Our gender pay gap 2024, and why NGOs should opt to report

Even in spite of ongoing work to increase equal pay across the globe, it could take 257 years to close the gender pay gap. 

Numbers from PwC show change happening at a glacial pace. Since it started tracking the gender pay gap in 2011, member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have seen the average pay gap close by a mere 3.3 percentage points. 

This has dire material consequences for women. It’s part of the reason why they are more likely to live in poverty, particularly in higher income countries. 

It adds to financial difficulties later in life too – over half of pensioners living in poverty in the UK are women. Girls would need to start saving from three-years-old to retire with an equal pot to their male colleagues. 

The reasons why are complex, ranging from sexist pay discrepancies to a greater expectation that care responsibilities will remove women from the workforce, but there is more that we as employers can be doing to close the gap. 

The not-for-profit sector has a duty to contribute to removing pay disparities caused by societal and systemic issues, bias and barriers. 

We owe it as a duty of care to our employees, but also as a social driver – in the US, the Institute for Women's Policy Research found that poverty rates would halve for families with at least one working woman if equal pay was enshrined. 

At Global Witness we’re doing this by: 

• Providing full pay transparency  
• Reporting the gender pay gap even if the number of employees you have doesn’t require you to report it 
• Introducing gender neutral parent leave to enable working parents to thrive  

Full pay transparency 

At Global Witness all our vacancies are advertised with a salary. This helps to tell our candidates that we value fair compensation.   

Once an individual has joined the organisation, they’ll discover that we publish all our salaries, for every role, for every office, every year internally, meaning everyone knows what everyone else is paid.  

We believe this has developed trust between the organisation and our employees. This has been in place for several years now and none of the worries and concerns expressed about the potential consequences have emerged. If you’re considering doing this – do it!  

Gender pay gap

Globally, the gender pay gap stands at 20%, meaning that women earn 80% of what men do. We know this gap significantly increases for women of colour, those with disabilities and women with children.  

In the UK, organisations with 250 or more employees are legally required to publish their gender pay gap. While it isn’t a legal requirement for Global Witness to report, we voluntarily calculate and share our UK gender pay gap every year.  

We believe that being open with our colleagues about the gender pay gap has encouraged organisational action and change, which has resulted in a year-on-year narrowing of the gap since we first reported it in 2021.   

Global Witness’s gender pay gap  

Introduce gender neutral parent leave 

Becoming a mum impacts a woman’s income for the rest of her life – this is sometimes known as the motherhood penalty. 

One of the ways Global Witness seeks to reduce this pay decrease is by providing the same leave opportunities regardless of gender and family make-up. 

Our parental leave policy offers up to six months paid leave (dependent on length of service) for new parents.  

What’s next for equal pay? 

The UK is sadly falling behind other pay transparency regulations across the globe. But do we really need regulations to build more inclusive and equitable workplaces?   

On International Equal Pay Day, I’m calling for leaders and HR teams in the sector to do two things: 

• If you have fewer than 250 employees but more than 50, voluntarily commit to working to report the gender pay gap by the end of 2026.
• Continue to make the excellent progress already made by the sector by disclosing salaries on all job adverts.

Finally, I’m conscious that my reflections fall into a binary of male and female. Part of this reason is that current legislation, research and information about the extent and causes of unequal pay maintains this language.   

I’m sensitive to the fact that this language excludes the experiences of people who do not identify as either gender and the experiences of people who have transitioned. We are looking into ways to adjust our gender pay gap reporting in the future. I hope you’ll understand why I have used binary terms in this post.  

If you are already thinking about implementing anything discussed in this post, or you want to share your own experience of disclosing your organisation’s gender pay gap, please contact me at [email protected].