The new strategy followed the publishing of the poultry processor’s Gender Pay Gap report, which found a 9.7% mean and 4.1% median pay gap between male and female workers.
While the results compared favourably to the 24.5% median pay gap found in the private sector overall, 2 Sisters said more could be done to get this number lower.
Opportunities for women
The gender strategy features seven steps to help reduce 2 Sisters’ pay gap by promoting opportunities for women to move up within the business.
Included in the strategy were targets for the firm to occupy 30% of the company’s leadership roles with women by 2021, as well as insisting recruiters always provided balance shortlists that include female candidates.
2 Sisters planned to regularly measure these metrics and monitor its diversity performance on an annual basis. A full breakdown of the strategy can be found in the box below.
Ranjit Singh, president of Boparan Holdings, owner of 2 Sisters Food Group, said there was a need to create an environment that worked for all employees, both male and female. Doing so would see more women succeeding in senior management roles, he said.
‘Driving the pay gap’
“Unfortunately, like many other companies in our sector and the UK, we have more men than women in senior roles and this is what is driving our current gender pay gap,” added Boparan.
“So, today, we have unveiled a series of initiatives designed to tackle this gap at the senior managerial levels of the organisation to ensure women are better represented and have a stronger voice, and I look forward to seeing solid progress as our new strategy beds in.”
Meanwhile, earlier this month, Diageo GB, Unilever UK and Charlie Bigham’s bucked the pay trend by revealing their gender pay gaps were more favourable to women.
2 Sisters’ gender pay gap strategy
- Senior managerial-level support: Taking active steps to facilitate flexible and/or part-time working and ‘family-friendly’ policies for senior management level colleagues to help improve work-life balance and support those with caring responsibilities
- Positive targets: 30% of senior leadership roles (executive level or above) to be occupied by women by 2021
- Learning: A programme of sponsored MBA scholarships, available to female and male applicants, with the objective of improving leadership opportunities for women across the sector
- Mentoring: The launch of a 2 Sisters ‘women in leadership’ mentoring programme. Members of the senior management team will mentor and help build a talent pool of women at the business so they are ready to move into senior management positions
- Recruitment: Insisting that recruiters always provide balanced shortlists with the inclusion of female candidates, as well as those from a range of backgrounds
- Internal opportunity: Ensuring all internal shortlists have at least one female candidate
- Measure: Establishing a set of metrics to regularly monitor diversity performance and report externally on an annual basis.