Our people are incredible – and we need more like them. We’re all individuals but together we share a strong set of values. We call them our I-CARE values and they’re at the heart of everything we do – whether we’re managing a patient’s pain, teaching an art class, greeting visitors, or raising funds.
Introduction
From 2017 onwards, any UK organisation employing 250 or more employees has to publically report on its gender pay gap. The gender pay gap shows the difference in the average earnings between all men and all women in an organisation.
Gender pay gap data
As at the 5 April 2018 Princess Alice Hospice employed 443 people. A significant proportion of our staff (56%) are contracted to work less than the 37.5 hours classified within the Hospice as full time employment.
Organisations are required to report on the gender pay gap in relation to the mean and median hourly rate. Our gender pay gap data indicates that women’s hourly rate is 4.1% higher (mean) and 8.9% higher (median) than men’s.
We are also required to report on the proportion of males and females in each quartile pay band. The data below indicates that women represent the majority of our employees at all levels of our organisation.
| Men | Women | |
| Upper quartile | 9.3% | 90.7% |
| Upper middle quartile | 13% | 87% |
| Lower middle quartile | 12% | 88% |
| Lower quartile | 19.3% | 80.7% |
Commentary
Princess Alice Hospice is a charity with a mission to reach out to more people by delivering outstanding care, nurturing compassionate communities, sharing our knowledge and expertise and influencing the debate around death and dying. We operate in a sector that is predominately female so it is no surprise that our workforce is similarly so (84.8% v 15.2%). In addition we fund a significant part of our charitable activity from the profits made through our chain of 47 shops – retail is another sector that has a largely female workforce.
The Hospice prides itself on being an equal opportunities employer. Underpinning HR policies and guidelines are reviewed regularly and supported by training and development. Remuneration is approved on the basis of role and is benchmarked against national pay scales e.g. NHS Agenda for Change, or local labour markets. We have flexible working policies and practices and 33% of our staff have taken advantage of these to enable them to work in a way that works best for them in terms of their career aspirations and work life balance.
In April 2017 the trustee Board approved a Talent and People Strategy that will ensure that we have the right knowledge, skills and resources to deliver our mission over the next five years. Crucial to that is making the best use of the talent we already have within our workplace, enabling our staff to develop and progress irrespective of gender (or any other differentiating factor). To this end the Hospice became members of The Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion (enei) in March 2018 so that we can continue to demonstrate best practice and learn from other employers’ experience.
The data demonstrates that we do not currently have a gender pay gap of any significance and therefore no specific action is required. However it should be noted that this is in the context of having a workforce that is predominantly female and therefore even small fluctuations in the male workforce could have a significant impact on our gender pay gap in the future.
Nicki Shaw
