Barchester Healthcare’s Gender Pay Gap Report 2020/21

“At Barchester Healthcare we have always recognised the benefits of a diverse and gender balanced workforce. 2020 was a challenging year for many. We narrowed our focus to ensure the best quality of care for our residents and patients, and safe working conditions for our staff, under continually shifting circumstances.  

Whilst we compare favourably with the national average for the gender pay gap, going forward, we will continue to build on the initiatives we have implemented in recent years to help promote gender diversity. Further details are set out in this report.

Our gender pay gap figures have been calculated in line with the regulations set out in the gender pay gap reporting legislation. I confirm that these figures have been verified and are accurate. “ 

Dr Pete Calveley

CEO

Gender Pay Reporting

The gender pay gap looks at the difference in average earnings received by men and women across the company, regardless of their role or seniority.  It is distinct from equal pay, which looks at whether men and women are paid equally for doing work of equal value.

We are confident that men and women are paid equally for doing the same job.  However, the greater proportion of men than women in our senior executive positions creates a gender pay gap.  We continue to take positive steps to address this as detailed below.

The statistics in this report are based on a snapshot of data taken on 5th April 2020.

Mean and Median Pay Gap

The mean pay gap is the difference between average hourly pay of men and women.  The median pay gap is the difference between the midpoints in the ranges of hourly pay of men and women.  It takes all earnings in the sample, lines them up in order from lowest to highest and the median is the mid-point.

Mean 8%

Median 3.2%

National average 15.5%

The main reasons underlying our mean and median gender pay gaps are that there are more women than men in our caring, support work and administrative roles, which tend to be lower paid roles, consistent with our industry.  There are nonetheless more women at all leadership levels in Barchester, except Executive Board level, where there are a greater number of men than women (there are four men and two women). We have made a significant move to bring greater gender diversity to the senior leadership of the company. As set out in our report for 2020, we restructured our senior leadership team by expanding it to create an Executive Team. The Executive Team comprises the Executive Board and eight more senior leaders.  The Executive Team currently has eight women and six men. Therefore whilst at Executive Board level there are still more men than women (four men and two women), the Executive Team is more gender diverse and more reflective of the rest of the company, which has a greater number of women at all leadership levels. 

Consequently the mean pay gap, in particular, is influenced by a small number of men on senior executive salaries.  The median pay gap is less influenced by outliers and therefore is more representative of our workforce and at 3.2% is significantly below the national average of 15.5%. 

Mean and Median Gender Bonus Gap

Mean 61%

Median 21%

The nature of our workforce coupled with the bonus schemes we offer also affects our bonus pay gap.  Our mean and median gender bonus gaps are significantly affected by the fact that the majority of the Executive Board are male and receive the largest bonuses due to their higher salaries, compared to other employees and leaders at Barchester, the majority of whom are women.  

The mean gender bonus gap is significantly affected this year by payments made to Board level executives under long term retention arrangements put in place in 2017. However, more female employees received a bonus (69%), compared to male employees (64%).

These figures are based on a snapshot of data on 5 April 2020. At that time, it was unclear how the Covid-19 pandemic would unfold and what the full impact to businesses would be. As the pandemic progressed and as part of Barchester’s Vaccine Policy roll out, the Executive Board decided to defer any payments under the long term retention arrangements referred to above for 2021, which will be reflected in our Report next year.

Proportion of Males and Females in Pay Quartiles

The table below shows the gender split when we order hourly rate of pay from highest to lowest and group the workforce into four equal pay quartiles.  This is also illustrated by the pie charts.

Quartile	Female employees (%)	Male employees (%)
Upper	77.6	22.4
Upper middle	80.5	19.5
Lower middle	84.1	15.9
Lower	84.4	15.6

In line with most care home providers, the majority of our workforce is female throughout all four quartiles. This includes 69% of our senior managers who are female.

We are therefore keen to ensure that men are given the same access as women to care worker roles, which is the largest populated role in the organisation and middle management roles (81% of our Regional Directors are female), whilst also ensuring women have equal access to more senior roles.

How we are addressing the gender pay gap

While our gender pay gap is better than the national average, we have continued to build on the following initiatives to promote gender diversity at Barchester:

1. As stated above, our senior leadership Executive Team encompasses the Executive Board and eight more senior leaders. Whilst the Executive Board comprises of four men and two women, the wider Executive Team now has eight women and six men. We see this as demonstrating our commitment to bringing greater diversity to the senior leadership of the company.
2. The company continues to promote flexible working for men and women. This creates an accessible and inclusive environment for those with caring and other responsibilities. Barchester has 7,045 employees working part time (which we classify as anyone working 30 hours per week or less) with 10,231 working full time. Of the part time employees, 6,098 are female and 951 are male. We will continue to promote flexible working for men and women through our recruitment processes and facilitate requests via our flexible working policy and procedures.
3. The roll out of our new time and attendance and rostering technology in our homes and hospitals continues to go well and we hope it will enable our teams to work more flexibly.
4. When recruiting into our homes and hospitals, we undertake local benchmarking to ensure we are paying competitively in that geography. As of 1 April 2021 we have been paying all our employees above national living wage, which makes us unique in our sector.
5. We continue to progress with our people strategy, “Together, People Make Barchester” which was launched to the company on 14 March 2019. The focus of the strategy is on Barchester becoming an employer of choice in the healthcare sector. We have made positive progress across a number of areas in the employee lifecycle and we are proud to announce that we have achieved 2* star (outstanding employee engagement) Best Companies accreditation in 2021.