Gender Pay Gap

Melin Gender Pay Gap Report 5th April 2020

Under legislation that came into force in April 2017, UK employers with more than 250 employees are required, annually, to publish their gender pay gap.

At this year’s “snapshot date” Melin employed fewer than 250 staff and we are therefore not required to publish our gender pay gap and report. However, we're so proud of it being zero we want everyone to know, as pay transparency is an important driver of equality. Our commitment to pay transparency can also be demonstrated by the publication of the CEO Pay Transparency report on our website.

A Median Gender Pay Gap of zero is really something to celebrate.

Gender pay gap is often confused with equal pay.

Equal pay is about men and woman being paid the same rate for the same work or work that is of an equal value.

The Gender Pay Gap, shows the difference in the average hourly rate of pay between women and men in an organisation, expressed as a percentage of average male earnings. Organisations follow a calculation set out by the Government Equalities Office to report their mean and median gender pay gap, bonus gap, and distribution across pay quartiles.

Our gender pay gap report is split into 3 sections

• Melin’s gender pay gap
• Causes of the gender pay gap
• Next steps

Melin Homes Gender Pay Gap

Gender pay gap is the difference between the average hourly pay received by men and women as at 5th April 2020.

There are two measures of the gender pay gap, the mean and median gender pay gap.

Median gender pay gap

The median is the figure that falls in the middle of a range when the wages of all relevant employees are lined up from the smallest to the largest. The median gap is calculated based on the difference between the employee in the middle of the range of male wages and the middle employee in the range of female wages. On 5th April 2020 our Median gender pay gap was zero.

Mean gender pay gap

The mean is calculated by adding up the hourly wages of all relevant employees and dividing the figure by the number of employees. The mean average for both men’s and women’s hourly pay are calculated and that is the figure that we report on.

The mean gender pay gap is calculated based on the difference between mean male pay and mean female pay. On the 5th April 2020 our Mean gender pay gap was 2.86%.

Bonus Pay

No-one at Melin is paid a bonus.

The Gender Pay Gap figures changes on a weekly basis depending on the gender of our starters and leavers. Employees at either end of our pay scale have a greater impact but the figures change slightly with every starter, leaver and promotion.

What causes our Mean gender pay gap?

Overall we have a very even split of men and women 48% are women and 52% are men. In order to understand why there is a mean gender pay gap, we need to look at the pay of both men and women.

We do this by splitting the workforce into four equal sized bands based on hourly pay, called quartiles.

Quartile 1

The roles in quartile 1 are our lowest paid roles.

Assistant grade staff at the lower end of the pay scale (£10.54/hour) has weighting towards females, 76% female (37) and 24% male (12).

Quartile 2

In this quartile we have more women than men.

Assistants at the higher end of the pay scale are predominantly female, as are Scheme Managers.

Semi-Skilled trade team are almost exclusively male.

Quartile 3

There are more men than women in this quartile. This is mainly a result of the trade roles and surveying roles falling in this quartile, these roles are predominantly undertaken by men.

Quartile 4

These are our highest paid roles. We have more women than men in the quartile this includes all of our roles from Principal Officer level up.

The gender split at manager level is 65% women (11) and 35% men (6).

The gender split in our Senior Management Team is 40% women (4) and 60% men (6).

Our challenge at Melin is to move and attract more women into positions within quartile 3 through promotion or recruitment.

We recruited a female apprentice into our maintenance team, which was a positive move in terms of gender split, although the hourly rate for the role is the lowest paid, so will have impacted negatively on the female mean salary level.

Between April 2019 and April 2020, 6 internal roles were re-graded from Officer to Principal Officer; all postholders were female.

The mean gender pay gap has increased from 2.79% to 2.86%.

In April 2019, the percentage of females exceeded males only in the Lower quartile. In April 2020, the percentage of females exceeded males in the Lower, Lower Middle, and Upper quartiles.

There has been a shift in females in the Upper Middle quartile moving to the Upper quartile, which in turn has created a wider imbalance in the Upper Middle quartile, where males significantly outnumber females. The majority of roles in the Upper Middle quartile are skilled trade and surveyor roles, where there are no female postholders.

There has been a shift in females moving from the Lower to Lower Middle quartiles also, though the gender split in these two quartiles is relatively even.

The Gender Pay Gap figures changes on a weekly basis depending on the gender of our starters and leavers. Employees at either end of our pay scale have a greater impact but the figures change slightly with every starter, leaver and promotion. We are pleased to report that our gender pay gap has remained fairly consistent throughout the year showing that our April 2019 figure was not a one off.

Every decision we have made that has had a positive (and sometimes negative) effect on our gender pay gap has been taken for sound business decisions. The fact that the decisions have resulted in a zero gender pay gap highlights the fact that Melin is living its values. Other organisations may develop a gender balance action plan we hope to achieve balance at each level by appointing the best candidate for any future vacancies. The maintenance of our zero gender pay gap figure highlights that our sound employment practices are having the required effect.

Next steps

For the second year in a row, we are proud that our median gender pay gap is zero. The median is often considered a more reliable indicator as it nullifies the effect of extreme figures at either end of the scale. As an example, our female Chief Executive brings up the mean female pay but this effect is minimised when using the median figure.

Whilst strictly not a gender pay issue we are focussing on attracting more women to work in our maintenance team. Many organisations in the construction sector and colleges providing construction courses are also focussing their efforts on attracting more women into the sector. We recognise that we can’t do this on our own. We will continue to work with our partners to increase the number of women undertaking construction courses as well as continuing to make Melin an attractive place to work for all. We understand that recruiting more female apprentices is likely to have a negative impact on our gender Pay Gap in the short term. Our approach to doing the right thing won’t be derailed by short term obstacles.

We have recently changed our flexible working policy, we have no core hours and allow staff to work in a flexible way which suits them and business needs. We are keen for all staff to take advantage of the increased flexibility. The more flexibility we can offer in our roles the more direct benefit this will have for our female staff and prospective female employees.

The information contained in our gender pay gap report is correct as at the snapshot date of 5th April 2020. The report has been agreed by our Senior Management Team and was approved by our Remuneration committee.