Latest / Best of Business / Cathy Hendry: Strategic Pay managing director on the non-executive director gender pay gap closing

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Cathy Hendry: Strategic Pay managing director on the non-executive director gender pay gap closing · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
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• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Ever do for c Ellens.
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  Speaker 2: So the pay gap for female directors on company boards
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  Speaker 2: has almost disappeared. This is the Strategic Pay Director's survey results.
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  Speaker 2: Last year, women earned five point nine percent less than
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  Speaker 2: their male counterparts. This year, it's just zero point five percent.
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  Speaker 2: Kathy Henry is the managing director of Strategic Pay and
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  Speaker 2: with us Hi, Kathy Hi, why is it now? Wrote
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  Speaker 2: so much?
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  Speaker 3: Look, we believe the biggest contributor to it is we've
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  Speaker 3: seen we saw large increases in the public sector and
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  Speaker 3: these were sort of well overdue. At the same time,
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  Speaker 3: we've had really flat movement and the private sector. So
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  Speaker 3: that seems to be the you know, the biggest contributor
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  Speaker 3: to why we're seeing this change so.
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  Speaker 2: Basic because this was a government directive, wasn't it to
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  Speaker 2: start paying the women equivalent to the men?
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's illegal to pay men
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  Speaker 3: and women different No, no, no, no, that same role.
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  Speaker 2: That's not what I'm saying. What I was saying was,
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  Speaker 2: wasn't this like I feel like in the recesses of
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  Speaker 2: my mind, I remember one of the Ministers for Women
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  Speaker 2: came out and made it a real big play of
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  Speaker 2: paying the men, like really shutting down that gender pay
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  Speaker 2: gap on board level in the public sector.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, And I mean what we're doing
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  Speaker 3: is we're looking across the whole subset of the directors.
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  Speaker 3: So this is sitting across all the boards and we're
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  Speaker 3: looking at that sample and seeing seeing what the gap
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  Speaker 3: is there. And the public sector typically has really high representation,
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  Speaker 3: but they'd been really stagnant in their fees and that
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  Speaker 3: was sort of keeping that pay gap across all the directors.
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  Speaker 2: Oh so are you telling them? Okay, so more women
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  Speaker 2: sit on public sector boards than on private sector boards,
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  Speaker 2: but the public sestor boards pay really badly so as
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  Speaker 2: a result of pay. So it's because the taxpayer, poor
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  Speaker 2: old taxpayer, is having to pay these boards more to
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  Speaker 2: basically shut the gender pay gap down. Are we getting
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  Speaker 2: value for money though, Kathie from these people, are we?
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  Speaker 1: Hey?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think it wasn't a It was a well
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  Speaker 3: needed adjustment because they hadn't seen any increase for a
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  Speaker 3: long time, like a really long time. It was an
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  Speaker 3: adjustment and I think, yeah, what you're asking is complex
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  Speaker 3: because you know, you're looking at increased complexity and at
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  Speaker 3: the board level, like you know, greater accountability, greater liability.
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  Speaker 3: You know, you sort of see that all the time
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  Speaker 3: in the news that you know, just it's not a
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  Speaker 3: case of just sitting on the directors and getting sausage
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  Speaker 3: rolls and attending a few meetings anymore, you know.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, hope not. Okay, So why how do we explain
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  Speaker 2: the eight percent gap for the chairs?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so at the chair you know, you've only got
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  Speaker 3: one chair obviously in every board, and we see a
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  Speaker 3: lower representation of females at the cheer level, and then
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  Speaker 3: you're seeing the men more likely to be in those
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  Speaker 3: bigger boards higher pay. So that's what's still keeping that
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  Speaker 3: up about higher It's really down to the representation more
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  Speaker 3: than anything else.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, So how like, what is the gap? What's the
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  Speaker 2: difference between the like the number of women the proportion
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  Speaker 2: of women who are on boards in the public sector
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  Speaker 2: and in the private sector.
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  Speaker 3: So you won't have to ask me a question I
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  Speaker 3: don't have on the top of.
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  Speaker 2: My it's no sorry, I know this is not on
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  Speaker 2: the public sector.
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  Speaker 3: It is fifty to fifty on the public sector and
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  Speaker 3: it's considerably lower in the private sector, like I think,
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  Speaker 3: I think it's closer to more like a third when
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  Speaker 3: you look across the Yeah, it's very close.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Kathy, so if we're down to zero, but we
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  Speaker 2: can stop talking about this now, effect stay done finishing there.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it's only at the board level, isn't it. I
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  Speaker 3: mean it's great that at the governance level women, if
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  Speaker 3: you've got a greater representation and fairness at that level,
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  Speaker 3: it's likely to sort of feed down into the organization level.
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  Speaker 3: But the thing is they're stubborn, you know. So if
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  Speaker 3: the public sector pay remains stagnant and women tend to
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  Speaker 3: not be our on private sector boards and then we
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  Speaker 3: see some big increases in private sector boards and the
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  Speaker 3: pay gap will probably come back.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, it's fair. Thank you very much, Kathy,
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  Speaker 2: appreciate it. Look after yourself. Kathy Henry, Strategic pay Managing Director.
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