Be honest about the gender pay gap

Last week, the Equality and Human Rights Commission published proposals to encourage businesses to analyse and report voluntarily on gender pay gaps, in an effort to help close the almost 20 per cent shortfall in female pay across the economy. Yet it seems to me that the HR community speaks with forked tongue on the issues of reward communications and gender pay.On the one hand, HR and reward directors who took part in IES’s research on reward effectiveness said communication was vital. Two factors are driving this realisation. The first is value. In too many organisations, most staff simply do not understand and appreciate the total value of their reward package. Not only does this devalue the investments made in them, it also means that under flexible benefits arrangements, employees may not understand enough to make the right choices.