What began as a trickle became a torrent, carving out a new landscape in the world of work.



With the last-minute flood of data as the gender pay gap deadline hit this week, some companies went on the defensive, reputation rehabilitation was under way, and canny headhunters began to flick through their Rolodexes.



“I have heard that a lot of headhunters are now calling senior women and saying: ‘Would you be interested in a move? Some of your competitors have got lower gender pay gaps,’” said the gender pay gap consultant and expert Helene Reardon Bond.



With eight out of 10 companies and public-sector bodies revealed to be paying women less than men, and women paid a median hourly rate of an average 9.7% less than male colleagues, it is the genie that won’t be put back in the bottle.



Quick Guide What is the gender pay gap, and what must UK companies report? Show What is the gender pay gap? The gender pay gap is the difference between the average hourly earnings of men and women. The figure is expressed as a proportion of men’s earnings. According to the ONS, the gap between what UK male and female workers earn – based on median hourly earnings for all workers – was 17.9% in April 2018, down from 18.4% in April 2017. Data in 2018 showed that men were paid more than women in 7,795 out of 10,016 companies and public bodies in Britain. What is being published? All companies and some public sector bodies in Great Britain, except Northern Ireland, with more than 250 employees had to report their gender pay gap to the Government Equalities Office for the first time by by 4 April 2018. The second year of gender pay gap reports - and the first indicator of how public bodies and companies are performing - must be filed by April 2019 What’s the difference between the mean and the median figures? Commonly known as the average, the mean is calculated by adding up the wages of all employees and dividing that figure by the number of employees. The mean gender pay gap is the difference between mean male pay and mean female pay. The median gap is the difference between the employee in the middle of the range of male wages and the employee in the middle of the range of female wages. Typically the median is the more representative figure, because the mean can be skewed by a handful of highly paid employees. What will happen if companies don’t report? The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said that, while it would approach employers informally at first if they failed to publish figures by the deadline, businesses could ultimately face “unlimited fines and convictions”. However, information published following a freedom of information request by the Guardian showed that no companies have been fined to date despite hundreds failing to accurately file their gender pay gap figures on time.

“It has changed the working landscape,” said Mark Crail, content director of XpertHR, an online advisory service that was inundated with queries from companies as the clock ticked down to 4 April. “And it’s very much a reputational issue.”



From the trading floor to the shop floor, many women and men have been dismayed not just at the statistics but at their companies’ responses.



One vice-president at an international investment bank told the Guardian talk was cheap, and while banks have talked about developing women for years the statistics showed no improvement. The finance sector has been revealed to have one of the biggest gaps, on average, at 22%.



It’s like the workplace is a game and men have the cheat sheets Female vice-president at international investment bank

“We started out as graduates equal to our male peers. As time goes by most men in my peer group have zoomed ahead in their careers, and I wonder what makes them so spectacular. It’s like the workplace is a game and men have the cheat sheets,” she said.



Other women were puzzled at discovering that although they worked in companies with a majority female workforce the gap was still huge. Puzzlement turned to anger as some companies failed to communicate serious explanations.



One worker at the fashion retailer Coast, which reported a 40% median gap, was incensed that the only communication was an email. “Personally, I am in shock at the pay gap,” she said, pointing out the firm didn’t employ many men. The email said that two of the retailer’s three executives were men, “which they claimed was the main reason for the massive difference in pay”. No other reasons were given, which has left her hugely irritated.



Coast said that its pay gap was the result of “the nature of our business”. It claimed that the difference between male and female pay had come about because “the majority of people who want to work for the brand are Coast customers themselves and therefore women”.

Another employee at a high street optician chain with a median gap of between 35-40% said there appeared to be no action plan. “They explained why the gender gap exists in a video, blaming women for choosing worse-paid occupations, and summing it up with: ‘Let’s face it, we will never get rid of the gender pay gap’,” she said.



A female employee at a clothing company that reported a median pay gap of 7.3% said : “What’s missing is an action plan. We got an internal email which says something vague about action being taken, but externally there is no action.”



The data, though not perfect, offered the first insight into inequality in the workforce on a company level anywhere in the world. It may have spawned “gender-gap deniers” and a slew of defensive company statements. But Labour’s Harriet Harman, who pushed through the legislation requiring companies with a 250-plus workforce, to publish their gender pay data, has been clear the transparency is a means to an end as a “spur to action”.



One major retailer – the John Lewis Partnership – is striving to do just that, seeing the exercise as a positive. Rather than obsess about the figures – its median pay gap was 7.8%, which is about the same as others in its sector – it has taken it as an opportunity to have a meaningful and constructive dialogue across its 85,000 partner workforce (staff are called partners as they are co-owners in the business).



We got an internal email which says something vague about action being taken, but externally there is no action Female employee at a clothing company

The company used its communications portals – intranet, staff magazine and gender equality group – to drive debate. Senior managers have been involved from the get-go. Like similar retailers, there is a majority female population at shop floor level, with numbers thinning at the higher levels. Rather than use this an an excuse, or whinge that the method of collecting data was flawed, the company has focused on addressing the reasons behind its figures.

“It has provided an opportunity to talk about issues such as more flexible working, and barriers to job-sharing at management level,” said David Hopkins, an HR manager at the company.



Having to produce its data has set up what should be a positive dialogue. “As a company you could choose to do that in a positive way and use it as an opportunity, or you can set it up as an antagonistic point of contention that is left to fester. We have gone for the former,” he said.



Reardon Bond, a former civil servant who worked on gender equality policy and is now a expert consultant in the field, said companies that failed to address the issue faced “massive reputational risk” and pressure from shareholders. The data highlighted the need to make flexible working for all a priority, and in particular in Stem (science, tech, engineering and maths) industries, where fewer women rise.



Crail agreed that the reputational issue was the big driver for change, and employers needed to get to grips with what was driving the gap. “It’s not enough to say: ‘Oh, we’ve got lots in technology roles and that’s largely male’, or ‘we’ve got lots of men at the top and lots of women at the bottom’. That’s not an explanation, that’s just a description.”



He said that any employers who failed to act were “really foolish”, not just because of what existing employees would think but also those they wanted to recruit.



“All this is now public,” he said. It had irrevocably changed the working landscape. “It’s not going to go away. Perhaps a lot of people thought: ‘Oh well, we will report, there might be a bit of fuss and then it will die down.’ I really don’t think that is going to be the case,” he said.

