Retailer Majestic Wine UK has reported a 4.2% mean gender pay gap for fixed hourly pay, with female employees earning more than male employees across its three legal entities.
The organisation has reported its gender pay gap data in line with the government’s gender pay gap reporting regulations and ahead of the private sector submission deadline of 4 April 2018. The entities Majestic Wine UK has reported on include Majestic Retail, Naked Wines UK, and Lay and Wheeler.
The gender pay gap reporting regulations require organisations with 250 or more employees to publish the difference between both the mean and median hourly rate of pay for male and female full-time employees; the difference between both the mean bonus pay and median bonus pay for male and female employees; the proportions of male and female employees who were awarded bonus pay; and the proportions of male and female full-time employees in the lower, lower middle, upper middle and upper quartile pay bands.
Majestic Wine UK’s median gender pay gap for fixed hourly pay is 5.5% in favour of female employees.
Its mean gender pay gap for bonuses is 4.1%, with female employees receiving higher bonus payments than male employees. The organisation’s median gender pay gap for bonuses is 6.5%, also in favour of female employees. Over the reporting period, 87% of female employees received a bonus payment compared to 90% of male employees.
A third (33.4%) of employees in the highest pay quartile at Majestic Wines UK are female, compared to 29% in the second quartile, 26.3% in the third quartile and 26.3% in the lowest pay quartile.
According to Majestic Wine UK, its gender pay gap is in favour of women because it employs a larger number of male employees in warehouse and delivery roles, which typically sit within its lower pay bands. The organisation’s analysis also shows that its bonus gender pay gap is a result of senior management voluntarily waiving and deferring bonus payments because of weaker-than-expected trading in 2016.
Majestic Wine UK aims to increase the number of women within the organisation by improving how it attracts, retains and develops female staff, as well as other under-represented groups. It plans to do this by reviewing its maternity policy to better support women, using new recruitment campaigns to encourage women to consider careers in the wine sector, delivering anti-discrimination training as part of standard recruitment training for all store managers and directors, and by offering flexible job roles at all levels of the business for both male and female employees.
As a group, Majestic Wine has 1,438 employees across four countries. Female employees comprise 31% of its total workforce.
Rowan Gormley, chief executive officer at Majestic Wine, said: “Majestic is a meritocracy; it’s not a gender issue, we are simply paying people fairly for the work they do. We’re delighted to be leading the industry in gender pay and welcome anyone who wants to work for an employer that respects them to come to speak to us.”