Gender Pay Gap Reporting in Ireland
Download a PDF of this articleThe introduction of gender pay gap reporting in Ireland, with effect from December 2022, will provide greater transparency and enforce greater accountability on employers in Ireland in the context of their gender balance. The requirement for reporting is an opportunity for companies to regularly assess their progress in addressing imbalances in gender parity within their organisations.
While the practice has been in place in the UK for a number of years, the relevant legislation in Ireland requires not only the disclosure of data, but a requirement for companies to set out reasoning behind any gender pay gap and how the organisation intends to address it. This additional requirement means that companies not only have to share data findings, but they also need to contextualise the data in a way that demonstrates understanding of the underlying root causes of their imbalance. This additional level of scrutiny is also likely to present communications challenges over the coming months.
Gender Pay Gap Reporting
By 31 December 2022, in accordance with the Gender Pay Gap Information Act 2021, all companies in Ireland with over 250 employees will be required to disclose their gender pay gap across a range of metrics. The gender pay gap is principally the difference in the average hourly wage of men and women across a workforce; though the legislation does also include disclosure on bonus and benefits in kind.
Gender pay gap vs pay equality
Gender pay gap reporting measures the difference between men’s and women’s average pay within an organisation. Gender pay gap is essentially a means of signalling if an organisation has more of one gender represented in its more highly-paid tiers. Pay equality, on the other hand, has been the law in Ireland since the 1970’s under The Anti-Discrimination (Pay) Act 1974— which requires employers to give men and women equal pay if they are employed to do the same work.
In order to fulfil gender pay gap reporting, organisations have been asked to select a ‘snapshot’ date from the month of June 2022. Reporting will be based on the number of employees the organisation has on this date. Organisations then have six months to prepare their calculations, with a deadline of 31 December 2022 for reporting. The detail must be published on the employer’s website or in some other way that is accessible to all employees and to the public. This is the first time that companies in Ireland will be required to report on the gender pay gap. This year, organisations with more than 250 employees arerequired to report. From 2024, organisations with more than 150 employees are required to report. From 2025, organisations of more than 50 employees will be required to report.
Additional requirements require deeper insights and strategy
As HR departments focus on the data collection, there is an additional requirement in the regulations which will be important for communications professionals and the wider business. Unlike the UK, where it is discretionary to include a supporting narrative, regulations in Ireland mandate that in addition to the data, employers must publish a report setting out the following:
- in the employer’s opinion, the reasons that the gender pay gap exists, and
- the measures (if any) being taken, or proposed to be taken, by the employer to eliminate or reduce the gender pay gap.
How this additional detail is provided in the report will shape perceptions of the organisation by stakeholders from both a culture and reputational perspective. Detail around gender pay gap and the overall balance between men and women at different levels also informs an organisation’s Environmental, Social & Governance (‘ESG’) disclosure and messaging. As ESG has risen up the agenda for all organisations, and companies face growing investor pressure to improve diversity, gender pay gap reporting is another resource for investors to assess how well a company is executing against its social agenda. With pressure across stakeholder groups to increase the number of women in leadership positions, reporting on gender pay gap provides another platform for organisations to lay-out their overall approach to fostering more diversity.
Given the different challenges that many organisations face in having a gender-balanced workforce, best practice is transparency and a solution focus.
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