Is this for the purposes of gender pay gap reporting? Buying and selling holiday is an opt-in arrangement. Why does it need to be accounted for in pay gap reporting?

In reply to Robey:

Hi Robey,

Yes, it is for the gender pay gap reporting.

Gross pay takes into consideration salary sacrifice (so after SS) even if this is opted in to. For example, childcare voucher schemes are also optional but arguably affect female colleagues more so is used from my understanding. Pension SS is also factored in even though you can opt-out.

I've seen arguments for and against these and to be honest with you, I question a lot of it myself. I agree if you choose to buy and sell leave, it is your choice however can the reason for buying and selling have any link to gender/sex and differing needs?

There is a lot of ambiguity and I wish the whole process was simplified a bit more so benchmarking against other organisations was a bit more like-for-like.

Apologies if I've related to anything you already know.

Thanks again
H

In reply to Hakan:

Ok, no further additions thus far to this thread but I'll add a couple of things if it helps others or stirs a discussion...

Found this from a London law firm which I think articulates it better than I have:

www.farrer.co.uk/.../gender-pay-gap-reporting-2017.pdf

The Regulations also require that the value of any salary sacrifice is deducted from gross pay for
the purposes of the pay calculations. This means that, for those employees who have chosen
certain flexible benefits in place of part of their salary, the levels of salary which have been
reported are in fact lower than is the case. Further, our analysis has revealed that more female
than male employees take up salary sacrifice arrangements. In particular, 65% of those
purchasing childcare vouchers (which are very tax efficient) are women and of those employees
choosing to purchase additional holiday, 83% are women, while more men than women have
chosen to sell holiday. Both have the effect of reducing women's pay for these purposes.


Having read this, I had a look at our latest data for buy and sell and it doesn't contradict the above.

Our F/M ratio is 55% / 45%

Our F/M holiday buy ratio is 63% / 37%
and our F/M holiday sell ratio is 35% / 65%

I think this justifies it's inclusion (for my employer at least)

Thanks