Gender Pay Gap

From April 2017 all organisations employing over 250 people are required to report on their gender pay gap. The information is published on the gov.uk website.

Our gender pay gap shows the difference between the average pay of all women and the average pay of all men in an organisation, irrespective of the work they do. As a result, it’s affected by how the workforce is made up, including the numbers of men and women in different types of jobs and at different levels of seniority.

This is important to Origin as we are committed to diversity.

As at 5 April 2022 Origin had a headcount of 328 employees.
 
127 - Male employees and
201 – Female employees

Since the last report the headcount has increased by 9%. The number of Male employees has decreased by seven people in contrast to the number of Females which has increased by 43 people overall.
           

• 39% of our colleagues are male
• 61% of our colleagues are female

Our Mean gender pay gap is 13%
 
The  mean hourly rate of pay for women was 13% below the mean hourly rate for men, with the gap widening by 8.4% compared to the year before.  

The mean is our average pay. This is calculated by adding up all of our salaries and then dividing by the number of colleagues. Although the gender pay gap has got significantly worse for women we are still in line with national figures.  According to the Office of National Statistics, the figures for 2022 are as follows: the mean UK gender pay gap in 2022 was 14.7%.
 
Our Median gender pay gap is 8%

The median hourly rate of pay for women was 8% lower than for men and has reduced by 9% since last year. Comparing the results of the median gender pay gap for the last 5 years, we initially saw a favourable position for women, but this has reversed in 2022.
 
Our pay bands

Origin has 39% male and 61% female colleagues. They are spread across the pay bands, which for our reporting are split across four quartiles: this is where all the salaries – men and women – are sorted by size and divided into equal quarters.  Origin has to publish the percentage of men and women in each quarter:
 

• The upper quartile - the highest paid 25% - 54% men and 46% women
• The upper middle quartile – the next 25% - 30% men and 70% women
• The lower middle quartile – the next 25% - 38% men and 62% women
• The lower quartile -   the lowest paid 25% - 34% men and 66% women

Whilst this shows we have more men in the highest upper quartile, overall, the gender pay differentials per pay quartile has harmonised across the board in favour of women this year in comparison to 2020.
 
Explaining our pay
Origin has a good track record of having a balance of male and female colleagues at a senior level. Currently we have a good gender balance at senior level with women making up 52% of the overall Leadership team, (including Board, Exec and SMG). 

The slightly higher percentage of men we have in the top quarter of salaries is partly due to some of our more technical teams having more male colleagues than female colleagues.

Bonus pay

Bonus pay relates to all non-consolidated payments made in the 12 months preceding April 2022.  There were 21 bonuses in total paid out to 5 members of staff: 3 women and 2 men.

All of these bonuses were awarded to staff working within the Sales Team, where overall there is a higher percentage of women than men working in this area.  These bonuses were awarded to staff as commission for new build sales completions.
 
April 2020
 

• Women’s mean bonus pay was 175% greater than men’s – the gap increased by 131% in favour of women.
• Women’s median bonus pay was 113% greater than men’s – the gap increased by 73% in favour of men.

April 2021
 

• The proportion of male employees receiving bonus pay was 49.25%.
• The proportion of females receiving bonus pay was 43.67%, this has seen a decrease in the gap by 40.77%
• The Mean Bonus Pay Gap has decreased by 152% since last year, however, it is still 22.71% more favourable towards women
• There is no differential in the median bonus pay even though the gap reduced by 113%.

 April 2022

• The proportion of male employees receiving bonus pay was 40%.
• The proportion of females receiving bonus pay was 60%
• The Mean Bonus Pay Gap stands at 50% in favour of men, a reversal of the position in 2021
• Similarly, a 12% gap in median bonus pay has arisen for women.

What action are we taking on our gender pay gap?
Origin Housing will continue to focus on improving the representation of females particularly in our upper quartile and specialist positions by:
 

• Continuing to review our people policies and recruitment practices to ensure we attract the widest pool of candidates and remove any barriers that may prevent women from applying or growing within the Origin. 
• Considering undertaking anonymised recruitment, which can be offered as part of our new applicant tracking system (ATS) to help reduce unconscious bias when making recruitment decisions. 
• Closely monitoring applicant EDI data through the new ATS to analyse trends on all protected characteristics data on recruitment, retention, and internal progression, thus identifying under representation and focusing on making our recruitment and development practices inclusive.  Regular reports will be provided to the Executive Team for further review.
• Reviewing all job advertisements and ensuring that they promote diversity and inclusion.  In addition, all adverts will be run through a bias checking tool which identifies whether there is any bias towards any protected characteristic. 
• Improving the capability and confidence of our managers to apply our pay policies fairly and consistently to ensure inclusive reward, recruitment, and retention practices. This will be achieved through our ongoing leadership development programme and through reminders of our Reward and Recognition Policy.
• Recognising that men have a higher propensity to initiate pay negotiations. This is particularly relevant for specialist roles, and this will be addressed as part of the leadership development programme and EDI training. 
• Continuing to foster a culture of openness and honesty when it comes to pay and ensure consistent application of our policies and practices so that we can continue to support progress, this will be driven through our EDI Action Plan, People Strategy and our internal Staff Networks.
• Analysing and sharing the Best Companies Engagement Survey results to inform our actions and test that we are doing all we can to bridge any pay gaps.

Although the gender pay gap has got significantly worse for women we are still in line with national figures.  According to the Office of National Statistics, the figures for 2022 are as follows:
 

• Mean Pay Gap:    14.7%
• Median Pay Gap: 14%

All job roles are externally benchmarked for consistency and in the context of the external market ensuring that all staff are paid the rate for the job role regardless of gender. Pay awards are unaffected by length of service and other factors and therefore do not have any impact pay levels.