Comprehensive approach to gender pay reporting needed
Ibec, the group that represents Irish business, have issued a submission to the Department of Justice and Equality, supporting the need for a comprehensive approach to gender pay reporting by business.
Danny McCoy, CEO of Ibec stated: “Ibec supports the objective of addressing barriers to the socio-economic equality of genders in Ireland. We believe that gender pay gap reporting, if conducted using an appropriate method that takes into account the size and scale of a business, has the potential to offer a real diagnostic tool to highlight the issue. In our submission to Government, we have proposed that such reporting should be introduced on a phased basis initially to organisations of 250+ employees, with a 12 month period to calculate the pay gap, akin to the successful Australian model for gender pay reporting. In this way, smaller employers can be assisted in the process by first learning best practice from larger organisations.
“In addition to gender pay gap reporting, we believe that a whole-of-society approach to the issue of gender pay and gender balance is needed. Reporting alone will not identify or solve the myriad of structural, cultural and policy causes for the differences in participation rates and the employment gaps between genders. The reasons for the gender pay gap are multifaceted and a refocus on the issue of gender balance will offer the opportunity to examine the root causes of the gender pay gap, and ultimately gain gender parity on pay in Ireland."