Deloitte publishes equity partner gender earnings gap

Deloitte has today published its equity partner gender earnings gap. The firm analysed the average profit share our equity partners received in the last financial year, which is the most straight forward measure of earnings, and applied the gender pay gap calculation to this data. This gives us a mean equity partner gender pay gap of 13.8% which arises as we still have fewer women in senior equity partner positions. For information the mean salary pay gap for our employees (excluding equity partners) as already reported is 18.2%.

We also wanted to provide a figure representing gender pay for our whole firm including equity partners given the genuine public interest in this. This is not straightforward and indeed the guidelines set out by the government on gender pay reporting specifically exclude equity partners from those calculations as they are owners of the business who receive a composite profit share representing payment for the job they are doing as well as a return on the equity they have invested in the business rather than a salary or bonus. This means it is not possible to provide a like-for-like gender pay gap comparison.

However, we were determined to find a way and so instead we have looked at total earnings – covering salary and bonus of our employees together with total earnings for equity partners. We then applied the gender pay gap calculation. On this basis, our total gender earnings gap gives us a mean of 43.2% and a median of 15.2%.

David Sproul, senior partner and chief executive of Deloitte UK, said: “Deloitte has been at the forefront of gender pay reporting and a vocal advocate of the Government’s Equalities Office campaign. We are firmly committed to transparency and achieving consistency in gender pay reporting standards. This is why we have listened to the calls for firms such as ours to do more in how we report gender pay data. Our role in society means we have a responsibility to lead on critical issues such as inclusion and diversity. Going forward, we commit not only to publishing the data required by the gender pay legislation, but also to publishing our gender earnings gap on an annual basis.”

Deloitte first published its gender pay gap on a voluntary basis in 2015. The firm published again in July last year under the new gender pay legislation and produced its calculations using the government’s methodology. That showed Deloitte had a mean gender pay gap of 18.2% and a mean bonus gap of 50.9%. While this analysis included Deloitte’s salaried partners, around a third of all partners at the firm, it did not include the firm’s equity partners.

Emma Codd, managing partner for talent at Deloitte UK, said: “As with our formal gender pay and bonus gap reports, these calculations again serve as a stark reminder that we don’t have enough women in senior roles – this is not about unequal pay but the shape of our firm. We’ve worked hard in recent years to address this imbalance: we believe that culture has a clear role to play in correcting gender imbalance and over the past four years have placed additional focus on ensuring that we always provide an inclusive culture underpinned by respect that enables women to progress alongside commitments outside the workplace.”

“We have focused on actions relating to ‘pain points’ in our career lifecycle - from how we recruit to the way in which we identify and develop women for our most senior roles. Amongst other things, we have adapted our recruitments processes; established an industry-first Return to Work internship programme that to-date has enabled 37 women to re-enter the workplace; introduced transition coaching for primary carers returning from parental/maternity leave; created sponsorship programmes for female senior managers and directors, and ensured that we are focusing hard on female talent pipelines for our director and partner roles. We’re now recruiting more women at both student and experienced hire level, and are seeing a significant increase in the number of women choosing to stay with us at the points when we previously saw increased attrition for them. And the proportion of our partners who are female has increased from 12% in 2012 to 19% in 2017 against a published target of 25% by 2020 which we remain committed to meeting.”

Sproul added: “Transparency in reporting standards, while making for uncomfortable reading, is a critical step in helping companies measure their progress and determine what actions need to be taken to address the underlying causes. We are committed to leading on this issue. And, through a combination of programmes to encourage change and the actions to embed it, I believe we can make meaningful progress in eliminating our gender pay gap.”

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