Ethnicity Pay Gap Review Day 2024

The #EthnicityPayGap Campaign, launched in 2018, aims to raise awareness about issues related to the Ethnicity Pay Gap. Its primary focus is to highlight the disparity in average wages between staff members from ethnic minority backgrounds and their counterparts. Generally, individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds earn less and are underrepresented in senior positions.

Despite discussions advocating for legal mandates, reporting on the ethnicity pay gap remains a voluntary initiative.

Over the past four years, on Ethnicity Pay Gap day, we have assessed and reported our organizational progress. We are pleased to announce that we have continued to make strides in addressing these issues this year. We remain committed to transparency and accountability as we move forward.

Across Genius Within, there is global majority representation at all levels, including:

34% of all staff members identify as being global majority, with the other 66% being white.

We have continued to measure salaries at five different levels across all employees. The split from the most Senior group (directors) remains, through to the rest of our employees.

Across three groups, our global majority employees are paid more than their white counterparts, this data does not include our employees on maternity leave this year.

We will continue to publish our progress annually, providing visibility of our activities and ongoing dedication to building an inclusive organisation, one which celebrates and embraces diversity in all its forms. We are aware there is still work to do but we are pleased to see the year-on-year progress we have made since 2020.

Internally we are continuing to work towards this by encouraging regular feedback via engagement surveys and exit interviews to ensure we have opportunity to listen to employees and identify any trends that may affect career progression. We are aware that the ethnicity pay gap is most prevalent at our director level and acknowledge that our Director level illustrates a discrepancy with the rest of the organisation; we recognise the need for more representation at the most senior level. We are keen to address this disparity and have initiated a focused approach centred around succession planning and development and support of our current management team, to enable us to create a robust pipeline for future leadership roles, as evidenced by the significant progress at our Team Lead and Head of levels.

At the start of our business year an Employee Resource Group (ERGenius) was created and is an integral component of Genius Within’s commitment to create an inclusive culture and foster a sense of belonging in our community, reflective of all employees.  

We have also implemented a talent development framework to develop our current talent, upskilling and providing us with opportunities to promote from within. A key focus in 2024 will be to create an internal forum for all team leaders and aspiring team leaders to meet on a monthly basis to connect, ask for support and share best practice as well as the opportunities to upskill via apprenticeships and course funding.

Externally we will carry on with our inclusive hiring practices, e.g., anonymous CV sifting, positive action and networking to further improve our diversity across the company.

Again in 2023/24 we are proud of the work we have done in this area in the last few years and understand the importance of actively working to address the ethnicity pay gap and would encourage other companies to consider getting involved with the campaign.