Gender Pay Gap in HSBC UK: Implications and Recommendations

MANAGEMENT REPORT

1
Contents
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................1
Gender Pay Gap in HSBC UK...............................................................................................................1
Aims of the company.............................................................................................................................3
Legal regulations against gender pay gap..............................................................................................3
Cost and benefit for HSBC in dealing with this issue............................................................................4
Recommendations.................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES......................................................................................................................................6

2
INTRODUCTION
UK government has been very much strict on the issues such as gender pay gap in different
organisations. New government of Theresa May has made policy changes so as to ensure that
least amount of gender pay gap remains in UK companies. Gender pay gap is understood as
the difference in the pay scale or the salaries of male and female staffs working in an
organisation at different position. This is calculated by checking the difference in the hourly
earnings of the male and female employees irrespective of their roles (Scott, 2018). A decline
can be seen in the gender pay gap in UK firms after the pressurisation of the government but
the situation is still worst in some of the firms. HSBC one of the biggest British Multinational
banking and financial services holding firm has one of the worst gender pay gaps among all
the firms in UK. This report highlights the issue related to gender pay gap in HSBC UK. It
also showcases different aspects related to the gender pay gap and its implications on HSBC.
Gender Pay Gap in HSBC UK
Gender pay gap has become one of the severe problems for the companies working in UK
and so is the case with HSBC. This bank is world’s 7th largest bank hence significance of this
issue become very much relevant. After the government’s decision of Brexit, they are under
certain pressure to strengthen the weak points in the internal agendas hence HSBC is also
under huge pressure to fill this gap. According to reports presented by the company, Reuters
says that HSBC on an average has paid men 59% above that of women. Second being Virgin
Atlantic having 58% gender gap followed by Barclays giving 48% more to male employees.
Not only in salaries, HSBC had a median gap of 61% for bonus payments between its female
and male staffs. This is the condition when the strength of its female employees more than
54% but the condition remains to be worse as most of them are not into highly paid jobs.
Higher paid jobs are taken by male colleagues (Gov.UK, 2018). To be precise the hourly
rates suggests that women is earning 40p for even 1 pound earned by a men.
HSBC said that it had enhanced the proportion of senior posts held by women to nearly 27%
last year from what was 22% in 2012. Their leadership states that they recognise that more
work has to be done in this regards so as to address their gender balance especially at the top
most level. Company said that they are confident in their approach for payments and if the
payment difference among men and women in parallel roles and might not be explained by
performance or experience, it made appropriate adjustments for it (BBC News, 2018). For
each pay quartile, the proportion of women is depicted in the graph below: