them will be useful to Irish employers who find a negative pay gap.
We provide attendees with a number of likely scenarios on the regular causes of a GPG and offer practical solutions for Ireland-based employers to correct any imbalance and create an action plan for improvement. For example, supposing your analysis finds:
HR professionals and advisors; senior managers/directors responsible for managing risk; anyone interested in or responsible for an equality agenda; employment equality law practitioners; in-house legal counsel.
The gender pay gap is generally acknowledged as the difference between men’s and women’s pay, based on the average difference in gross hourly earnings of all employees. Sounds simple.
And, if you can work out the gap, you can put in place actions to address and reduce the gap. As Minister of State David Staunton indicated as far back as 10th January 2018, “The Government will be bringing forward a range of actions to tackle this issue, starting with legislation on wage transparency”. Some three and a half years later, the Gender Pay Gap Information Act 2021 was signed into law by the President and we expect to see specific Regulations very shortly.
The average gender pay gap for Ireland is 14.4%, which is 2% more than in 2012. Lockdown hasn’t done equality many favours in Ireland. In fact, it can be reasonably argued that women in Ireland effectively work for free from early November each year, compared to their male counterparts.
In order to introduce measures that might help reduce the gender pay gap, it is important to understand why it exists. In this session Maura Connolly, Partner, Eugene F. Collins, explains what the gender pay gap is, why it exists and the benefits to be had from reporting a low GPG.
Maura will then explain how the Act will eventually require employers with 50 employees or more to publish information relating to the pay of employees for the purpose of showing whether there are differences in the pay of male and female employees and, if so, the nature and scale of such differences
Maura examines the impending Regulations attached to the Act, and identifies key provisions, the differences between Irish and UK requirements and what it means for employers in this jurisdiction.
A number of these issues will be fleshed out in more detail in other sessions after Maura has put the Act and Regulations into context.
Although it can be difficult to directly compare international gender pay gaps due to differences in sources, definitions and methods used to calculate the gender pay gap in different countries, however, certain countries, such as Iceland, have made great progress. And the calculations used for establishing a gender pay gap under the Irish legislation were largely based on the UK’s Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017.
You are likely to have a gender pay gap. Very few employers actually have a zero difference between male and female pay. A small gap compared to competitors could be used to your advantage. A large gap brings with it the need to manage reputational risk and focus on internal and external considerations in communicating the gender pay gap. Billy Murphy, Chair of Drury, Ireland’s leading PR and communications organisation, discusses:
In December 2021, An Post announced it became one of the first big employers in Ireland to eliminate its gender pay gap. In two years, An Post managed to reduce the gap from 3.7% to effectively 0%. And, for the first time ever, women now earn slightly more than men at An Post. So, how did they do it? Danielle Bouchier, Diversity & Inclusion Manager at An Post, explains what they did to achieve such an outstanding result and the benefits they expect to flow from their announcement.
Part 1: Specific Information You Will Need to Find to Calculate Your Gender Pay Gap. In this session, Doone O’Doherty, Partner, People and Organisation at PwC Ireland, an organisation that has extensive experience in gender pay gap reporting (and other diversity and inclusion initiatives), sets out in more detail the payroll and other factors you will need to know to be (relatively) certain that each of the GPG figures you publish will be accurate. Remember: any attempt to circumvent reporting requirements will be unlawful and any issues raised by staff will likely be protected disclosures.
Part 2: Case Study – What Might Your Gender Pay Gap Look Like and How Should It be Calculated?
We’ve looked at what must be reported and what payments and employees must be included in your calculations. We now ask you to work out the gender pay gap in our sample organisation using templates to meet the requirements of legislation and how you will set out your report. This session is also led by Doone O’Doherty.
Watch back the experts' discussions on specific challenges and any remedial actions you might take, depending on what your report highlights.
To finish, Maura Connolly takes delegates through the key recommendations and action points from the seminar and highlights key documents and sources of further information and assistance to enable you to implement your own response to gender pay gap reporting in a positive way.
Here's what our previous attendees had to say.
Maura is head of the Dispute Resolution Department in Addleshaw Goddard's Dublin office, she also leads the Employment & Employee Benefits Law Group. Maura advises employers and employees on all aspects of employment law including contentious and non-contentious matters. Maura is experienced in civil litigation and has represented clients in employment law tribunals, before industrial relations bodies and in the Courts. Recent experience has included advising an employer on a high profile executive termination, which included wide ranging disputes relating to the executive’s directorship, shareholder and financial interests in the group; advising a registered charity on an investigation arising from a protected disclosure; providing strategic advice to an advertising company on the loss of a major contract and the transfer of its workforce under transfer of undertakings regulations.
She has been involved in many commercial transactions and has considerable experience of employment law issues arising in the context of mergers and acquisitions. Maura has advised on regulatory breaches, corporate fraud and white-collar crime and completed an Advanced Diploma in 2015 in the Honorable Society of King’s Inns in this area.
Having studied law in Trinity College Dublin, Maura qualified as a solicitor in 1993 with McCann FitzGerald and worked in the firm’s London and Dublin offices. She joined Eugene F. Collins in 2003 and became a partner and head of the Employment & Employee Benefits Group in 2006.
Doone is a tax partner in PwC’s People and Organisation practice. She works with local and international business on employment tax and global mobility. Doone also leads PwC’s Real Time Reporting (‘PAYE Modernisation’) service and sits on their Brexit taskforce team. Doone is passionate about building dynamic teams and delivering a great client experience.
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