Gender Pay Gap Reporting

In December 2021, we published our first Gender Pay Gap report

As part of our refreshed gender balance strategy, we committed to publishing a gender pay gap report ahead of the legislative requirement to do so. We developed an iterative process with key internal stakeholders, culminating in a transparent report that holds us accountable to progress and builds broad awareness of the gender pay gap and our ambitions across the organisation.

In March 2021 we announced our ambition to move from 26% female partners at that time to 30% by 2023 and 35% by 2025. As part of this ambition to achieve greater gender balance at our most senior leadership level, we committed to publishing a gender pay gap report, regardless of whether the pending legislation had come into being or not.

One of the key principles of our inclusion strategy is the use of metrics to measure progress, and we believe that the gender pay gap report is one of the key measurements we can use to hold ourselves accountable in delivering on our ambition.

One of the first steps was to bring our people on the journey. There remains a significant amount of confusion about the difference between equal pay and a gender pay gap. We spent time helping our people understand this difference and were transparent with our plans on the gender pay gap report ahead of publication.

Key stakeholders across the business were integral in the development of the report. These included the executive team, the Inclusion Council, and the Gender Balance Network. Our Reward Services team that supports clients on such issues also provided invaluable input.

One of the key challenges we faced was on the inclusion of partner earnings. As our partners are owners, not employees, of the firm they will not form part of the legal gender pay gap submission when it comes into place. However, partners are our most senior leadership level, so excluding them would not provide a transparent and authentic view of the real gender pay gap and the structural challenges created by lack of balance at the top levels in an organisation.

Our consultations with our Gender Balance Network were instrumental in overcoming initial concerns around including partners in the report. Our purpose to make an impact that matters was another key factor in our decision to publish figures that included partner earnings. We felt that by leading the way on this in the professional services sector we could open up a conversation with our clients and our people and ultimately make an impact in driving greater transparency around the barriers to gender balance in the sector.

We launched our Gender Pay Gap report internally to our people in December 2021 to our people first and externally the following month. The report was a continuation of the conversation which began with the launch of our Gender Balance Strategy in March 2021. The focus of that conversation is on explaining our ambition, measurement of progress (gender pay gap being one) and the actions we were continuing to take.

We believe that the significant thought put into its preparation along with the diversity of stakeholder voices included in the process have resulted in a transparent and impactful report that has raised awareness of the importance of gender balance at all levels of the organisation and increased consciousness of some of the barriers that we continue to work to overcome in order to achieve our ambition in this area. We are very proud to be the first professional services firm in Ireland to have published a full, transparent gender pay gap report that includes all our leaders.