After pointing out that the gender pay gap reports have resulted in useless tables, RollOnFriday is launching a Gender Ratio Open Information Nexus campaign, or GROIN campaign. The goal is a simple: for one meaningful table to emerge out of the chocolate teapot of data. RollOnFriday has made the executive decision that the associate gender pay gap figure is the most relevant statistic in determining whether or not firms offer equal pay, and will call on firms to provide this figure.
The gender pay gap reports are mostly flawed in their current form, particularly as the headline figures are skewed by a larger proportion of women occupying lower-paid secretarial roles.
There has been a debate as to whether firms should include partnership data, and in what format. Under the rules for gender pay gap reporting, law firms were not required to include partners in their reports as they were categorised as business owners rather than employees. A handful of pioneering firms tried to be helpful and included partner stats. But a lack of consensus meant that there was no agreed method of presenting partnership data. For example, Clifford Chance and RPC calculated all partners and employees together to reveal one total pay gap figure for the whole firm. Whilst this seemed like a transparent and sensible approach, it resulted in an overall figure that was skewed by a larger number of lower paid female secretarial staff and a high proportion of male partners. Also as CC and RPC were the only two firms to provide the data, there was no comparison to be made to other firms.
The key point in gender pay should be whether or not firms offer equal pay for equal roles. Trainees are paid the same, so there's nothing to be learnt by looking at their data. Most firms still have a larger number of senior male partners, and while that is a separate issue to addressed, it muddies the data when analysing whether there is equal pay for equal roles in a partnership. The associate pay gap on its own seems to be the best indication of how firms are doing as there is generally a more equal split between genders in equivalent positions. However, only a tiny number of firms have provided associate information in their reports, as represented in the following anemic table. Calculations by the firms were made on a mean (rather than median) basis:
As listed in the table, female associates at Slaughter and May were paid marginally more in salary and bonus than their male colleagues. At Hogan Lovells and Norton Rose Fulbright there was no salary gap. However, at Hogan Lovells there was a 16% bonus gap in men's favour, while at NRF there was a 5% bonus gap.
RollOnFriday will be pushing its GROIN campaign as much as possible and urging firms to provide their associate pay gap figures, so one meaningful table can sprout out of this gender pay chaos.
* Some firms split associates into different levels (junior, mid-level, senior etc). RollOnFriday has therefore calculated the average figure for all associates combined.
Tip Off ROF
The gender pay gap reports are mostly flawed in their current form, particularly as the headline figures are skewed by a larger proportion of women occupying lower-paid secretarial roles.
There has been a debate as to whether firms should include partnership data, and in what format. Under the rules for gender pay gap reporting, law firms were not required to include partners in their reports as they were categorised as business owners rather than employees. A handful of pioneering firms tried to be helpful and included partner stats. But a lack of consensus meant that there was no agreed method of presenting partnership data. For example, Clifford Chance and RPC calculated all partners and employees together to reveal one total pay gap figure for the whole firm. Whilst this seemed like a transparent and sensible approach, it resulted in an overall figure that was skewed by a larger number of lower paid female secretarial staff and a high proportion of male partners. Also as CC and RPC were the only two firms to provide the data, there was no comparison to be made to other firms.
The key point in gender pay should be whether or not firms offer equal pay for equal roles. Trainees are paid the same, so there's nothing to be learnt by looking at their data. Most firms still have a larger number of senior male partners, and while that is a separate issue to addressed, it muddies the data when analysing whether there is equal pay for equal roles in a partnership. The associate pay gap on its own seems to be the best indication of how firms are doing as there is generally a more equal split between genders in equivalent positions. However, only a tiny number of firms have provided associate information in their reports, as represented in the following anemic table. Calculations by the firms were made on a mean (rather than median) basis:
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As listed in the table, female associates at Slaughter and May were paid marginally more in salary and bonus than their male colleagues. At Hogan Lovells and Norton Rose Fulbright there was no salary gap. However, at Hogan Lovells there was a 16% bonus gap in men's favour, while at NRF there was a 5% bonus gap.
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"But what will become of me if they simplify all this data into just one table" |
RollOnFriday will be pushing its GROIN campaign as much as possible and urging firms to provide their associate pay gap figures, so one meaningful table can sprout out of this gender pay chaos.
* Some firms split associates into different levels (junior, mid-level, senior etc). RollOnFriday has therefore calculated the average figure for all associates combined.