Hachette reports 'stark' 24.7% gender pay gap

Hachette UK Ltd has set targets to make sure women make up two thirds of its top pay quartile by 2020 after reporting a "stark" median gender pay gap of 24.71%, a mean gender pay gap of 29.69%, and a median bonus gender pay gap of 62.64%.

Hachette UK chief executive David Shelley said releasing the data marked "a really difficult day" for the company, with its median gender pay gap above the British average of 18.4%, according to the Office for National Statistics. Shelley branded the gender pay gap "big", "bleak" and "impossible to ignore" and said he and the company would be doing "anything and everything" it could to address the issue.

The gender pay gap is the difference between the average earnings for men and women, which is different to discrimination on equal pay, which is illegal. Despite 66% of the group's workforce being female, Hachette said having a higher number of men in very senior roles was a factor in its gender pay gap, along with having a higher proportion of women in lower-middle and lower pay quartiles. Higher numbers of women working flexibly or part-time also had an impact, along with the exclusion in the figures of employees on reduced pay, for example, on unpaid leave or receiving maternity pay.

Hachette has now vowed to get more women into senior roles. Its goal is to make its top pay quartile 66% female by 2020 - the same proportion of women that make up Hachette UK Group's workforce currently. Hachette is also signed up to the Publishers Association's Inclusivity Action Plan, which challenges firms to fill 50% of the senior leadership and executive positions with women over the next five years.

At the moment, four women are represented on Hachette UK's main board of 12, but of the six members on the Hachette UK Executive Committee, only one is a woman. There are 56.61% women in Hachette UK Ltd's top pay quartile, 69.84% in the upper middle pay quartile, 78.31% in the lower middle quartile and, overwhelmingly, 82.54% women make up its lowest pay quartile. Because Hachette recruits more women, more men receive bonuses than women at the company: at Hachette UK Ltd, 87.32% of women receive bonus pay versus 91.55% of men.

Overall the gender composition of Hachette UK Ltd is 72% female, comprising Hachette Children’s Group Headline, Hodder Education, Hodder & Stoughton, John Murray Press, and group functions including Digital, Consumer Insight, Finance, Legal, HR and most employees of its IT group.

Hachette UK Ltd fared significantly worse than the whole Hachette UK Group in terms of its gender pay gap, the latter of which takes into account the wages of men working in lower paid jobs, for example in distribution, as well. Additionally comprising Bookouture, Little, Brown, Octopus, Orion and Quercus, as well as Bookpoint, Hachette Distribution and LBS, the whole group's gender pay gap on the "snapshot" date of 5th April 2017 was 14.18%, and the median showed women were actually paid 1.32% more. Hachette published both sets of figures although legally it is only obligated to report on Hachette UK Ltd.

Acknowledging the company had "a big gender pay gap" problem, Shelley told The Bookseller he was "impatient" to see "significant change, fast", and that he expected to see some movement on the issue by this time next year.

The company's action plan includes, in the areas of recruitment and training, the introduction of compulsory unconscious bias training for all staff and guidelines for gender balance of shortlists for all recruitment. Its Diverse Future Leaders mentoring programme is also into its second year, while the Gender Balance Network is launching a women’s career mentoring programme.

With 21% of Hachette UK's female employees working part-time - a factor that would impact its gender pay gap - the publisher is also subscribing to a "core hours" policy, meaning regular meetings should only be scheduled between 10am and 4pm Monday-Thursday. The firm has also enhanced its paternity and maternity leave and parental mentoring.

After last year setting up the Gender Balance Network, the 100+ strong contingent now also has a sponsor on Hachette's executive committee, and, by June this year, Hachette will have recruited for a Diversity and Inclusion manager "to lead the change in the Hachette UK culture so that it becomes more inclusive and diverse in all respects".

Shelley said he was "optimistic" about change but conceded it would take time to see as much as he and the company wanted. The ultimate goal is for Hachette to become a "gold standard at all levels for all people", he said, taking into account "intersectional group needs" as well.

Commenting to The Bookseller, he said: "The findings are stark. There is a big gender pay gap at Hachette and that is not what I want or what I aspire to. It’s actually very bleak in a lot of ways seeing those results and I’m trying with the management team and the Gender Balance Network to focus on what we can do to improve the situation.

“In some ways I’m not surprised. I think it’s impossible to ignore the composition of the board, which I knew well, and to ignore historically how many men, how many white men, are at the top of our organisations, including me."

He continued: "We want to do anything and everything we can do to hopefully address this while always promoting on merit and properly valuing everyone ... I have a great sense of mission to try and put this right and to get to a place we all want to be. I think it’s going to take time to get exactly where we want to be, and it will take an enormous amount of energy and will, and I think everyone has that.”

Hachette is among the first publishers to report on its gender pay gap before the 4th April deadline date stipulated by the government. According to the BBC, only a third of companies required to do so have so far published their gender pay gap. 

The new legislation requiring companies to report on it targets businesses with 250 employees or more, asking for both the median average gender pay gap and the mean average gender pay gap, as well as the gender pay gap for bonuses. Of the two differently calculated averages, the latter mean percentage is worked out by totting up hourly wages and dividing this by the total number of employees which means it can be skewed by a few high earners. 

Reports are expectedly imminently from HarperCollins, as well as from Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster and Pan Macmillan. Bonnier Publishing has said it will not be releasing its gender pay gap because it has fewer than the threshold number of employees within each of its subsidiaries.

Earlier this week, The Bookseller reported that Pearson’s median gender pay gap was 15%, while its mean was 21%.