More UK publishers report gender pay gaps

Hachette, HarperCollins and Springer Nature are among the latest UK publishers to report gender pay gaps as part of new government regulations that require companies with 250 or more employees to report the difference in pay between men and women.

As covered by the Bookseller, Hachette UK reported a ‘stark’ median gender pay gap of 24.7%, HarperCollins UK reported 10.4%, and Springer Nature reported 15.1%.

Hachette’s mean gender pay gap was 29.7%, while Harper’s mean difference was 16% and Springer Nature reported 17.6%.

According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics, the national median and mean averages sit at 18.4% and 17.4% respectively.

‘In some ways I’m not surprised,’ Hachette UK chief executive David Shelley said about the publisher’s gender pay gap reveal. ‘I think it’s impossible to … ignore historically how many men, how many white men, are at the top of our organisations, including me.’

Shelley said the publisher’s management team is working with the Gender Balance Network to focus on strategies to improve the situation.

HarperCollins said it has introduced new initiatives to encourage ‘retention of senior women as well as the recruitment and progression of more women into senior roles’.

These include the introduction of a ‘blind recruitment strategy’ at the shortlisting stage of recruitment to remove unconscious bias barriers, a recently-introduced ‘returnship mentoring program’ for employees taking parental leave as well as increasing maternity pay. There will also be a focus on departments where clear gender imbalances exist, introducing schemes to promote diversity.

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, the British Library and Pearson UK have also reported their pay gap figures.

The gender pay gap reports are now publicly available on the UK government’s website.

Category: International news News