Gender Pay Gap - 2024
At Bradfords, we are committed to providing a working environment in which everyone feels valued and respected and is able to pursue a rewarding career whilst contributing to the success of our business.
We oppose all forms of less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, colour, race, nationality, ethnic origin, marital status, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation or disability.
We support the introduction of mandatory gender pay gap reporting under the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017. We are working hard to develop a more diverse workforce, which includes becoming a more attractive employer to everyone.
We are required to publish certain information regarding our Gender Pay Gap. This includes the percentage difference or ‘Gap’ in the mean (average) and median (mid-point) rates of full pay for men and women and bonus pay for men and women. We are also required to publish the proportion of men and women who received bonuses as well as the proportion of men and women in each of four quartile pay bands.
In Bradfords the male Mean hourly rate is higher than the rate paid to women by 4.1%. The Median gap is 3.2%: both figures show much less of a gap than the UK average and show a reduction in our gender pay gap from 2023 to 2024. Whilst our aim is to improve upon and reduce this % figure further, Bradfords does operate within a male dominated industry and our workforce does reflect this, as shown below.
Our business, like many others in our sector, employs far more males than females. The % split per quartile is made up as follows.
A significant proportion of employees in Bradfords Building Supplies business received a bonus: 61.6% of male employees and 69.9% of female employees.
The mean bonus pay gap in BBS is 41.4% indicating that males within the business have received an average bonus which is higher than the females. A key reason for the difference is related to the fact that significantly more men hold Branch and Departmental positions within Bradfords. Whilst we are working to address this and have reduced this % by over 12% since 2023, it is typical for our industry.
The median bonus gap is -31.8%, indicating the mid-point bonus for females is higher than for males- this was to be expected as a significant % of Bradford’s female workforce operate in middle management positions.
Our reward programmes are gender neutral and as performance in our businesses improves, we expect to reward all employees with increased bonuses.
We are working hard to attract more females to our businesses and believe we have made good progress, especially with initiatives like our Apprenticeship Programme. We have also recently updated our family friendly and flexible working policies.
However, we recognise we still have much work to do in this area both as a business and as a business sector.
Several other ways we are approaching this are:
• We have taken the decision to ensure we advertise our vacancies in places and ways that are attractive to everyone rather than people who normally work in our sector.
• We have significantly improved our benefits package through our Acorn Rewards initiative. This includes the provision of extended and company enhanced maternity pay, paid time off for fertility treatment and paid time off in the unfortunate event an employee suffers a miscarriage.
• Our Apprentice programme has now been up and running for 5 years and currently 50% of the participants are female.
• Our Fast Track to management programme is currently running two cohorts which includes 4 female delegates. All 4 were nominated and subsequently applied showing that females are keen to progress their careers with Bradfords.
• At Bradfords we are committed to ensuring we maintain Gender neutrality across our pay and benefits, develop a more diverse workforce and ensure that everyone can progress and develop their careers with us through ambition, hard work and strong performance.
David Young
CEO
20th March 2024