Salmon (trading as Wunderman Thompson Commerce) believes that all employees should be treated equally regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, religion, sexual orientation, or disability.

As a company with a high proportion of specialised technical roles, we naturally encounter more challenges in recruiting. Salmon employs more men than women, and with fewer women in more senior roles, this results in a gender pay gap, as reflected in our gender pay data for 2019 and 2020.

We are committed to closing the gender pay gap with long-term solutions that are both impactful and sustainable, with a focus on creating a gender-balanced talent pipeline and ensuring we support more women into senior roles.

The Gender Pay Gap regulatory reporting provides details of the gender and remuneration distribution across our organisation. The figure measures the difference between the hourly rate of pay (median and mean) of all male and female employees, irrespective of their role or seniority within the organisation at the snapshot dates of 5 April 2019 and 2020.

This is different from equal pay, which is the difference in pay between men and women who carry out the same or similar jobs and is a legal requirement. The statistics contained in this report do not represent equal pay.

Our 2019 results are as follows:

Gender pay gap 2019

The results show that there are significantly less women in the upper middle and upper quartiles. It also shows that the median bonus gender pay gap is higher compared to previous years as there was no company-wide bonus paid in the relevant bonus period. The bonuses included are commission-based and long-service awards which were paid to a small group of employees. A higher number of men were paid these bonuses in comparison to women and this had a disproportionate effect on the median bonus gender pay gap.

We are tackling this imbalance by focusing on succession planning and promoting an environment where transparency and personal development is put at the heart of the employee experience. We have recently launched a framework for career pathways which covers different workstreams and shows employees where and how they can progress. This will help identify key women in the business for succession planning and improve female representation at every level of the business.

We have also entered into partnership with training academies for our apprenticeship initiative and our first cohort of software development apprentices are all female IT developers.

In order to facilitate a wider conversation and create an understanding of how other organisations are successfully closing their gender pay gaps, we have also initiated company-wide networking programme with female employees across the tech sector via events such as Women in Tech.

Our 2020 results are as follows:

Gender pay gap 2020

There has been an improvement in the mean and median gender pay gap results compared to 2019. The Q4 male to female ratio has also improved in comparison to 2019 and it shows that there are now more women in the upper quartile. This is a result of the priority we have placed in bringing women into leadership positions in our business.

The mean bonus gender pay gap has also decreased in comparison to previous years. This year also coincided with a stock bonus payment that our senior managers, who are mostly men, also received, which impacted the figure. We remain committed to addressing these gaps and bringing more women into the top quartiles of our business.

FUTURE OBJECTIVES

As we go into 2021, we will continue to build on the initiatives we have already launched and to implement our five-year diversity and inclusion strategy, which places D&I at the heart of our company culture, this includes:

  • Applying a core set of measurable diversity and inclusion KPIs across the six pillars of our inclusion strategy. The strategy reviews how to drive inclusive behaviour across all areas of our business from recruitment and employee experience to pitching and client engagement.
  • Establishing a diversity mission statement, goals and values to champion diversity and inclusion within our business. This will feed into our company-wide communications strategy and link to our values.
  • Ensuring all HR teams and managers and complete mandatory diversity and inclusion training for interviewing and managing employees.
  • Embedding regular D&I updates at the staff summit and business reviews.

We understand that driving change can take time, but we are confident with the planned initiatives we will see further improvements in our gender pay gap results over time.

GENDER PAY GAP STATEMENT

We confirm that the information in this report is accurate and prepared in accordance with the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017.

Hannah Short, People Director

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