Performance management and the Equality Bill: do you comply?
According to a recent survey, only just over half of organisations have carried out an equal pay review, and even amongst those, many have not included pay related to performance or bonus in their analysis.
The Equality Bill is likely to require public sector organisations (and then in a few years’ time, private sector organisations) to declare their ‘pay gaps’ between men and women. Many organisations incorrectly assume that they have considered equal pay, and are paying equal rates for jobs of equal value.
Known consequences
Work carried out by IES over 10 years has shown that weaknesses in performance management processes can often unwittingly introduce the potential for indirect discrimination. This can mean poorer performance outcomes for:
- people who work in non-standard patterns in the organisation
- women in more senior positions
- people with disabilities
- people from black and minority ethnic groups.
Organisations need to think carefully about how they manage and measure performance, is there inequality in outcomes and if so why? What can be done to address the issue? It usually takes more than reviewing the process and paperwork, but once the issues are understood there can be some quick-win solutions.
What to do
In our experience the key requirements are:
- a clear commitment to fair outcomes expressed in the corporate values, performance management and reward strategies
- robust HR processes such as job evaluation, base pay review and performance appraisal and development
- an equal pay review at regular intervals to identify the scale, nature and causes of any pay gaps
- an holistic approach, considering for example the career development and talent management issues that mean fewer women progress to senior levels
- high attention by HR functions to moderation and checking processes, facilitating the comparison of performance ratings across the organisation.
Yes, IES can help you
IES has helped organisations in all sectors to address issues and inequality in performance management processes. We can look to identify if inequality exists in your performance outcomes, and what this means for pay and promotion. And we can talk to you about what the issues are and their implications. We can then work with you to find solutions that will really make a difference.
We recently carried out just such a review for a Government department who had found there were inequalities in their performance outcomes. We were able to make a number of quick-win recommendations, including paperwork and process issues, and also able to suggest longer-term changes around monitoring of appraisal outcomes and addressing areas of imbalance.
Think now: contact us for a preliminary chat
Mary Mercer
T: 020 7470 6172
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Institute for Employment Studies
Leading Edge HR Insight and Solutions:
IES is an independent, international centre of research and consultancy on HR issues.
www.ieshr.co.uk
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