While the gender pay gap reporting deadline for this year has been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the UK’s Investment Association (IA) has outlined actions to tackle the wage divide.
In a report published on Wednesday, the IA highlighted three key areas where firms can address the gender pay gap: attraction and recruitment, retention and advancement, and measuring and monitoring.
Chris Cummings, chief executive of the funds industry trade body, said: “During these difficult times, investment managers like many firms have rapidly and successfully moved to agile working.”
“We know firms that embrace a flexible working culture are more attractive to a greater diversity of people, so we must build on this success and continue to embrace this flexibility as we recover from this crisis.”
According to Cummings, this flexibility will help the industry address the gender pay gap, highlighting that there is much more that needs to be done.
“While closing the gender pay gap won’t happen overnight, our industry is not slowing down its efforts to tackle it. We know more must still be done, but the positive actions like the ones outlined in our new report will go some way to addressing, and ultimately closing, the gender pay gap,” he added.
The report offers solutions for the industry such as:
• Implementing diversity policies for the recruitment process and ensuring the industry is known and understood by the public.
• Introducing policies and programmes that act as incentives for women to stay within a company
• Improving understanding of where the industry currently is in terms of its gender pay gap and where it needs to be
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