By Mary Connaughton, Director, CIPD Ireland

We know most organisations operate an equality and diversity policy. This helps drive legal compliance as well as promoting a safe and inclusive working environment, enhancing organisational performance. And often we hear questions asked about how we measure diversity, assess progress and what sort of targets we should set.

I think the UK debate on the gender pay gap highlights the reluctance we face, within ourselves and within our organisations to really quantify an issue and take steps to address it, in this case a gender-based issue. It is accepted that, in the main, organisations of all sizes and sectors have a gender pay gap, and this may be close to, or divert from, the national figure of 14%, according to EU figures. But progressing the equality and inclusion agenda means putting attention on compiling the statistics on what is an organisation’s gender pay gap, and articulating what appear to be the internal contributing factors.

At present there is no legal requirement in Ireland to report on the gender pay gap, though there is sufficient energy and attention on it to change that. The advantage of the UK reporting requirement for us is that it provides very clear formulae and definitions to allow us adopt a consistent approach so that each organisation can measure and generate an internal report on its gender pay gap.

CIPD Ireland’s 2018 research found that on 20% of organisations are calculating this. What is stopping you? This issue is both an opportunity and a requirement for HR to provide leadership in creating internal debate on the gender pay gap, and assessing the action plans and communications that should go with it.

Is there confusion with equal pay? Definitely. Misinformation around equal pay is adding to confusion and trepidation on measuring the gender pay gap. So clarification is a first step. Equal pay, where individual men and women are not paid the same going rate for the same work and job, is illegal and should not exist in your organisation. A gender pay gap is more likely to be caused by having more men than women in senior positions and more women than men in junior positions, leading to a pay average for men that is higher than the average pay for women.

So let’s pull the facts together, influence the pay narrative in the organisation, set some improvement targets, and cause change to happen. Remember 2018 is a very significant year for Irish women, marking a centenary since women achieved voting rights. Let’s use this to provide momentum.