Webbs Gender Pay Report 2023

2023 Gender Pay Report - Working for diversity at Webbs
 

At Webbs we value the differences which a diverse workforce brings; it’s important our team reflects the wide range of customers we serve on a day-to-day basis.  Webbs is a family business where colleagues can be themselves and where everyone is encouraged to reach their full potential.  We make our decisions about recruitment, reward and promotion on the basis of merit alone. In our last employee engagement survey, 89% of our team agreed that “people here are treated fairly regardless of their gender".

We welcome the opportunity to analyse our gender pay gap as this helps to inform our discussions about career progression for all colleagues. The results for 2023 challenge us to keep asking ourselves how we will continue to develop an even more inclusive and diverse team. While the figures are valuable for the awareness they raise, they are only a part of the bigger picture. At Webbs we are actively listening to and involving our colleagues on all levels via internal forums and team surveys to help us deliver more career development opportunities.

How are we progressing?

* Based on data from the Department for International Trade Gender Pay Report 2022 to 2023

Our median gender pay gap was 0% at 5 April 2023; another way of looking at this is when comparing median hourly rates of pay, women earn the same £ for £ per hour as men. Our mean gender pay gap was 7.9% at 5 April 2023, which is consistent to last year and is slightly higher than the UK National Average. The mean gender pay gap reflects a much higher volume of female employees on shorter-hour and variable contracts across our teams and we have more females overall working in our business at 66.3% at 5 April 2023.

We are pleased with these results which are based on 401 relevant full-pay employees, as there were no instances of furlough-related leave versus the previous 2 years reporting this data. The scores are an improvement on the previous year even with 135 more employees included in the data reported at 5th April 2022 versus previous year, of which 70% were female in the 3 lower quartiles of the hourly pay scales. As at 5 April 2022, we only excluded 9 employees from the above gender pay gap calculations due to being on Maternity/Paternity leave or long-term sick leave. The analysis is therefore much more representative of our business compared to the previous 2 years.

Given the significant National Living and Minimum Wage increases in April 2023 impacting 80% of our colleagues (more than ever before), this means that more females are therefore paid at these base rates and the level of these increases gives us, as a business, very little scope to increase pay rates further for anyone else to make a difference to these pay gaps going forwards. Whilst we have more males in senior management positions in the company, this continues to be addressed, with more females (54.3%) than males in the upper quartile of pay rates in the business – an increase from 53% last year. We have not had any major changes to senior management positions in the last 12 months apart from acquiring a new garden centre in July 2022, where the Store Manager was male and therefore this has resulted in the very slight increase in the mean pay gap from 7.7% to 7.9% at 5 April 2023. Given the above, our mean pay gap is unlikely to reduce significantly in the short term unless there are changes to senior management positions in the business in the next few years.
We are very pleased with these results which are based on 519 relevant full-pay employees. The scores are consistent on the previous year even with 118 more employees included in the data reported at 5 April 2023 versus previous year, of which two thirds were female in the 3 lower quartiles of the hourly pay scales. As at 5 April 2023, we only excluded 3 employees from the above gender pay gap calculations due to being on Maternity/Paternity leave or long-term sick leave. The analysis is therefore much more representative of our business compared to previous years.

Since February 2018 we have had our Specialist Training Guarantee in place where we will fund training courses for our team members, from AAT to RHS qualifications.  We also run a Future Leaders Programme – this is open to all colleagues at team member level to apply and on average 50% of applicants have been female.  Four team members, one male and three female, were successful in completing this year-long programme in 2023 which included formal and informal learning, mentoring and management level experience.  They have now moved on to the next stages of their Webbs careers, as have the majority of those who have undertaken this programme in the last five years.
Since 2018 we have published transparent career paths documentation linking performance to reward in all areas of our business.  We have seen a number of colleagues progress up through the three career path levels as they take on responsibilities and develop specialisms; this helps to show how we reward and promote fairly on the basis of merit and performance, irrespective of gender or any other irrelevant factors.

We’re also proud to have worked with the Garden Centre Association again on their Rising Stars development programme for Retail and Hospitality colleagues; one  female Webbs team member took part in this programme in 2022/23 and won an award for their work and presentation to the GCA panel of judges.

Rewarding across the team:
Within the reporting period, bonus pay was received by 94.3% of men and 95.4% of women. Bonus pay includes our non-contractual annual profit share scheme, open to all team members who’ve been employed for at least part of the previous year, albeit no such profit share payment was made in April 2023 due to the business making reduced profits in the previous financial year – this impacted all colleagues. Bonus pay also includes Christmas gift vouchers (all colleagues in work at Christmas and who have worked over 30 hours in the business in the financial year receive this bonus payment), Webbs Way Awards, “thank you’s” to our First Aiders and performance related bonuses for successfully completing our event management secondments – these are what the bonus payments are based on in this year of reporting. The only reason why a small few didn’t receive a bonus payment was due to them being new starters with the business in the previous 3 months prior to the 5 April 2023 snapshot date.

Normally, the statutory reporting method for the Gender Pay Report doesn’t allow for bonuses to be converted into full time equivalents which makes the bonus gap seem wider, however as no profit share bonuses were paid in April 2023 the variances reported were much lower than normal.  Therefore. our mean bonus pay gap is -2.6% and our median bonus pay gap is 0%. A large improvement on previous years showing equality and fairness in how we assess and allocate bonus payments but also reflects the removal of the more volatile profit share bonus element this year. Our profit share distribution is carefully moderated to ensure that such payments are made on a fair and equal basis across our teams.

How are Webbs doing more?
Over the coming months Webbs continues to focus on the following areas of support for our workforce. These key pillars will allow us to continue growing diversity, equality and to open out pathways to progress across the business:

• Investing in a new integrated HR & Payroll System due to go live in May 2024. This will be a fully transparent, interactive and digital system for all colleagues to manage all payroll documentation and benefits/entitlements accordingly;

• Investing in the Webbs team by building our internal talent pools through our Specialist Training Guarantee, Career Paths and Future Leaders Programme;

• Promoting opportunities for flexible and part time working for all team members;

• Listening to colleagues to understand perceived barriers to career progression for all groups including women.

I certify that this information is accurate to the best of my knowledge.

Oliver Nation
Finance Director, Webbs Garden Centres Limited