Thousands of large companies and organisations now have to publish their gender pay gap figures as part of the government's drive to reduce the pay differential between men and women.

Voluntary, private and public sector employers with 250 or more employees must publish their figures by April 2018. The regulations cover approximately 9,000 employers with over 15 million employees, representing nearly half of the UK's workforce.

The UK gender pay gap is already at a record low of 18.1%. It's hoped these requirements will help employers to identify the gender pay gap in their organisations and act to close it.

As part of the new regulations, employers are required to:

Publish their median gender pay gap figures

By identifying the wage of the middle earner, the median is the best representation of the 'typical' gender difference. Employers will be asked to use data from a 'snapshot' period in April to calculate this average.

Publish their mean gender pay gap figures

By taking into account the full earnings distribution, the mean takes into account the low and high earners in an organisation - this is particularly useful as women are often over-represented at the low earning extreme and men are over-represented at the high earning extreme.

Publish the proportion of men & women in each quartile of the pay structure

This data will show the spread of male and female earners across an organisation, helping to show employers where women's progress might be stalling so they can act to support their career development.

Publish the gender pay gaps for any bonuses paid out during the year

As there is a significant issue around bonus payments in some sectors, employers will also have to publish the proportion of male and proportion of female employees that received a bonus during the year.

Employers will also be encouraged to publish an action plan alongside their figures, demonstrating the steps they will take to close the gender pay gap within their organisation.

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