Scarsdale Vets (Derby) Ltd employed 333 colleagues, of which, 35 (10%) were male and 298 (90%) were female at the time of the data collection (April 2020).
The Veterinary Profession as a whole is increasingly female dominated. ScarsdaleVets is no exception to this development with a male to female ratio of 1:9 within our organisation. Our highest paid roles sit within the specialist referral team and our lowest paid roles are within client care, retail and ancillary clinical.
The table shows that although we provide equal pay to all colleagues for the job they perform, our highest paid colleagues have a more even gender split than the lower paid roles (though this split is still female biased). This, rather than disparity in role specific pay, creates the gender pay gap differentiation.
ScarsdaleVets is committed, and always has been, to fair and equal pay.
When recruiting, ScarsdaleVets adopts a policy of the best person for each role, irrespective of gender, sexuality, race or religion. Our recruitment follows a structured process and allows for roles to be advertised widely (sometimes internationally) to ensure we attract the best candidates for the role, as well as promoting internally where appropriate. We engage increasingly with social media in the pursuit of the right people who will enhance our business and we have never (and never will) direct recruitment towards a specific gender. We are committed to developing the talent within our teams and provide extensive opportunities for clinical and non-clinical continuing professional development.
Longevity of service salary disparities are removed from our business by a banding structure (which moves in line with our cost of living increase provision for some roles) and we apply the COL or band increase for all colleagues annually to ensure our rate of pay remains level or above the annual CPI for the country whenever possible.
Our salary structure does not differentiate gender, therefore, as per law, any two employees carrying out the same role will be paid identically. Our differentiators in salary only occur where the colleague has an advanced level of skill in the execution of their role and we have clear bandings that detail this to be transparent.
The business benchmarks all roles in terms of salary. This ensures our rates of pay are competitive in both the local environment and profession specific market places and removes the risk of losing talent to competitors because of money. Our benefits include generous annual leave, birthdays off, employee assistance programme, CPD allowance, wellbeing initiatives and bonus scheme. No bonus’ were paid in this period of review.
April 2020 saw us place some employees on furlough due to the Coronavirus pandemic and its impact on our sector and closing of non-essential services, as well as reducing our workload and therefore staff needs to concentrate on a Covid safe environment for those working throughout. Numbers of employees reviewed for this Gender Pay report are greatly reduced from our overall staff numbers.
| 2019 | 2020 | |
|---|---|---|
| Mean gender pay gap | 38% | 14% |
| Median gender pay gap | 36% | 21% |
| Mean bonus gender pay gap | N/A | N/A |
| Median bonus gender pay gap | N/A | N/A |
Proportion of males and females in each pay quartile:
| 2019 | 2020 | |
|---|---|---|
| Upper | Male – 25% Female – 75% | Male – 17% Female – 83% |
| Middle | Male – 7% Female – 93% | Male – 7% Female – 93% |
| Lower Middle | Male – 8.5% Female – 91.5% | Male – 8% Female – 92% |
| Lower | Male – 4% Female – 96% | Male – 7% Female – 93% |
We will continue to review our pay structure and employee development and progression to close the gaps further in the future.