“At Barchester Healthcare we have always recognised the benefits of a diverse and gender balanced workforce. 2021 remained a challenging time for many. We continued to narrow our focus to ensure the best quality of care for our residents and patients, and safe working conditions for our staff. However, we also wanted to recognise and thank our hard-working staff for all that they have done, and continue to do, to care for our residents and patients during the Covid-19 pandemic. This has included investing additional money into our pay and bonus structure, which is set out in more detail in this report.

We compare very favourably with the national average for the gender pay gap, but we will continue to build on the initiatives we have implemented in recent years to help promote gender diversity.

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.

Whilst we still have a small 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 5 April 2021 for Barchester Healthcare Homes Limited and Barchester Hellens Limited.

Barchester Healthcare Homes Limited

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 4.9%
Median 2.6%
National average 15.4% (ONS 2021)

The main reasons underlying our small mean and median gender pay gaps are that there are generally 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, including on the Executive Team.

Whilst both our mean and median pay gaps are below the national average of 15.4%, we will continue to build on the initiatives we have introduced to promote gender diversity at Barchester.

Mean and Median Gender Bonus Gap

Mean 15%
Median 15%

A limited number of individuals, coupled with the bonus schemes we offer affects our bonus pay gap.

Our mean gender bonus gap is significantly affected by two men who are incentivised on property related transactions, if they are removed from the calculation, our mean gender bonus gap is 0.2%. Our median remains the same regardless of these two men as on average, men either worked or were contracted for more hours.

99% of both male and female employees received a bonus in 2020/2021.

We already had a great foundation of reward and recognition bonuses, but in 2020/2021 we paid all eligible staff three additional Covid related bonuses to thank them for their determination and hard work during the pandemic.

We are continuing to build on the rewards we offer, which will be reflected in our report next year. For example, we have introduced a new bonus, which rewards staff retention and loyalty for carers and home support staff. This will be paid to eligible staff in recognition of their commitment over a six-month period.

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	76.0	24.0
Upper middle	81.0	19.0
Lower middle	82.6	17.4
Lower	83.6	16.4

In line with most care home providers, the majority of our workforce is female throughout all four quartiles.

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 (92% of our Regional Directors are female), whilst also ensuring women have equal access to more senior roles.

Barchester Hellens Limited

Mean and Median Pay Gap

As set out above, 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 -1.0%
Median 4.2%
National average 15.4% (ONS 2021)

Whilst both our mean and median pay gaps are significantly below the national average of 15.4%, we will continue to build on the initiatives we have introduced to promote gender diversity at Barchester.

Mean and Median Gender Bonus Gap

Mean 3.2%
Median 6.6%

Whilst we still have a small gap, 99% of male and female employees received a bonus in 2020/2021. As set out above, we had a great foundation of reward and recognition bonuses, but we developed this further in 2020/2021 by introducing Covid related bonuses, and we continue to introduce new schemes to reward our hard working and dedicated staff going forward.

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	74.0	26.0
Upper middle	72.6	27.4
Lower middle	82.2	17.8
Lower	81.1	18.9

In line with most care home providers, the majority of our workforce is female throughout all four quartiles. However, as set out above, we are keen to ensure that men are given the same access as women to care worker roles, which is the largest populated role in the company.

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. Our senior leadership Executive Team encompasses nine women and three 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 4,563 employees working part time (which we classify as anyone working 30 hours per week or less) with 10,086 working full time. Of the part time employees, 4,037 are female and 526 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. We continue to invest in our staff by providing the best possible training, pay and benefits packages in our sector. As set out above, in 2020/2021 we paid three Covid related bonuses to eligible staff, and in January 2022 we announced that we were adding to our sector-leading staff benefits and rewards by investing an additional £8.1m in our pay and bonus structure. This means an annual net increase of 8.6%, or an additional £1,950 gross pay for carers and home support staff working 42 hours per week, including a loyalty bonus of £700. In addition, we now pay the National Midwifery Council PIN for all our nurses on an annual basis.
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 have achieved 2* star (outstanding employee engagement) Best Companies accreditation in 2021. We are continuing to invest in our staff and offer a broad range of career development opportunities through our Learning and Development programme. We are adding to this by launching our Leadership Development Programme, which will help to support and develop the top 60 leaders in the business. We want to support all of our staff to reach their full potential and help them progress to more senior roles within the business.