UNDERSTANING THE DATA
The mean hourly pay gap at Burton's Biscuits is 4.5% and the median is 9.7% the
overall UK pay gap in 2021 was Mean: 14.9 Median: 15.4 (Office of National
Statistics GPG 2021 revised, all employees).
We are very comfortable that we do not have any issue with equal pay and that
our pay programmes in support equal pay practices.
Having a gender pay gap does not automatically mean there is an equal pay
issue. We will continue to monitor our policies and comply with all government
legislation and recommendations in this field.
The gender imbalance in the different roles (68:32) male to female in our
bakeries and (54:46) in other roles will mean that there will be a gap.
Women are significantly under-represented in our most technical roles, which
command a pay premium owing to the complex skill-sets required. Our
Engineering function is a clear example. We face the same challenge as other
businesses when it comes to female representation in this area. In the UK
women make up 24% of those working in core STEM in 2019 (Science,
Technology, Engineering and Maths) occupations and therefore our programmes
that specifically target women are invaluable.
In 2022! at our head office site 59% of our new starters have been women. At
our bakeries the % is 23, we have done a lot to attract women into our more
heavily weighted roles.
Our mean bonus pay gap is 15.9% whereas our median bonus pay gap is 0%.
In 2021 we are proud to say all our Bakery colleagues received an additional
bonus to say thank you for their support during the Pandemic. Our mean bonus
seems high as this is relates to our normal bonus scheme which is based on
performance and targets at each bakery. As we have more men than women in
our factories (68:32) this will mean that there will be a percentage gap.
We are confident that the gap is due to the higher number of men working in the
role's vs women, something that we will be focusing on reducing over time (our
colleagues don't leave us very often so will take some time to address). As we
attract more female employees into our bakeries in the future the impact on our
statistics maybe detrimental most of our 'New Starters' will be on entry level
remuneration.